Space shuttle Enterprise sails Hudson river towards new home at museum

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/07/space-shuttle-enterprise-intrepid

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New Yorkers lined the city's West Side waterfront to welcome the space shuttle Enterprise as it sailed up the Hudson river on Wednesday to its new home aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

The prototype space shuttle rode a barge from Jersey City, New Jersey, to the Intrepid, where it was being hoisted by crane onto the flight deck.

A flotilla of vessels including a police boat, a fire department boat and a yellow taxi boat accompanied the Enterprise as it sailed past the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center site and other landmarks en route to the Intrepid in midtown Manhattan.

The Enterprise's original move-in date was Tuesday. Organizers said Monday that bad weather had delayed preparation work. The shuttle was towed to New Jersey from Kennedy airport on Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the Intrepid museum said the shuttle's wingtip sustained light cosmetic damage during the Sunday trip when a gust of wind caused it to graze a wood piling.

Enterprise was originally going to be named Constitution in honor of the bicentennial of the US constitution. But a fierce letter-writing campaign by Star Trek fans convinced the White House to name it Enterprise after the fictitious spaceship flown by Captain Kirk and Mr Spock.

It comes to New York as part of Nasa's decision to end the shuttle program after 30 years. It is scheduled to open to the public in mid-July.