Enterprise crew at the Shuttle Enterprise, 1976

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To boldly go....

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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adamrice

Is it possible to squeeze any more nerd-melancholy into one photo?

No. It is not.
Anonymous

My goodness, Nemoy looks so young in this photo.
xunker

No Shatner?
IronyElemental

DeForest Kelley: Turtleneck and Chain
Blunderbutt

Sure, those suits look funny to us today. But by the time we get our next shuttle program going, everybody will be laughing at our archaic tradition of wearing pants.
- Jack
  
  So, you are a â€œskantâ€ fan?
  http://www.geeksix.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/star-trek-mens-skirt.png
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    I don’t know about Blunderbutt, but I’m not a big fan of the “skant”; at my age, a toga or even a mu-mu is more flattering.
- penguinchris
  
  I don’t mean to knock the guys because this really shouldn’t matter, but I’m watching the live feed from the shuttle landing and the mission control dude fashion of today is “dorky IT dude” to the max.
  
  Today people “dress up” for work but don’t really understand what they’re doing or how the clothes should fit, so they look sloppy (at best). Of course, this is because the standard of “casual” dress has drastically changed and we no longer regularly wear suits or sport jackets (unfortunately). Most people today would look a *lot* better – and more professional – in casual clothes (not too casual of course) that they’re comfortable wearing while at work.
  
  These guys in the photo (including just the random guys in suits, I don’t mean the expensively tailored actors) look EPIC in comparison.
Garrett Fitzgerald

Koenig wrote about that day, too, in his book Chekov’s Enterprise, a diary of his experiences filming Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Pretty cool look inside his head. :-)
Anonymous

…to the Copa Cabana?

…where no tailor has gone before, man?

Tour guide (to Bones): “Those little blue ones – about this high, with the funny heads – what planet did they come from again?”
Bones: “Seriously, it was just a TV show. We weren’t REALLY in space.”

It might just be my poor eyesight, but where’s Jim? And who are the two dudes (and they are DEFINITELY dudes, in those suits) 2nd and 3rd from right, between Chekov and Spock? I think that Scotty is the bearded one lurking behind Sulu and Uhura.

Update: I think the one in the brown is Gene Roddenberry.
ncm

The joke was on the ST-TOS fans: that bird never flew.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Well, sort of. Never made it into space, anyway. But certainly did fly a couple of times.
  
  Unless you’re referring to the NCC-1701, of course, which would be funny as hell mounted to the top of a 747.
  
  As for the picture, man, those trouser creases are slicing my EEEEYYYYYEEEEESSS!!!!
subspaceeddy

Where’s Captain Kirk?
“Frankly Scotty I find this whole fucking episode quite irrational…”
- Maneki Nico
  
  I was beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise
  What I felt what I saw was a total surprise
  I looked around and wondered can this be?
  Or is this the start of my insanity?
  
  Oh but it’s true
  As we went warp factor 2
  And I met all of the crew
  Where’s Captain Kirk?
  
  I went to the bridge and we were tossed about
  In the storm of a vortex I was hit with a doubt
  I saw in a dream in a memory of mine
  Was it you was it me who was in all the time
  
  Spock pulled me through
  As we went warp factor 2
  And someone I saw I knew
  Who’s Captain Kirk?
  
  So when I awoke from the dangers of space
  I looked and I saw a familiar face
  The time warp in space made a change in me
  For I was the captain and the captain was me
  
  Yes it’s so true
  As we went warp factor 2
  The changes I have been through
  As Captain Kirk
  I’m Captain Kirk
  
  Oh it’s so true
  As we went warp factor 2
  The changes I have been through
  As Captain Kirk
  I’m Captain Kirk
  
  Where’s Spock?
- hobomike
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvvHVbLt0J8
Nemo1

It’s 1976
We’re standing here posing for pix
We’re wearing our boots
and our leisure suits
with bell bottoms thrown into the mix.
Donald Petersen

