| abstract | - Shortly after the opening, the exhibit expanded in conjunction with the recent release of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and production assets, most notably several studio models, from that production were added to the exhibit. Visitors to the exhibit had the chance to view the film on an omnimax film screen. Having been the first large specialized Star Trek exhibit, garnering ample contemporary media coverage at the time, the exhibition turned out to be a runaway success. Smithsonian's former "Star Trek and the Sixties"-exhibit Advisory Curator H. Bruce Franklin has recalled in this respect, "When "Star Trek and the Sixties" opened, it turned out to be the most popular exhibition in the history of the Air and Space Museum, which had to issue tickets to control the huge influx of people [note: admittance to the Smithsonian museums is usually free, both in movement as well as in fees]. After more than a million people attended in Washington, the exhibition traveled to the Hayden Planetarium in New York City's American Museum of Natural History to be seen by another huge audience." (Star Trek and History, Chapter 6) The extended exhibition at the Hayden Planetarium opened in July 1993, running until 6 March 1994. At the planetarium, the exhibit was combined with the "Star Trek sky show", actually the Star Trek: Orion Rendezvous planetarium show as produced by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in 1992. [1] While supported by it, it should be noted that this exhibit was neither produced nor organized by the official franchise, but a purely Smithsonian initiative. It was only after the resounding success of the exhibit that the franchise took over firm control over exhibitions, starting with the 1993 Star Trek Earth Tour. It was not the first time the Smithsonian Institution recognized the cultural significance of Gene Roddenberry's creation; in a rare move – considering the highly contemporary nature of a television series of such recent date – , the Institution invited Roddenberry already in 1967 to submit the original pilots, "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (the rare, original production variant, never seen again, aside from convention bootleg showings, after its submission to NBC at the tail-end of 1965, until the 2009 TOS Season 3 Blu-ray release), and assorted production material, such as still photography, scripts and story outlines, for save-keeping for posterity. This the consummate (self)promoter Roddenberry did in a formal presentation at the Institution, after the Original Series' first season had finished production, with the print materials showing up at the display twenty-five years later. ("Smithsonian Seeks TV Pilot", Los Angeles Times, 13 June 1967, p. C19)
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