Enterprise On The Move At Smithsonian

The U.S.S. Enterprise studio model from Star Trek: The Original Series, which has been on public display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum since 1976, was removed on September 11 from the lower level of the museum's store -- where it's been ensconced ince 2000 -- in order to prepare it for its new display location in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall, set to open in July 2016, in time for Trek's 50th anniversary.

The current main hall at the National Air and Space Museum, Milestones of Flight, has on display such icons of spaceflight and aviation history as the Wright Brothers’ plane, the 1903 Wright Flyer and Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. Visitors there can also see John Glenn’s Mercury capsule, Friendship 7.

Milestones of Flight will be the beneficiary of a full renovation and expansion, courtesy of a $30 million donation from the Boeing Company, and will be renamed the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall. Further, according to the National Air and Space Museum, the overhaul will take into account its revised definition of the word "milestone." Where once "milestone" meant "the first" in space travel or flight, it will now embrace "an artifact having significant or widespread cultural, historic, scientific or technological impact."