NYNY 2019: Enterprise.

Birthday card courtesy of Cloin, the pretty Campbell brother - who
is, in fact, even older than I am.

It's my birthday today, and as in previous years, we're having a bit of a geek day in the middle of our New York vacation.

We start out with a visit to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, located on the USS Intrepid, a decommissioned Essex-class aircraft carrier moored at Pier 86 in the Hudson River. Intrepid is the current home of the Enterprise space shuttle, as well as having been the primary recovery ship for the Aurora 7 and Gemini 3 orbital missions.

We do a quick tour of the flight deck - I'm disappointed to see that the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, stealth aircraft of choice for the X-Men, is not in the best of condition - and then proceed to the Space Shuttle Pavilion for the main event.

Admittedly, in this case the word "Space" is only there as a courtesy. Completed in 1976 and making its first flight in 1977, Enterprise was designed to be a test vehicle for atmospheric operations with the modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, and it was never used for orbital missions.

As a result, it lacked most of the elements necessary for use in space: no orbital manoeuvring pods or reaction thrusters, no thermal tiles for re-entry protection, no radar - and no main engines, the shuttle was intended for unpowered "dead stick" landings.

Although it had been planned to refit Enterprise for orbital missions following testing, NASA had modified the shuttle design to such an extent when constructing Columbia, the first operational orbital shuttle, that it was more cost-effective to start from scratch on an alternate test chassis rather than update Enterprise.

After additional test usage, Enterprise was stripped for parts for the other shuttles, and then sent on an international promotional tour, after which it was donated to the Smithsonian Institute in 1985. In 2011 it was moved again, and put on display at the Intrepid museum.

Enterprise was originally going to be named Constitution, but the Star Trek fan base successfully launched a letter-writing campaign to change the name, and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and most of the show's cast* were guests at the shuttle's unveiling.**

And you know what?  If we keep doing this sort of thing for long enough, Star Trek fans yet unborn will eventually persuade some future government to name an actual starship Enterprise.

- Sid

* Explanations for William Shatner's absence vary - he was either shooting a movie, trying to avoid high-profile Star Trek events in an attempt to escape type casting, or his agent demanded an appearance fee.

** If you spend a lot of time looking for images on the internet, as I do for the purposes of blogging, you quickly discover that there are some photos that are THE image of choice for a particular topic or event. As an example, this is THE photo of the Star Trek cast and Enterprise.  And, my god - look at the leisure suits!!