Shuttle Enterprise will fly again...

[kitsune]

How did they get Discovery? I assume they got first choice,

The Smithsonian has the right of first refusal for all NASA spacecraft.

The Smithsonian probably picked Discovery because 3 of 4 missions involving the Hubble Space Telescope were done by Discovery: Discovery launched it, and the second and third visits to Hubble were done by Discovery.
Also, the very last shuttle mission on the schedule is for Discovery. Last one to be decommissioned is a bragging point

Discovery is the oldest after Columbia and Challenger, therefore having the greatest historical significance of the remaining fleet.

Addendum: Discovery was also the "return to flight" orbiter, as the first to fly after both the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

 

[SpyOne]

Well, very shortly after Columbia flew toys were available with 4 different name stickers: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis.
IIRC, there were originally going to be at least 6 (The Air Force was also supposed to get a few of their own).
And despite the media often saying that Enterprise "was not designed for orbital flight", recent stories have confirmed that it WAS in fact designed to be fitted with engines and join the fleet, but by the time Columbia flew materials technology had advanced and the post-Columbia shuttles were lighter and thus could carry a greater payload. NASA decided it was not worth the cost of fitting engines to Enterprise if all they would get was a shuttle identical to Columbia.
When Challenger was destroyed, the idea of fitting Enterprise with engines came up again, but it was decided instead to build a state-of-the-art shuttle out of spare parts (nearly a complete airframe existed as spares), so we got Endeavour.

 

[kitsune]

They closest they ever had to an official design name was "the Space Shuttle Program."

If anything, it could be called the OV-class.

Enterprise is OV-99, but there was also an OV-98, Pathfinder, but it was only a structural mockup.

 

[kitsune]

IIRC, there were originally going to be at least 6 (The Air Force was also supposed to get a few of their own).

Indeed, the USAF even went as far as building a shuttle launch facility at Vandenberg, at a cost of over $4 billion.

 

[C.E. Evans]

They closest they ever had to an official design name was "the Space Shuttle Program."

If anything, it could be called the OV-class.

Yeah, I referred to it as such in a space story I wrote once, but then I realized later that might only work if the term "orbiter vehicle" was never used again after the shuttles are retired. It may be possible for a future shuttle to be OV-301 (just as an example) and look nothing like the current day shuttle.

Enterprise is OV-99, but there was also an OV-98, Pathfinder, but it was only a structural mockup.

Aha, more interesting stuff I didn't know about the Shuttle Program! An unflown proof-of-design prototype.

OV-098 Pathfinder (mock-up)
OV-101 Enterprise (working prototype)
OV-102 Columbia (first in space)
OV-099 Challenger (originally STA-099)

 

[publiusr]

Yeah, if Russia hadn't left most of theirs outside to get snowed on.
IIRC, the one Buran that was being stored indoors had the building collapse on it due to an abject lack of maintenance, too. A tragic waste.
I remember a space program engineer who said of Buran, "Anyone who says the Russians ripped off our design just isn't paying attention: they've improved it."

I think they may have had more mock-ups...

 

[Therin of Andor]

At least they aren't being scrapped, although they could've made Enterprise space capable and let her have one mission in space before retirement.

Read the ST novel, "A Flag Full of Stars" by Brad Ferguson. IIRC.