WASHINGTON – Houston, you have a problem.

The home of NASA mission control, the self-described Space City, is reeling over losing out in a fierce nationwide competition to win one of four space shuttles as the program near its end. Houston is especially galled that New York gets one of the orbiters to display in Manhattan.

“When the United States won the race to the moon in 1969, the first word on the moon was, ‘Houston,’ not ‘New York City!’ ” Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, railed on the House floor after the decision was announced Tuesday.

It’s akin to “Detroit without a Model T, Florence without a Da Vinci,” lamented another Texas congressman, Republican John Culberson. The Houston Chronicle headline blasted “One Giant Snub for Houston.”

The NASA announcement was so important in Houston — akin to a city vying to host an Olympic Games — that the Kennedy Space Center news conference was broadcast live by local news stations. At first word that shuttles were headed to California, Florida, New York and Washington, D.C., some Houston folks burst into tears.

But now, officials are vowing to “fight like Texans” to reverse the decision. A number of Republicans pointed out that California and New York happen to be solidly Democratic states.

NASA has denied that politics was a factor in its decision. Sites were selected, a NASA official said, “based on the best value to the American public, including education and outreach as well as domestic and international access.”

Texans can’t quite understand how Houston lost to New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. They don’t appear to be so angry about the space shuttle Endeavour going to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. After all, the orbiters were assembled in Palmdale, Calif., and frequently landed at Edwards Air Force Base.

And display of the Discovery in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington and Atlantis at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center are all but inarguable.

“What I have a problem with is I don’t understand why Houston didn’t get one,” said Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas.