On September 17, 1976, the first space shuttle rolled out of the California factory. It was the Enterprise, which was used for testing but never flew to space. The other Enterprise crew attended the unveiling of the mighty spacecraft.
Clearly, the coolest one is Dr McCoy. He is so into it, with his awesome suit and turtleneck and black notebook. Nimoy looks like a teen “smiling like he just cherrybombed the principal’s office toilet”, according to Mark Wilson. Sulu looks happily into the horizon, like Scotty. Uhura looks tiny and smiley, and Roddenberry… well, Roddenberry just looks to infinity and beyond, as he used to. The only one who looks out of character is Chekov. He’s just there, all grumbly.
But where is Shatner? He probably didn’t attend, because he’s too cool for school. Or maybe he was banging a NASA girl in the shuttle bay, who knows. But all is forgiven: At least he went back to NASA to record the last wake up call for Discovery.
The Enterprise is now at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. It will be replaced by Discovery soon. [Thanks Ruben!]