Moving Discovery was the goal of legislation brought earlier this year by Texas Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, who said in April that Houston's long ties to the space program should have been recognized with a space shuttle when four were retired by NASA in 2010.

U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz got language into President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" that creates a path for getting a space shuttle to Houston.

A political effort to relocate the space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston has been merged with the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill," a major economic and policy package now nearing a vote in the US Senate.