Space Shuttle Enterprise to Arrive in NYC

[Qnsboro]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...01b9d52b6a4ad8

Space shuttle Enterprise to arrive in NY on Friday

By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Look! Up in the sky! It's a ... space shuttle?

An unusual flying object is scheduled to arrive in the city's airspace Friday — the space shuttle Enterprise.

Enterprise is expected to get to the city riding on top of a modified jumbo jet. Its trip was to include low-altitude flyovers over parts of the city and landmarks including the Statue of Liberty and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Manhattan's west side.

The shuttle had been scheduled to arrive earlier in the week but NASA pushed it back because of bad weather.

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.

That won't happen right away; after its fly-around, the Enterprise is heading to Kennedy Airport, where it will remain for a few weeks until it's taken off the 747 jet it rode to New York.

After 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 museum anticipates opening the shuttle exhibit to the public in mid-July.

"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.

Enterprise comes to New York as part of NASA's process of wrapping up the shuttle program, which ended last summer. At the Smithsonian, its place has been taken by the shuttle Discovery. Shuttle Endeavor is going to Los Angeles and shuttle Atlantis is staying at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

Enterprise 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.

That doesn't make Intrepid any less excited about having it, Marenoff-Zausner said.

"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."

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.

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.

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."

In order to do that, Intrepid had to do some shuffling around of its collection. Last week, three aircraft were taken off the flight deck and sent to the Empire State Aerosciences Museum in Glenville, N.Y.

Anybody in the NYC area should be able to see it fly over by 10:30AM today. It's suppose to fly along the Hudson River corridor. It will pass the Statue of Liberty, The Intrepid, George Washington Bridge and make a U-turn past the Tappan Zee Bridge. It will land at JFK.

[Egz]

And a more recent picture:


Fun fact. Last time Enterprise was in the New York area was 1983.

[ATL_Av8r]

"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."

Uhh. What?

[petesell]

work across the st from JFK. went to the customs bldg & just watched it land about 15 minutes ago. very cool.

looking forward to a trip to the intrepid w/my kids.

[Pf3il]

a couple i snapped this morning.

[Qnsboro]

^^^^Nice shots

Pissed off at myself. I live 5 minutes from JFK, and by the time I was set to go out and see it, I found out it already landed. Pretty cool that some of you saw it, though.

[Bryan S]

Few I took:


Untitled by bmansmitty, on Flickr


Untitled by bmansmitty, on Flickr


P1000610 by bmansmitty, on Flickr

[hrama803]

no fair. I want to take some pictures

[Mike_Honcho]

Heard an interview on the radio with one of the flight mechanics flying inside the 747 who said it was one of the wildest rides of his life the way the plane flew with the shuttle on it's back.

[dubfan]

Pic from the T-38 near the Empire State Building:

[-mlfhntr-]

^thats awesome.

[JLJetta]

[359Bailey1320]

[

And a more recent picture:


Fun fact. Last time Enterprise was in the New York area was 1983.

What are the round things under the wings behind the engines? They look like some kind of defense system?

[WeenerBoy]

What are the round things under the wings behind the engines? They look like some kind of defense system?

that would be the exhaust nozzles... or as some would call it, the "chemtrail dispensers"

[359Bailey1320]

The green box is showing exhaust nozzles? If so, what kind?

[Geekengineer]

The green box is showing exhaust nozzles? If so, what kind?

I also think those look like chemt- I mean, directional infrared countermeasures, maybe. Or perhaps part of a jet exhaust experiment, if the NASA 747s were ever used outside of Shuttle-hauling duty.

Dunno. Googling to heck to find out, right now.

[dubfan]

They're exactly what you think they are.

And I don't mean chemtrail dispensers.

[Geekengineer]

They're exactly what you think they are.

And I don't mean chemtrail dispensers.

I assume you mean DIRCM?

Cool.

[dubfan]

Yes.

[359Bailey1320]

Cool. I are not retard after all.

[ATL_Av8r]

why would 905NA have them but 911NA does not?

[dubfan]

why would 905NA have them but 911NA does not?

Good question. Not sure that's true, but if it is, I don't know.

[Egz]

Here is a larger image:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/pho.../ECN-24314.jpg

[ATL_Av8r]

Okay...so that pic is 19 years old according to that link.

Did some searching through a.net of the recent trip and it looks like those "nozzles" (for lack of better term at the moment) are no longer on 905NA.




Shot from 1985.....not there.



Another 1983 shot, just showing they were on the starboard side as well.

[dubfan]

The guys at NSF seem to think they were put on 905 only for the transatlantic trip to the Paris Air Show in 1983, and presumably removed at some point after that.