Smithsonian - Enterprise

Wayyyy back when NASA was designing the Shuttle, Star Trek fans started a huge campaign to have the first one named Enterprise. That plan was successful in the naming, but it resulted in the first test flight vehicle receiving the Enterprise name.

Enterprise was a test vehicle. All systems (computer, hydraulic, power generation, power distribution, control surfaces) had to be tested, as well as aerodynamics, structural integrity, gliding, handling and so forth. It's loaded with sensors, such as temperature and strain. It has never had "real" engines mounted in it, it was never sent into space (nor will it ever be sent into space). It was "launched" from the back of the 747's NASA uses to move the orbiters around. For the first landings it didn't even have landing wheels, but used skids instead.

It was one of two vehicles to have ejection seats (Columbia, the first orbiter to go into space, also had ejection seats for the first few flights - these were removed when Columbia entered regular service).

As a long-time follower of space programs, I knew the dimensions, weight, various capacities, unique manufacturing techniques etc. of the shuttles - but until I saw it in person I never realized just how honking huge these vehicles are. NASM also has Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules nearby - you can put a Mercury capsule into the back of a pickup truck, those things were tiny!

As you first enter the "Space Exploration" wing the SR71 would be immediately behind you. Rockest are ahead on the right, and the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo capsules are ahead on the right. And dead ahead is Enterprise.

Only a wannabe pilot would take a picture of the nose gear. The entire shuttle flight, including the landings, can be flown by the onboard computers (and for many phases of flight the flying must be done by the computers, as humans don't react quickly enough), but the gear bays can be opened, and the gear lowered, only by the onboard crew manually flipping a switch - the wires don't (normally) exist so the onboard computers cannot get that command to the hardware. There is no gear retraction capability, so the inadvertant deployment of the landing gear (for example, due to a computer program bug) would be an uncorrectable error, resulting in the guaranteed loss of the vehicle and crew upon re-entry. Recently the shuttles have been equipped with a short cable, so that if there is a major heat shield problem the cable would be installed, the shuttle would return unmanned (the crew would stay behind on the ISS if that was in the flight profile) with this little cable between here&there - so the gear can be deployed by computer

You can see the thickness of the tiles - about 6 inches IIRC.

The entry/egress hatch is on the left front side of the vehicle - at the round red dot below, behind the scaffolding. The crew-inhabitable section of the orbiter is the tile-covered area at the front, to the left of the "Enterprise" (you can see the lines of the cargo bay doors). The crew compartment is on three levels, with the lowest level being storage. On a full shuttle the flight deck carries 4 individuals, and four more (normally only three more) ride on the second level.

And below we have one the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME). Pound-for-pound, these are some of the most powerful engines ever built. Their fuel, lquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, flows into the shuttle through a 17" diameter pipe, and is then divided between the three engines. The fuelmixing/burning chamber is about 10" in diameter - the size of a basketball. Most of the burn is in the nozzle. One of the common questions on the newsgroup sci.space.shuttle asked about wearing a space suit and hitching a ride into space. It wouldn't work - the noise level in the engine chamber would turn you into jelly within a few seconds.