Minor spoilers can be found in this thread. Sorry, folks!
Amid all the chaos happening around us, we Star Trek fans seemed to have missed an important anniversary a couple of days ago. This past Monday, September 17th, was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the date that the OV-101 was rolled out from the Palmdale assembly plant. OV-101 is, of course, the Space Shuttle Enterprise. And this date showed the power of thousands of fans writing to the White House to ask then-President Ford to name the first space shuttle after her science-fiction counterpart.
[Edit: added spoiler warnings since the thread was dipping into recent information for Enterprise.]
[ September 20, 2001: Message edited by: Siegfried ]
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
It certainly doens't outweigh the events that happened in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, but still, an anniversary is an anniversary.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
OV-101, NX-01, hmm. . . You know, it'd really confuse things if they had a line in the new show saying the "new" Enterprise, as with the Space Shuttle, was named after the ship in a TV show. . . 8)
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Ya know, I was thinking the same thing. However, that would completely screw things up. In the Star Trek universe, there was indeed a show called "Star Trek" that featured a ship named the "Enterprise" that spawned the name for the original space shuttle and the original Earth spaceship capable of Warp 5. Indeed, the fourth spinoff of that original show would chronicle the adventures of that same ship a century and a half in advance while the original series chronicled the adventures of the ship that is two and half centuries away. Just typing that and thinking that is giving me a temporal mechanics headache.
Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :
Now that its brought up though, wouldn't it have been nice to have Akiraprize's (yes, I'm still calling it that) registry be something like NOV-101 or even just NCC-101 in honor of the shuttle?
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Ummm... are wandering into spoiler territory here? I'm not sure, so I'll throw a spoiler warning into the title to be on the safe side.
Anyway, I don't know if "NOV" would have worked as a registry prefix. The "OV" in OV-101 actually stands for something (orbital vehicle). Plus, "NOV" is the abbreviation for "November." We don't need any yahoos popping in and saying, "The Enterprise was built in November because it says so on the hull!" I think using the number "101" would have been a nice homage to the favor NASA and the White House gave to Star Trek.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
it also would have been more respectful to the crew of the USS Dauntless, NCC-01 (sorry, i hate bringing that up too)
(maybe they could have called it CVN-65)
I think any prefix besides NX would have been preferable, but i do like the idea of the Terran Starfleet having very low number desginations..
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
September 6 was the anniversary of Treks firstr broadcast also.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
Yeah.. in Canada!
I celebrate September 8th like any real American geek
In other 'NASA named it' type of stuff, i just read an article about Deep Space 1, an ion engine prototype journeying out of the solar system. Did we ask for that or did they just go ahead and name it to save themselves the trouble of getting our letters? I hope they launch 8 more!
[ September 20, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
[ September 20, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
If DS1 is heading out of the solar system, then something has gone terribly wrong. Its current mission is to rendezvous with Comet Borrelly. The ship has been in space for nearly three years now. I think it completed all of its primary goals some time ago. (Such as testing the ion engine.)
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
ooh allow me to correct my terminology.. its heading around the solar system.
we gotta give those NASA geeks more credit.. the things navigational sensors crashed and they wrote new software that would let it use data from its camera transmitter as navigational data.. from Earth, without ever touching the thing.
i probably described that wrong! please correct me! PLEASE!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Stand up straight! Posture, posture! Now then...what's that? Chest out! Better. March!
DS1 was the first phase of the New Millennium Project, which is a pretty neat thing too. Deep Space 2, a set of probes designed to burrow into the Martian surface, was unfortunately being carried on the Mars Polar Lander. I'm not sure if there's any mission being planned with the Deep Space 3 name.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I read where the designers of the Voyager probes wanted to call them Nomad!!!
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
They should have at least launched a Voyager VI.
I want to start a petition that has the UN officially change Osama bin Laden's name to 'Khan Noonien Singh' and then launch him into space. We might be able to get some continuity out of this after all.
But in 2053 are Star Trek fans going to demand a nuclear exchange?
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
They'd have to cross him with a guinea pig first to get the whole Eugenic bit out of it.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
I know where they can put it
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
