Intrepid to display shuttle prototype

New York, we have liftoff.

The Enterprise, a prototype for NASA's space shuttle program, will be displayed at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum beginning next year, NASA said Tuesday to wild applause and cheering at the museum on Manhattan's West Side.

The vessel will be displayed in a glass enclosure at the end of Pier 86 and is expected to attract about 1 million new museum visitors each year.

The Enterprise exhibit "will be magnificent," said museum president Susan Marenoff-Zausner, who popped Champagne in celebration. "You'll be able to see it from the highway, from the air, from New Jersey."

The Intrepid museum went up against 29 institutions to become a permanent home to one of the four remaining space shuttles. Museum officials had launched an online petition and aggressive Facebook and Twitter campaigns, while Democratic New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer lobbied on its behalf.

The Enterprise, which was ferried into the air on the back of a jumbo jet and confirmed shuttles could glide to safe landings, never flew in space. Named for the Enterprise of "Star Trek" fame, it will be used to teach children about the space shuttle program as it ends a 30-year run, Marenoff-Zausner said.

"Just knowing the U.S. has been a leader in space for so long will inspire the next generation," said Navy veteran and museum volunteer Thomas Jost, 71, of New Hyde Park. "We'd never let our children forget what we've accomplished."

Intrepid museum and NASA officials are hashing out details of when and how the Enterprise will get to New York, but many young visitors Tuesday were excited about the exhibit.

"I will tell all my friends to come to New York," said Kiley Culkin, 9, a fourth-grader from Kauai, Hawaii, who watched the announcement at the museum.

Her brother Cameron, 8, said he hopes to be an astronaut if the space program continues. "I'd like being able to float around in space," the second-grader said.

Also Tuesday, NASA awarded Atlantis to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Endeavour to the California Science Center in Los Angeles and Discovery to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's branch outside Washington.

NASA's cost to prepare and ship each shuttle is estimated at $42 million, and several news reports indicate those expenses are being passed along to each museum.

An Atlantis flight scheduled for the end of June is expected to be the final shuttle mission.