NASA Udvar-Hazy Center

Stella flew into DC for the holidays. We spent Christmas at Lisa's parents house, before returning to DC. Before Stella flew out, we visited the NASA Udvar Hazy Center. This is a new Smithsonian facility that opened near Dulles Airport in Chantilly, VA. It is 2.5 football fields in length and has over 300 aircrafts including an Air France Concorde, SR-71 Blackbird, the Enola Gay, and the spaceshuttle Enterprise. The Enterprise, shown here, has an interesting history. Although it was the first NASA space shuttle, it never flew a mission in space. It was originally designed without heat shields or engines and simply was used for test flights in the atmosphere. Columbia was the first shuttle to fly amongst the stars. NASA had planned to retro-fit Enterprise with all the bells and whistles needed for an eventual space mission, but due to final design changes that had occurred when building Columbia, the cost to soup up the Enterprise was deemed to be too expensive, and it was more cost effective to build the Challenger instead. It's hard to believe the construction of Enterprise started in 1974, and its first flight took place several years later.

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