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From: noe@sunc7.cs.uiuc.edu (Roger Noe)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Enterprise
Message-ID: <2817CE3D.2FB0@ibma0.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 26 Apr 91 06:52:45 GMT
References: <1648@vtserf.cc.vt.edu> <2814A667.538E@ibma0.cs.uiuc.edu> <1991Apr25.140350.3543@waikato.ac.nz>
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In article <1991Apr25.140350.3543@waikato.ac.nz> pjs1@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>	I have always assumed that Challenger was OV-101 and have never heard
>of the Enterprise. As it never flew would I be correct in thinking that
>something was wrong with it's body and hence it's inards were used to make the
>challenger?

Never flew?  Enterprise was the first orbiter vehicle to fly.  It was also
the first one to roll out from Rockwell International's Palmdale facility
and be delivered to NASA.  (This was something like January, 1977.)  During
the summer of 1977, Enterprise was mated to the fuselage of a modified
Boeing 747 and taken on captive flights for testing.  On 12 August 1977,
Enterprise flew free from an altitude of 22,800 feet and landed on the
desert bed at Edwards Air Force Base.  It made four more such flights
in what were called collectively the approach and landing tests (ALT).

According to official NASA statements at the rollout, Enterprise was to become
an operational orbiter vehicle after completing these early tests.  NASA
later discovered that it would be able to refurbish to flight readiness
either Enterprise or the orbiter which came to be called Challenger, pri-
marily for fiscal reasons.  Deciding it would be more advantageous (cheaper,
faster, whatever) to make Challenger the operational vehicle, they did so
and left Enterprise to be forever earthbound.  Unquestionably some of
Enterprise's "innards" were used in Challenger - NASA is quite adept at
"cannibalizing" their shuttle fleet in a continuing juggling act.  I've
even heard the joke told that NASA plans to reduce its actual astronaut
corps to only 5 or 10 complete astronauts, and move around their internal
organs and such from one human body to another.  To do this, they need
brainless, spineless bodies in which they can place the nervous systems
of trained astronauts.  Why do you think they've been taking members of
the U.S. Senate and Congress up there?  (I've heard this joke told because
I'm the one who tells it.  I first told it in a widely ignored April Fool
posting to Usenet some years ago.)
--
Roger Noe                            roger-noe@uiuc.edu
Department of Computer Science       noe@cs.uiuc.edu
University of Illinois               40:06:39 N.  88:13:41 W.
Urbana, IL  61801  USA