WI: Space Shuttle Enterprise (OV-101) actually flew into space?

Originally, OV-101 (aka Enterprise) was supposed to be rebuilt to flight specifications after the completion of the approach and landing tests and used as an actual OV (as can be seen in the OV designation-10x numbers indicate flight vehicles). However, it was found to be cheaper to rebuild a structural test article, Challenger, instead, due to changes in the Shuttle design since she had been built, so she was instead used in other roles (such as fit-testing SLC-6 at Vandenberg). After the Challenger disaster, she was again mooted as a possible replacement, but it was once again found to be cheaper to use a different route, in this case assembling a set of spares that had been built for the program.

So, how could you see a flight-certified and launched Enterprise, and what effects would this have?
 

Thande

Donor
Wouldn't Enterprise suffer from the same issues as Columbia, i.e. being over-heavy from her older structural design? I'd love to see it happen if only for the sake of Star Trek of course.
 

Cook

Banned
Maybe if all the Trekkies writing in had asked for the first Space Shuttle going into space to be named Enterprise.
 

Thande

Donor
Maybe if all the Trekkies writing in had asked for the first Space Shuttle going into space to be named Enterprise.

Exact words strikes again. Like when they petitioned NBC to renew Star Trek for a third season, but neglected the small print about "And not one that starts with Spock's brain being stolen by underground women and ends with Kirk getting gender-swapped!"
 
Wouldn't Enterprise suffer from the same issues as Columbia, i.e. being over-heavy from her older structural design? I'd love to see it happen if only for the sake of Star Trek of course.

Possibly, but this wouldn't be a fatal issue. At worst, it just means that NASA has to finish the ASRM program and the SLWT program to fly significant payloads to Station (and remember that Columbia was actually manifested for some ISS payloads--eg., STS-118, her next flight after STS-107, would have delivered a truss segment to ISS), which would have increased their lift capability anyways and probably improved safety.
 
...for the sake of Star Trek
i wonder wat happen if Enterprise is rebuilt to Shuttle at beginn of program
and end up on launchpad on 28. Januar 1986
How Star Trek TNG producers and Fans gona react on Enterprise disaster ?
 
...for the sake of Star Trek
i wonder wat happen if Enterprise is rebuilt to Shuttle at beginn of program
and end up on launchpad on 28. Januar 1986
How Star Trek TNG producers and Fans gona react on Enterprise disaster ?

Probably reasonably well. I mean, they aren't going to be overjoyed or anything, but Star Trek OTL had Challenger and Columbia memorial episodes...in this case, I can imagine doing an "it's all just a dream" episode where the (Star Trek) Enterprise gets blown up or destroyed somehow, etc. etc. dedicated to the memory of the real Enterprise and her crew, or they reference the model thing ISTR them having on a different episode.
 
Originally, OV-101 (aka Enterprise) was supposed to be rebuilt to flight specifications after the completion of the approach and landing tests and used as an actual OV (as can be seen in the OV designation-10x numbers indicate flight vehicles). However, it was found to be cheaper to rebuild a structural test article, Challenger, instead, due to changes in the Shuttle design since she had been built, so she was instead used in other roles (such as fit-testing SLC-6 at Vandenberg). After the Challenger disaster, she was again mooted as a possible replacement, but it was once again found to be cheaper to use a different route, in this case assembling a set of spares that had been built for the program.

So, how could you see a flight-certified and launched Enterprise, and what effects would this have?

Hopefully the Enterprise won't blow up like the Atlantis did in November '99...........I was in Dallas and we here in Texas got a good portion of the space junk that fell over the U.S. from that.
 
Don't blame him. My old Civil Air Patrol Senior Officer's Course mentioned the Discovery blowing up in 1986...And that was in a USAF-produced textbook...

I can top that, in a way; my high-school chemistry textbook used the Challenger explosion as an example of "a highly exothermic reaction."

VERY poor taste.
 
I can top that, in a way; my high-school chemistry textbook used the Challenger explosion as an example of "a highly exothermic reaction."

VERY poor taste.

Not even particularly right, either; most of the "explosion" was just condensation on the cryogenic fuel. It is actually surprisingly difficult to ignite hydrogen. A better example would have been Challenger's rocket engines.

CaliBoy1990 said:
Hopefully the Enterprise won't blow up like the Atlantis did in November '99...........I was in Dallas and we here in Texas got a good portion of the space junk that fell over the U.S. from that.

Er...so how do you explain this, then? NASA seems to think that Atlantis last flew in May 2010, not November 1999...
 
He may have been referencing the film Deep Impact, which was made around that time and featured the destruction of Atlantis.

And yet he referenced the Columbia disaster? (Where a lot of space shuttle debris did fall on Texas...made the shuttle on the license plates look a little weird, let me tell you)
 
What about a Shuttle-C? I read that there was talk of converting Enterprise into a one-off Shuttle-C, though God knows why. Perhaps NASA comes up with a really big space station module that a standard STS can't handle.
 
What about a Shuttle-C? I read that there was talk of converting Enterprise into a one-off Shuttle-C, though God knows why. Perhaps NASA comes up with a really big space station module that a standard STS can't handle.

I'd really rather not...and on the idea of really big space station modules, I have two words: Option C.
 
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