Bah-humbug!
Ok, I can see that they're no takers for the Tsiolkovsky Orbital Museum. Indeed, there's a bit of hatred at the mere romanticism of it all. That, and the current 20M$ a ticket entrance fee.
Right - you asked for it. Here's the hard-engineering-headed side of me talking.
The orbiters have been operating as a fleet of space
shuttles up until now. When the last two (Atlantis is to be a hangar queen, I think?) are on their last trip in one direction (given the crew can return in a safer capsule) and the vehicles are no-longer needing to shuttle anywhere, has anyone asked whether flying brakes, wheels, and TPS upstairs makes any sense at all? Think of the
mass you could throw out of each orbiter, and the resultant
payload you could get in...
Once you consider
that, there's a <ahem> further option:
While the angle-grinders are out, if the
wings and
stabiliser were removed for two one-shot shuttle C-equivalents, NASA would be not be that far off getting a brace of orbital ETs as part of their future freelance LEO gas station. Or at least a bit of orbital real estate that Mr. Bigelow might fancy.
How's that for unromantic?
Andy