Other than preservation related, pretty much off topic, but perhaps interesting to some here.

Steady decay of the leftover objects from the early and boom years of the space program:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/09/saving.skylab.ap/index.html

Years back, a major effort was made to rescue the Saturn V at Kennedy; it's now in better-than-new condition in a mind-blowing visitors center. The Saturn V at Alabama has recently been worked on. The article mentions both the Skylab mockup and Saturn V will move under cover, certainly major projects given their size. I believe these projects have been done mostly with private funds.

The Saturn V at the Johnston Space Center in Houston, Texas has also gone "under cover". I think most of the other rockets in "Rocket Park" are still out in the open; though they may get moved in as well.

I don't think aerospace objects in general hold up as well in the open as railway artifacts. Aluminum does not rust, but any steel components do, and plexiglass gets crazed. Birds and other animals make nests in every opening; as bad as steam locomotives rolling stock looks after twenty to fourty years of being on display; I don't most aircraft and rockets would look half as good after so long on display.

By the way, I miss the old tour of Johnson Space Center, but I also admit it was something only an engineer could love. The new visitors center is much more geared to the general public, but has fewer artifacts (rockets and space suits) than the old tour did. Maybe with the opening of the building with the Saturn V rocket; that will be rectified somewhat. In the meantime, the visitors center is example of where many think we ought to go with railway oriented museums, with more hands-on, fun oriented activities and less of the exhibits and placards.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

The Saturn V at JSC was restored and covered with private subscription funding endorsed by the Smithsonian. The KSC Saturn was rebuilt with government money as part of NASA's historical education mission. The vertical Saturn V at Huntsville is a fiberglass mockup, whereas the horizontal Saturn was the vibration and testing rocket, never intended for flight. What is less known is that the components of all Saturn V survivors have been scrambled. While each rocket is authentic to the Saturn design, JSC's Saturn is the only one completely comprised of flight rated components. Part of this is due to a third stage that was converted into Skylab (1). A second Skylab(2) is the one you walk through at the NASM. It was originally intended to follow the first into orbit, but that project was cancelled.

Another note about space artifact decay concerns the launch gantries for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. While they remained abandoned in place for decades, the salt air of the Cape took it's toll. Today, most of each platform has been cut away and replaced with concrete markers to what happened at those locations. Even the walkway that each lunar crew crossed to get into the Apollo moon vehicles has been worn thin by the footsteps of millions of tourists. Some of the steel componenets have been "renewed" (replaced).

BTW, the center for all spacecraft and space artifact restoration is the Kansas Cosmosphere, and not the Smithsonian. The KC people have restored everything for spacecraft (Apollo 13 and Liberty Bell 7) to the original spacesuits worn by our astronauts.

Not railroads, I realize, but a dedicated bunch of historians and technicians who do what they love.