![]() In honor of the exhibit’s unveiling, the museum is hosting four days of Shuttle-themed programming, dubbed SpaceFest (July 19–Sun 22 10am–7pm July 20 10am–5pm). ![]() Meanwhile, multimedia displays, images and artifacts will tell the story of space exploration and the Enterprise’s role in it. Visitors will get to walk close to and under the 180-foot-long, six-story Shuttle, the wingspan of which is more than 70 feet (the interior, sadly, is off-limits). Now, that prototype-which never left the Earth’s atmosphere but blazed the way for three decades of extraterrestrial travel-will open to the public on Thursday 19 in a specially designed pavilion on the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. © 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc.In 1977, NASA conducted a series of tests on a new type of craft: the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Last week, three aircraft were taken off the flight deck and sent to the Empire State Aerosciences Museum in Glenville, N.Y. In order to do that, Intrepid had to do some shuffling around of its collection. The initial plan was to leave it at the airport for a couple of years until its permanent home was set, she said, but “we want the public to be able to experience this immediately.” ![]() ![]() The public’s interest is what drove the Intrepid to find a way to display it even though a permanent display location still has to be found, Marenoff-Zausner said. She is confident the public will feel the same way and anticipates interest in the shuttle will increase the number of annual visitors by about 30 percent, to 1.3 million over the course of a year. “This is an institution in American history,” she said, adding, “This tested so many different things that without it, travel into space would never have happened.” That doesn’t make Intrepid any less excited about having it, Marenoff-Zausner said. Shuttle Endeavor is going to Los Angeles and shuttle Atlantis is staying at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.Įnterprise has never been used in an actual space mission, but was a full-scale test vehicle used for flights in the atmosphere and experiments on the ground. At the Smithsonian, its place has been taken by the shuttle Discovery. “When somebody comes to visit, they will not only see the shuttle itself, but will have an engaging and interactive experience inside the pavilion,” she said.Įnterprise comes to New York as part of NASA’s process of wrapping up the shuttle program, which ended last summer. The museum anticipates opening the shuttle exhibit to the public in mid-July. The shuttle prototype was housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington but will soon be making its home at the Intrepid, where it will be “the largest and most significant space artifact in the entire Northeast,” said Susan Marenoff-Zausner, Intrepid’s president.Įnterprise will remain at Kennedy Airport for a few weeks until it’s taken off the 747 jet it rode to New York.Īfter that, Marenoff-Zausner said, it will be put on a barge in early June and brought up the Hudson River to the Intrepid, where it will be put on the flight deck and a pavilion over it will be completed. The roar of the aircraft could barely be heard over the howling winds. Crowds gathered along piers, cameras slung around their necks. Onlookers bundled up in a blustery spring day to await the flyover along the Hudson River. The shuttle had been scheduled to arrive earlier in the week, but NASA pushed it back because of bad weather. It was chased through the air by a NASA plane, and in the Hudson River by numerous ferries and other boats. As the shuttle passed Manhattan, people gathered on rooftops to gawk.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |