11' USS Enterprise to join NASM "Milestones of Flight"

[Robert Comsol]

I apologize if this looks like double-posting, but although I posted the link in the 11-footer Enterprise VFX model thread - where the current location of our cherised starship in the National Air and Space Museum basement was an issue we talked about - I have the impression that these exciting news haven't been noticed by those who might be interested, so here I go again:

The National Air & Space Museum announced this week that as part of the museum's fortieth anniversary in 2016, the Enterprise model will be one of several acquisitions moved to the popular Milestones of Flight exhibit which greets visitors at the main entrance to the building.

This 3.4 meter (11-foot) model of the fictional Starship Enterprise will go on display in the reimagined Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall. 'Star Trek' pushed the boundaries of network television with its depiction of a mixed-sex, racially-integrated, multinational crew and its attention to contemporary social and political issues.
It will join other significant artifacts in this gallery to showcase the importance of popular culture's influence on society.

http://trekcore.com/blog/2014/04/or...in-smithsonian-air-space-museum-exhibit-hall/

From the basement straight to the main reception. That's a nice and overdue promotion, but the next two years are a golden opportunity for an accurate restoration. It's now or never!

Bob
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[Christopher]

Great! I think that's restoring it to where it was when I first saw it on a school trip there.

 

[Mudd]

The internal politics of this thing are always fascinating.

 

[Joe_Atari]

'Star Trek' pushed the boundaries of network television with its depiction of a mixed-sex, racially-integrated, multinational crew and its attention to contemporary social and political issues.

Gag.

 

[Maurice]

I sometimes think it would better belong in The National Museum of American History, alongside Archie Bunker's Chair, etc. rather than in Air & Space. Regardless, it would be nice if they could actually afford to do a proper restoration.

 

[Robert Comsol]

If I were to have any say so on the matter I'd give the 11-footer to the museum that commits itself to an accurate restoration.

But considering the lunar plaque and the "for all mankind" theme on display at the NASM, I'd say the 11' Enterprise nicely matches that kind of theme, there.

Bob

 

[Mudd]

I sometimes think it would better belong in The National Museum of American History, alongside Archie Bunker's Chair, etc. rather than in Air & Space.

That's where it really does belong, yes.

 

[Christopher]

I think people forget how influential Star Trek was on the space program in its heyday. Many people were inspired to become engineers or astronauts because of Star Trek. It promoted public interest in the space program, which was valuable for NASA.

Besides, the Enterprise has been in the NASM since the 1970s. If they decided it was worth displaying there back then, when the space program was a more immediate reality, why should we second-guess their judgment now?

 

[trevanian]

I think people forget how influential Star Trek was on the space program in its heyday. Many people were inspired to become engineers or astronauts because of Star Trek. It promoted public interest in the space program, which was valuable for NASA.

Besides, the Enterprise has been in the NASM since the 1970s. If they decided it was worth displaying there back then, when the space program was a more immediate reality, why should we second-guess their judgment now?

There are more options for it now, for one thing. And while the manned space program was still active then, it was already well into the enormous decline that eventually got us to where we are now -- nowhere.

There was also more of a back-and-forth connection with NASA at that point, with the moon rocks and gloves being loaned for conventions and VonPuttkamer's active involvement on TMP.

 

[Maurice]

We second-guess things all the time, so as an argument that's a non-starter. Plus, NASM moved the ship to the BASEMENT of the gift shop, which hardly speaks of respect for it.

 

[trevanian]

I guess that's the equivalent of being assigned to the bowels of the ship, so yeah, that doesn't sound so hot.

 

[Christopher]

We second-guess things all the time, so as an argument that's a non-starter. Plus, NASM moved the ship to the BASEMENT of the gift shop, which hardly speaks of respect for it.

Not the basement, just the downstairs level. "Basement" implies an area inaccessible to the public, but both floors of the gift shop have plenty of merchandise and display items to attract customer traffic. It's not the most auspicious or accessible place to display it, which is why I'm glad they're finally returning it to prominence, but it's no basement.

And considering that they're now going to move it back to the Milestones of Flight exhibit, I think that disproves the notion of a lack of "respect." Museums have finite space, so they have to make choices about what to display prominently, what to tuck away in available spaces, and what to store in their collections behind the scenes. But museum curators have great respect for the large numbers of artifacts in their collections that aren't easily accessible to the public, because museums are about research and preservation, not just peep shows. Regardless of where the Enterprise miniature is displayed, the NASM curators chose to keep it as part of their own collection rather than handing it off to another museum.

 

[Nebusj]

I think people forget how influential Star Trek was on the space program in its heyday. Many people were inspired to become engineers or astronauts because of Star Trek. It promoted public interest in the space program, which was valuable for NASA.

It's also important to note that the mythology and public perceptions of space flight have always been an important component of understanding space history. You can not understand the cultural significance of Sputnik, Neil Armstrong, or space stations without knowing something of Jules Verne, Buck Rogers, and Colliers magazine, and the Enterprise model is a part of that lineage.

(I also note somewhat crankily that by standards of scientific accomplishment and economic utility this is the current heyday of the space program.)

 

[Maurice]

You can split nomenclature hairs, but the fact that they stuck it in the easily missed lower level of the gift shop (the escalator is in the back corner) means it ranked lower than much of the merchandise they were selling upstairs. Likely as management of NASM changes what they consider worthy of display prominence changes as well.

 

[Robert Comsol]

We still do acknowledge that the 11' Enterprise is a product of Hollywood fiction opposite to real and historic vehicles and items (original or recreated)?

While she is very "real" and dear to us, we cannot expect the general public to feel the same. From an objective point of view we couldn't possibly expect the NASM to move the Enterprise "up" and a real artifact "down" to take its previous place.

That they nevertheless are committed to do this, is rather remarkable, IMHO.

Bob

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I'm satisfied with any placement that exposes the miniature to more visitors. I'll leave it up to the public to debate the cultural value of that miniature, or TOS.

 

[Robert Comsol]

The sheer size of it should impress some people that would otherwise probably have believed it was a small model ("Look at the size of that thing")

IIRC there were never that many and really big VFX spacecraft models. The only other big one that comes instantly to my mind is the Rodger Young from "Starship Troopers".

Bob

 

[GSchnitzer]

The sheer size of it should impress some people that would otherwise probably have believed it was a small model ("Look at the size of that thing")

IIRC there were never that many and really big VFX spacecraft models. The only other big one that comes instantly to my mind is the Rodger Young from "Starship Troopers".

Bob

The model of Discovery One for 2001: A Space Odyssey was over 50 feet long.

 

[trevanian]

The sheer size of it should impress some people that would otherwise probably have believed it was a small model ("Look at the size of that thing")

IIRC there were never that many and really big VFX spacecraft models. The only other big one that comes instantly to my mind is the Rodger Young from "Starship Troopers".

Bob

While there was an 18' RODGER for some shots (the rock-tears-antenna sequence), most of them featured a ship that was probably half that. It used to be in Sony Imageworks' lobby, don't know about where it is now.

Just off the top of my head, the EVENT HORIZON was about 28' and the MISSION TO MARS ship was well over 20' ... the RED PLANET ship (which is barely even seen in the movie, most of the shots were CG because they couldn't find a stage where they could get far enough back to shoot the thing) was over 20, and SUPERNOVA's ship was nearly that.

I've never understood how people could ever think the TOS Ent was small in shots of the 11 footer. There's an aspect to model photography that is never discussed, which I usually have trouble coming up with the right words to describe. It is the way a model coming to camera will overflow the field of view of the camera, and to me it is one of the most critical aspects of model photography. It is especially damning with respect to the TNG 4 footer, which announces its size to me whenever the ship does a flyby. It isn't so noticeable with the 6 ft model, and with TOS, the ship just seems grand-sized when it flies into camera, because there is so much of the leading dish overflowing the field of view as the sensor dish thingie comes to fill the frame.

This is also a good argument for doing scaled-up parts of ships for shots that would involve a big tiltup, because with a small model, you can't get close enough to get that vertigo effect you'd have if you looked up at a big real ship in dock, but if you built a 20 ft section of the TMP ship that just was the bottom half of one side of the dish, the strut and the top section of engineering (a stretch limo on steroids version of the little wax thing they did for the canopener shot in TWOK), you could have sold the travel pod approach with just one or two shots and gotten even more a sense of the ship's size than you got in the film (not that I'm knocking the Trumbull work at all.)

Since around the time of STAR WARS (and in plenty of instances before it as well), the thought has usually been to use wide angle lenses to get great depth of field to get close to miniatures, and just detail the hell out of them and do them as small as possible (hence the star destroyer in ANH that is only 3' long, a remarkable accomplishment both in its building and how it was shot.)

But the distortion of wide angle lenses does give this away at times, as does the issue of getting TOO close and seeing too much of the wrong texture of the model. 2001 avoided this by using really great still camera lenses that were actually longer rather than wider, so they actually were shooting them with more of a telephoto, which created a sense of space between the ship and camera that actually ties in with the feel you get looking at a real ship like I mentioned above. It meant enormous amounts of time to shoot each frame because of tiny depth of field, but 2001's results are still staggering.

Gee, when I read that post I thought I was only going to mention the EVENT HORIZON ...

 

[Maurice]

Speaking of big models, the Valley Forge in Silent Running was something like 27' long.