The USS Enterprise is , in popular imaginativeness , a futurist spaceship . The literal USS Enterprise model used on the Star Trek show is , in reality , a 50 - year - old creaker that has hold out at least one ill-conceived young paint caper . The Smithsonian is unvoiced at workrestoring the fashion model , though , and they ’ve even drive the National Zoo ’s ex-serviceman techs involved .
In aninterview with TrekCore , the Smithsonian ’s conservator Margaret Weitekamp dropped some fascinating speck about how the return is going . The good example was donate to the Smithsonian five years after the show was canceled , and it had been on display at the Air and Space Museum . originally this year , they started to regenerate the sagging , stress - fractured model in earnest , boldly going where no conservator has kick the bucket before .
One of the first thing the conservators did was bring in in X - ray veterinary techs from the Smithsonian ’s National Zoo . Weitekamp explains TrekCore :
The Enterprise has been X - rayed before , but that was done by sending it out for analysis . This is an opportunity – since the Zoological Park squad had a portable skiagraphy whole – to bring the equipment in house and redeem us the trouble of having to move the model an extra metre .
It was really interesting . you could get a good common sense of the Department of the Interior ; all of the little penny nails and thing like that . I ’m excited to get some of that imagery back . It comes in very tumid files that are specific to the scanning system that they have ; they are in the process of convert them to a more standardized picture Indian file that we can use when work out with the mannikin .
Ultraviolet photo of the spaceship model . course credit : Smithsonian ’s National Air & Space Museum .
In the 90s , an earlier endeavour to restore the model run to new detailing and blusher , which is a bounteous no - no in modern preservation . So now , the museum also has to figure out how to undo its own mistake . More from Weitekamp at TrekCore :
The museum has been doing its own work and rating which has included using UV twinkle to break down the paint , and to figure out where we have clearly repaint areas and where we have area that seem to be more uniform in their paint . The top of the discus division , for model , run us to believe that it is original pigment – it all fluoresce in the same style .
There ’s enough more to nerd out over atTrekCore . As for the model itself , wait to see it on display again in its former aureole in 2016 , just in time for the original series ’ fiftieth day of remembrance . [ TrekCore ]
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