It's a shame, To have the space shuttles heading to the hall of fame relics. I'm sure it's a government thing in who nasa can sell these too but it would have been better for the space shuttles to remain in active service. China have a great upcoming space program which I'm sure in the next ten years will rival Americas (maybe not) and personally would have been better for a country like that to purchase the space shuttles (with the 3 main engines intact) then the argument is they would need the accessories such as the land based vehicle to transfer it to the launch pad.
That said, It's a good thing nasa are selling off their engineering masterpieces, the more money the better. I find that the space program as stagnated for years with the missions to saturn (cassini) and the new horizons (pluto mission) which I personally think is a waste of time considering they can't slow down the new horizons probe and will only be in plutos vicinity for a short period.
Anyway, vb.org space shuttle. yeah, that works.
I can feel a photochop coming on.