WASHINGTON — So what if it never flew into space? The retired space shuttle Enterprise, NASA’s test orbiter, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The orbiter, now at New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, becomes the first space shuttle to receive the honorary designation.

The National Park Service described the orbiter as “exceptionally significant” because of its role in the shuttle program.


New York landed the Enterprise after a fierce national competition for the retired shuttles.

Endeavour went to the California Science Center in Los Angeles, Discovery to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum’s annex in northern Virginia and Atlantis to Kennedy Space Center’s visitor complex in Florida.


“As the first and only full-scale prototype of the orbiter fleet, the Enterprise is the only resource of its kind,” according to the 71-page nomination form. “Enterprise paved the way for the other five orbiters to make their own marks on history.”

NASA suggested that the first shuttle be named Constitution, the nomination form notes, but Star Trek fans conducted a write-in campaign to urge President Gerald Ford to name it after the starship from the TV show.


The National Register of Historic Places encompasses more than 88,000 entries, among them buildings, objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering and culture.

ALSO:


Three dead, including gunman at Quantico base

Paralyzed Iraq veteran prepares to take his own life


Suspect in Colo. prison chief shooting may have ties to prison gang

richard.simon@latimes.com