By the way, dig the faint wide plaid on ol’ Jim Broadbent’s threads there between Koenig and The Bird. I’m having a hard time keeping my mind’s eye from picturing the whole crew heading into DeForest Kelley’s hot tub after the meet & greet.
Tony

George Takei has a funny anecdote about that very day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJBd2zxsou0 I wish there was video of the speech and Nimoy’s interruption!
- CH
  
  Awww… thanks for that link!!! Any Trekkie should watch that video! And after that this video, from amout 1:05 forward: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2015616n
someToast

Also, thanks TinEye for finding a big version! Â : )

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/67680main_enterprise_trek_full.jpg
Jack

And this is a pretty cool remembrance of the day from George Takei:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJBd2zxsou0
St_Mediocrity

To boldly go where no International Man of Mystery has gone before!
wrybread

To boldly wear…
Anonymous

You can’t knock that kind of style. Bones is ROCKING that suit.
Glossolalia Black

From left to right:
Dr. James D. Fletcher, NASA Administrator
DeForest Kelley
George Takei
James Doohan
Nichelle Nichols
Leonard Nimoy
Gene Rodenberry
Walter Koenig
penguinchris

Oh, and Spock definitely won this fashion-wise – pull in the trouser flare a tad and he’d look sharp as heck strutting around NYC or LA in 2011.

But, check out Bones’ vomit-yellow shoes! Points for trying to pull that off, anyway.
ric

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/07/pictures/110720-best-unforgettable-space-shuttle-pictures/?source=link_fb20110722unforgettableshutllepictures#/best-unforgettable-space-shuttle-pictures-star-trek_37690_600x450.jpg I prefer this shot for some reason.
Ernunnos

Those clothes are so Takei.

Which is ironic, ’cause apart from the two-tone shoes, George is looking relatively staid and conservative there.
facetedjewel

Do your worst making fun of the fashion then, but I’d have given my right ovary to be there. I graduated from high school that year. The 76er’s still rule!
hassenpfeffer

Um, Dee Kelley’s ensemble isn’t much different from the “Starfleet civilian” clothes he wore in “Search for Spock”…
frijole

I find the lyrics to the TOS soundtrack particularly appropriate:

Beyond the rim of the star-light
My love is wandâ€™ring in star-flight
I know heâ€™ll find in star-clustered reaches
Love, strange love a star woman teaches.
I know his journey ends never
His star trek will go on forever.
But tell him while he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.
- Felton / Moderator
  
  Heh! I’ve got the sheet music for that somewhere.
Kosmoid

Split infinitive!
lava

Where’s Kirk? My good man, he is on the Enterprise in the Chair.
randomguy

Kirk:

We need to take an Away Team to the surface of the planet. Spock, Bones and…Disco Stu! You’re with me.
Anonymous

did anybody back then not wear bell bottoms
lava

and btw, the Enterprise did fly, just not into space. It was used for the first glide and landing test, launched from the back of the 747 transport plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-YNcwc1ZME
Chairboy

Of interest, the Enterprise actually WAS supposed to be used as a flying spacecraft. They built it, then during the testing process, there were some design changes to the frame that significantly cut weight. It was determined that it would cost less to use a shuttle frame that had originally been built for destructive stress testing than it would be to take the Enterprise apart enough to implement the weight-saving changes.

So they took this bare framework and turned it into a flying vehicle and it was named ‘Challenger’.
Anonymous

The big guy in the brown leisure suit is Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek.
WalterBillington

I maintain to this day they had photon torpedo assemblies and phaser guns behind the nose-cone holes.
Gyrofrog

Man ‘em’s some action slax
ValuedRug

Everybody remember where we parked!
Anonymous

I almost forgot,… the 70′s really sucked.
Murray Silverstone

Could the as-yet-unidentified figure between Roddenberry and Koenig be Robert Justman? http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Robert_Justman

Original NASA photo here: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-001363.html