by Jason Snell
USS Enterprise comes out of the workshop
In my very first post to this site, I linked to an article about how the original “Star Trek” USS Enterprise model had been moved out of the Smithsonian for a loving restoration. Seeing that model was the highlight of my childhood trip to the Air & Space Museum, despite all the historic, non-fictional stuff on display there.
Anyway, the restoration is complete:
Long relegated to the Air and Space Museum’s basement gift shop, “Star Trek’s” USS Enterprise has moved to the central atrium. The newly restored, 11-foot-long studio model of the fictional starship, used for special-effects shots in the original TV series, will be unveiled Tuesday. (Just in time for the museum’s all-night 40th birthday celebration.)
“It’s been brought into the light because, over time, its historical significance has grown,” museum conservator Malcolm Collum says. “This is a 50-year-old model and it was starting to show structural failures. It made me really nervous. It could have catastrophically fallen apart.”
I can’t wait to go back and see it in all its glory.