The uncertain future of the Saturn 1B rocket at an Alabama welcome center has seen a slight turn with a new bill introduced last week by state Sen. Tom Butler, R-Madison.

The rocket’s fate is no longer tied to a toughening of the 2017 Memorial Preservation Act that was added to Butler’s original bill. Instead, the new bill is a brief standalone of less than 300 words that allows for either the refurbishment of the rocket at the north Alabama welcome center on Interstate 65 or a replica to replace it.

Related: NASA updates plans for rocket at Alabama rest stop

NASA, which owns the rocket, has said it is beyond repair and needs to be removed from the welcome center, which is closed currently and undergoing its own refurbishment. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center, which has custody of the rocket on loan from NASA, has been charged with its removal. The rocket center said it is awaiting an opinion from the Alabama attorney general’s office about the legality of removing the rocket in the context of the 2017 Memorial Preservation Act.

Butler said Monday his original bill – which spelled out the Alabama State Council on the Arts to commission the design and construction and provide for the installation of a replica of the deteriorating rocket – was “diluted” in language added later by Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, about revamping the monuments law.

The original bill is essentially dead after being carried over at a Senate committee hearing two weeks ago and now replaced with the new bill.

“I wanted the one bill with one item in it having to do with the Saturn 1B rocket,” Butler said. “I don’t want anything else in there.”

Language in a new bill allows for the possibility that the rocket can be restored but, if not, a replica would go up in its place. A Huntsville group is seeking to raise $10 million to restore the rocket and a conservator working with the group said he believed restoration is possible.

If a replica is needed, Butler’s new bill calls for the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) to oversee the process of a new rocket. Butler said ADECA has funds to contract with individuals or groups regarding a replica.

Butler said he had no sense of the status of the rocket, whether it can survive or be replaced. But he said he values the message about Alabama that it sends to visitors at the welcome center.

“To me, it’s a national image,” Butler said. “It tells everybody coming into the state of Alabama from the north at the Tennessee state line what Alabama is about today and we’re about the future. That’s our national image now.

Butler’s new bill is scheduled for a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday. The bill has bipartisan support in the Senate.