Excuse me, but the dates don’t check out. The space shuttle Enterprise was built in 1976. The starship Enterprise (NX-01) wasn’t built until 2151.
Have you considered that the starship Enterprise was named after the space shuttle?
Damn it, Kirk and crew must be playing around with the intermix formula again…
Time travel. Since my first day on Lemmy I swore I’d never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes - the future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache.
The man’s a menace.
Do you want to start the temporal cold war? Because this is how you start the temporal cold war…
What sucks is it never went into space.
I came here to say the same thing.
On the other hand, if it had been refitted for orbital flight, then it would’ve replaced either Challenger or Columbia, which means it probably wouldn’t still be around to display as a museum exhibit.
Hopefully it won’t be NASA’s last Enterprise.
Plenty of letters left in the alphabet!
I’m okay with it being NASA’s last Enterprise if and only if it’s because the next spaceship Enterprise is built by an entity other than NASA.
I hope it is because there’s no USA in the Federation.
Hard not to think there is when the ships are called “USS [name]”. Even if it doesn’t technically stand for that.
Huh? Federation vessels start with NCC.
Their registration numbers do; their names start with USS. “USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D”
Lots of them have the USS prefix even if not always used https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS
Might want to read your own link there homie.
Starfleet used the “USS” designation on certain computer graphics for United Earth NX-class starships, such as Enterprise NX-01 and Columbia NX-02. However, they did not label the hulls of the starships, and the ships were not commonly addressed with the prefix. (ENT: “Divergence”)
On Federation starships operated by Starfleet, the “USS” prefix was more prominently featured on the hull of the ship and as part of the starship’s official title. USS was referred to as standing for either “United Space Ship” (TOS: “The Cage”, “The Menagerie, Part I”, “Space Seed”, “The Gamesters of Triskelion”, “Patterns of Force”, “Assignment: Earth”, “Elaan of Troyius”) or “United Star Ship.” (TOS: “The Squire of Gothos”, “Court Martial”) This designation was used as early as 2167 on a Daedalus-class starship, the USS Essex. (TNG: “Power Play”)
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grumps in pedant
It wasn’t an orbiter, it was an atmospheric test article.
Ehhh
Star Trek used The Enterprise because real life uses the same name for a lot of vessels.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_of_the_United_States_Navy_named_Enterprise
So I’m sure Trekkies voted for it, but they weren’t the only ones.
No, Trekkies really were the primary reason. The government had every intention of naming it Constitution until the letter-writing campaign changed officials’ minds. Hell, Roddenberry and the cast of TOS were even invited to the dedication because of it:
Sources (from the Wikipedia Space Shuttle article):
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=JGIgAAAAIBAJ&pg=2595,1284578
https://gizmodo.com/declassified-memos-reveal-debate-over-naming-the-shuttl-1603073259
A famous event that brought the cast together … Except for William Shatner … who at the time was trying to build a Hollywood leading man persona and distancing himself from the Star Trek franchise because he thought he was the star, not the show.
He must have regretted not being part of that NASA event.
It seems to me “Enterprise” is an excellent name for the space shuttle.
It would be personally gratifying to several million followers of the television show “Star Trek”, one of the most dedicated constituencies in the country.
Moreover, the name “Enterprise” is a hallowed Navy tradition. An “Enterprise” was in action against the Barbary pirates in 1803. During World War II, an “Enterprise” served with the Wasp and the Hornet in the carrier fleet in the Pacific. And the Navy’s current “Enterprise” is the first nuclear carrier."
I don’t know a lot about Star Trek…
But I’m pretty sure their Enterprise was named that because it was a real name that was frequently re-used.
Star Trek wasn’t the primary reason, it was a “bonus”.
I never said it was the only reason. I said it was the primary reason – the important one that made the difference. And it was. That’s a fact, whether you like it or not.
I love that you have pictures and yet people are still clamoring over themselves to AcTuAlLy the conversation.
You tried to prove it was a fact…
By posting sources that literally show it wasn’t the primary reason
If you don’t understand after reading your own links, no about of explaining is going to help.
Take the L. You’re used to it.
If Star Wars fans had written in to have it named Millennium Falcon , NASA would have ignored them because the name does not fit conventional naming practices. They were willing to rename it Enterprise because there is a strong/proid history of USN ships named Enterprise. These two facts are not mutually exclusive
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They shed their tail cone later in their life cycle, before seeking a mate.
Evolution of Enterprise:
https://www.space.com/21000-star-trek-enterprise-starship-evolution.htmlSee, if the dolts had any sense, they would have allowed the first one to be named Constitution, and then named a subsequent ship Enterprise. Then we would have had an actual Constitution-class space ship named Enterprise. But thinking wasn’t allowed in the 70’s, so this shit happened.
Flying brick.
I think it’s got to be one or the other.
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.
-Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams was a chad
Bricks for my family. You can put real force behind them.
