Naval Vessels
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Enterprise is defined by the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (1963) as, "Boldness, energy, and invention in practical affairs". Ships that have beared the name "Enterprise", real or fiction, have been inspirational to many throughout the United States and the world. Click the links below to read about ships that have beared this famous name.
Ships of the sea that have been called "Enterprise" date back to before the year 1705, when Britain captured a French vessel called L'Enterprise. Seventy years later...
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) created and developed a reusable spacecraft
known as the Space Shuttle Orbiter. The first orbiter was originally going to be named
Constitution, but an extensive written campaign to the White House urged the name to be changed to
Enterprise, in honor of the spaceship from the science fiction show Star Trek
®. Designated Orbiter Vehicle (OV) 101, Enterprise was "rolled out of Rockwell's
Air Force Plant 42, Site 1 Palmdale, California assembly facility on Sept. 17, 1976. The orbiter's main
(and only) purpose was to test the Space Shuttle's approach and landing response. Along with this main
purpose, a secondary purpose was to test the abilities of the Boeing 747 aircraft with the orbiter
attached along with it being attached to the External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters on a launch pad at
Cape Canaveral. Between the day the orbiter was rolled out and October 30, 1979, the Enterprise
was the test bed for orbiters that were in production and any future orbiters constructed. On November
18, 1985, Enterprise was ferried from the Kennedy Space Center to Dulles Airport, Washington,
D.C., and became the property of the Smithsonian Institution. Following the destruction of
Challenger on 28 JAN 1986, NASA considered requesting the return of Enterprise from the
Smithsonian Institution and refitting the shuttle for space flight. However it was determined that the
cost would be too expensive.
(For more information on the orbiters, visit the orbiters web page through the Shuttle Shuttle Flight Archives section of the Kennedy Space Center web site, or simply click here )
