The Intrepid Museum, New York, NY, will mark the 50th anniversary of the public rollout of NASA’s Enterprise with a panel discussion featuring current and former leaders from the space industry on September 17. Scheduled from 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at the museum’s Manhattan waterfront campus, the program will examine the legacy of Enterprise, NASA’s prototype space shuttle orbiter, and its influence on modern human spaceflight. Although the orbiter never flew in space, it played a critical role in validating the Space Shuttle concept through a series of approach and landing tests that helped pave the way for three decades of shuttle operations. The discussion will feature Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator and Chief Engineer; Charles F. Bolden Jr., former NASA Administrator and veteran astronaut; and Peggy Whitson, the record-setting astronaut who now serves as Director of Human Spaceflight at Axiom Space. The panel will be moderated by Nell Greenfieldboyce, the longtime science and technology journalist formerly with NPR.
According to the museum, the conversation will explore how Enterprise helped shape the Space Shuttle program and how lessons learned from that era continue to influence NASA’s Artemis program and the rapidly growing commercial spaceflight sector. Panelists will also discuss the future of human space exploration as the industry looks toward the next half-century of activity beyond Earth. As part of the evening’s events, members of the media will have an opportunity to attend a briefing with Kshatriya, currently NASA’s highest-ranking civil servant, and view a selection of Enterprise-related artifacts that are not normally on public display. The anniversary program will take place during the museum’s public Astronomy Night, which begins at 5:30 p.m.
The event also comes as the Intrepid Museum continues updates to its Space Shuttle Pavilion, home to Enterprise since the orbiter joined the museum’s collection in 2012. Recent enhancements to the exhibition include new interpretive graphics, video presentations drawn from the museum’s oral history collection, an interactive kiosk highlighting key features of the spacecraft, artifacts connected to astronaut Richard Truly, one of Enterprise‘s original test pilots, and a photographic display examining major technological advances in human spaceflight. For more information and to support the Intrepid Museum, click on this link: intrepidmuseum.org.
