Space shuttles?
I'm beginning to have doubts whether you really ever saw this show. Crichton's ship was a one-man ship that's the size of something like the X-24A/B and not something like the current Space Shuttle which about the same size as a DC-9.
It doesn't really matter, though. The government has routinely abandoned hardware even as large as B-29s and allowed private individuals to recover and own them without even a cent changing hands.
Case in point; the ill-fated 1994 B-29 Kee Bird recovery expedition or the 1992 expedition to recover a P-38 ("Glacier Girl") and B-17.
We can also simply just assume, like I do, that the episode is badly written by a globalist with an axe to grind over the the United State's handling of the war on terror.
Everyone's a critic. Let's see you do better.
Have you ever held a public office? If not, does that make you unqualified to complain about what politicians are doing. One does not need to do something themselves to know that what someone else has done is bad.