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In the fall of 1974, the Smithsonian opened a new exhibit. “Life in the Universe” premiered in the old Arts & Industries Building before taking up permanent residence in the new National Air and Space Museum that opened on the National Mall two years later. Featured in the exhibit was the original 11-foot production model of the USS Enterprise used in the filming of the television series.

As Durant explained: “Our interest in acquiring Star Trek memorabilia relates to the study of the influence of science fiction upon future technological development. We believe that consideration of science fiction is relevant to current and future accomplishments in space.”

The approval of NASA, the aerospace community, and finally, the Smithsonian Institution lent Star Trek an unlikely cachet that has helped the franchise to—to borrow a phrase—live long and prosper. After other, higher-rated television shows of the same era were forgotten, Star Trek found new life. “We were kind of the NASA connection; the NASA fantasy and the show that NASA watched,” Nimoy recalled in The Star Trek Interview Book.

Credible and inspirational both, Star Trek became a favorite among subsequent generations of astronomers and spacefarers. In 2015, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who hadn’t even been born when Star Trek was canceled in 1969, tweeted a photo of herself wearing a Star Trek uniform in the cupola of the International Space Station. James B. Garvin, who became chief scientist at NASA Goddard decades after Nimoy’s 1967 visit and remains one of the top minds behind the agency’s Mars Exploration Program, grew up on Trek and made a point of watching the entire Star Trek: Voyager series one summer with his kids.

When the National Air and Space Museum celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2016, the newly restored Enterprise studio model—which for years had been kept on display in the basement level of the Museum’s gift shop—was moved to a more prominent location, in the Museum’s Milestones of Flight Hall near its Independence Avenue entrance. The “five-year mission” of inspiration it set out upon in 1966 remains, as of 2021, ongoing.