Wikipedia Report on Enterprise
Joseph Nebus
picture of a space shuttle on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise was in fact
Enterprise, OV-101. The specific topic was whether the name of the
Shuttle was on the cargo bay door -- as it was for the Approach and
Landing Tests that Enterprise was used for, and for the earliest space
shuttle flights -- or whether it was ahead of the cargo bay doors, as
on current vehicles and on the Enterprise rollout footage seen in the
opening credit montage of "Enterprise".
After consulting with sci.space.history and Dennis R. Jenkins'
astonishing volume "Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space
Tranportation System, The First 100 Missions" I can now give a much more
definitive yet still ambiguous answer.
The first is that the picture at Wikipedia labelled Enterprise
is almost certainly not the actual OV-101 Enterprise. The big clue here
is (as suspected) the 747, whose vehicle number -- 911 -- marks it as
the second Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, N911NA, a 747-100SR purchased from
Japan Air Lines (where it had been JA8117, msn 20781), delivered to NASA
20 November 1990 and first used (for Endeavour) in May 1991. The "worm"
logo on the 747 marks the picture as being taken before late 1995, when
it received a variation of the original and modern Meatball logo.
(The variation is to have the NASA name and the wing shape, but
not the blue meatball itself. Lightweight and very stylish.)
Unfortunately, Jenkins does not list any SCA-Shuttle flights
which were not part of the Approach and Landing Tests of the 1970s or
carrying Shuttles back from processing so it does not list whether
Enterprise was carried anywhere between 1991 and 1995. However, we knew
before that Enterprise was turned over to the National Air and Space
Museum (and held at Dulles pending completion of the Steven F. Udvar-
Hazy center, just 300 days from now), and no one seems to have records
of it being moved since then. (Though it is examined and parts are now
and then taken out for testing.)
Jenkins lists several revisions in the Enterprise paint scheme;
the important ones were changing the left and right wings from the
American flag and "USA" -- as Enterprise originally had and Columbia
had until it was meatballed -- with the flag and "USA" on the left, and
"NASA" and "Enterprise" on the right wing, in advance of its work at the
Vandenberg launch pad. The Enterprise name was not moved from the cargo
bay doors then. More black paint was also added to the tail fin and the
foreward fuselage, making Enterprise look more like Columbia.
He's silent, unfortunately, on whether the cargo bay name was
ever touched (I couldn't find a print reference to the meatballing of
the flight vehicles either), but one more piece of evidence makes me
reasonably confident in saying the Wikipedia site has a misidentified
photograph: the Forward Reaction Control Systems.
On the shuttles which actually orbited, the nose has a band of
black across it and roughly parallel to the silver tip. On Enterprise
most of this region is white, with the black band running more or less
parallel to the bottom of the vehicle, and Jenkins mentions the several
times Enterprise was repainted the FRCS was not painted to match the
flight vehicles. On Wikipedia's picture, the black goes across the nose
and ends parallel to the silver tip.
Therefore, I would say Wikipedia has mislabelled it, and the
Enterprise shuttle rollout in the opening montage is digitally jiggered
footage, and be reasonably confident in saying so. I do hope to get to
the Udvar-Hazy center this year and see it with my own eyes, but that's
something I hope for regardless.
Joseph Nebus
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A Bag Of Memes
"Joseph Nebus" <neb...@rpi.edu> wrote in message
news:nebusj.1...@vcmr-86.server.rpi.edu...
> Therefore, I would say Wikipedia has mislabelled it, and the
> Enterprise shuttle rollout in the opening montage is digitally jiggered
> footage, and be reasonably confident in saying so. I do hope to get to
> the Udvar-Hazy center this year and see it with my own eyes, but that's
> something I hope for regardless.
Maybe then we can all finally get some sleep.
Timo S Saloniemi
> A few weeks back we got into some fussing over whether the
>picture of a space shuttle on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise was in fact
>Enterprise, OV-101. The specific topic was whether the name of the
>Shuttle was on the cargo bay door -- as it was for the Approach and
>Landing Tests that Enterprise was used for, and for the earliest space
>shuttle flights -- or whether it was ahead of the cargo bay doors, as
>on current vehicles and on the Enterprise rollout footage seen in the
>opening credit montage of "Enterprise".
>
> After consulting with sci.space.history and Dennis R. Jenkins'
>astonishing volume "Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space
>Tranportation System, The First 100 Missions" I can now give a much more
>definitive yet still ambiguous answer.
Thank you very much for the thorough research! I trust this sufficiently
undermines the only "proof" we had for the relocating of the name from
the cargo bay doors to the forward hull. And it seems it's significantly
easier to do fact-finding on real-world spacecraft than on fictional
ones... A week instead of five years or more is pretty fast. :)
Timo Saloniemi