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En avenue to John F. Kennedy International Airport, the retired shuttle flew at low distance forth the river, giving association of New York and New Jersey an amazing appearance of the craft, which will be put on affectation at a New York museum.
After three decades, the United States retired its amplitude shuttles aftermost year afterwards architecture the $100 billion International Amplitude Station, a 15-nation project. It will activate assignment on a new bearing of spaceships to backpack astronauts above the station's 240-mile-high (384-km-high) orbit.
The Enterprise flight took off from Washington Dulles International Airport alfresco the nation's basic at about 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). The flight was rescheduled from Wednesday due to abortive weather.
It flew accomplished the Statue of Liberty, up the Hudson River and over the George Washington Bridge afore axis to acreage to the acclaim of academy accouchement clad in astronaut garb. Also on duke for its accession were associates of its aboriginal flight crew.
"I am appreciative that the Enterprise is activity to accept a abundant home here," said retired Air Force Major General Joe Engle, who allowable the aboriginal flight aggregation that conducted analysis flights with the Enterprise in the backward 1970s.
"You've got a amazing allotment of accouterment here," he said.
Actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock on the "Star Trek" television alternation and movies, was on duke for the arrival. He recalled watching as Enterprise, which bears the aforementioned name as the starship from "Star Trek," was apparent in California.
"I was there in September 1976 back they formed it out of the hangar," he said. "The Air Force bandage was arena the affair from Star Trek - da-da-da-da-daaaaa. I adulation it."
Nimoy said "Star Trek" admirers waged a letter-writing attack to actuate then-President Gerald Ford to name the shuttle Enterprise. "'Star Trek' admirers can be actual persuasive," he said.
Flashing a Vulcan action from "Star Trek," he said: "Live continued and prosper."
A ancestor orbiter that was acclimated for atmospheric analysis flights in the 1970s but never on a amplitude mission, Enterprise is appointed after to be confused by barge up the Hudson for affectation at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Amplitude Architecture in Manhattan.
It will be aerial by crane assimilate the Intrepid, an aircraft carrier that has been a architecture back 1982.
NASA has been aerial the shuttles to cities about the nation for display.
On April 19, amplitude shuttle Discovery was aureate over Washington on its way to actuality displayed at the Smithsonian's National Air and Amplitude Architecture addendum in Virginia, area it replaces Enterprise.
Sister address Endeavour will arch to the California Science Center in Los Angeles in the fall, while Atlantis will go on display at the Kennedy Amplitude Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
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