Fifty years ago this week, NASA rolled out its first space shuttle. It never reached orbit, yet the whole shuttle program was built on it. Here's the story.
NASA unveiled orbiter OV-101 at Rockwell's plant in Palmdale, California, on Constitution Day of America's bicentennial year. Hundreds of invited guests came.
NASA planned to call it Constitution. Nearly 100,000 Star Trek fans wrote the White House, and President Ford said he was "partial to the name" Enterprise.
Enterprise had no working engines and no heat shield. It was a test vehicle, built to prove a shuttle could glide through the air and land like a plane.
After months riding a 747 in captive tests starting Feb. 18, 1977, Enterprise separated from the jet for the first time over California and glided to a landing.
Apollo 13 veteran Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton flew three of the five free flights. Joe Engle and Richard Truly flew the other two.
The last free flight, on Oct. 26, 1977, ended on a concrete runway. Enterprise then stood in for real shuttles: vibration tests in 1978, launch pad checks in 1979.
NASA once planned to refit it for orbit, but design changes made that too costly. A test frame became Challenger instead. In 1983, Enterprise toured Europe by 747.
NASA gave Enterprise to the Smithsonian in 1985, and it went on display in Virginia in 2003. In April 2012, the retired Discovery took its place, nose to nose.
On April 27, 2012, it flew over New York atop its 747. In June a barge carried it up the Hudson, and a crane lifted it onto the aircraft carrier Intrepid.
The Intrepid Museum marked the 50th on Sept. 17 with ex-NASA chief Charles Bolden and astronaut Peggy Whitson. Enterprise is still on view there in Manhattan.