The Ford Rouge River plant has been used to produce 28 vehicle models, and continues to be used -today manufacturing aluminum Ford F-150 bodies. But, little remembered today, the factory was not originally built to make automobiles, but to manufacture ships for the US Navy.
On August 12, 1977 the space shuttle Enterprise made its first free flight. That is, it was detached from its Boeing 747 "Shuttle Carrier Aircraft” and let fly. It is difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that this vehicle that once was, to me, the symbol of the future is now, itself, history. That is, perhaps, as ironic as the fact that the First Space Shuttle, Enterprise, never went to space.