Happy birthday, Enterprise!
On this day in 1976, the first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, was unveiled by NASA. Named after some fictional starship from some silly TV show, OV-101 was rolled out of the Rockwell plant at Palmdale, California. In keeping with its name, Gene Roddenberry and much of the cast of the original series of Star Trek were on hand at the dedication ceremony, and the show’s theme music was played.
The ship currently resides at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum‘s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport, where it is the centerpiece of the space collection.