I work on Warp Drive.
Yes, I can make that statement with a straight face because it’s true! Although, it might not be the kind of warp drive that gets us exploring distant planets any quicker than we can today. But if you happen to live or work or drive through State Route 28 in Loudoun County, Northern Virginia, or if you’re a Star Trek fan that has seen the picture of the sign on the internet, you know that it’s a road that is in fact named “Warp Drive” and it’s home to a campus of buildings that have worked to develop satellites and rockets for the last couple of decades.
And yes, I work there.
If you drive by today, you’ll see that currently there is a Northrop Grumman (NG) facility occupying that space. NG has some ties in their history to Star Trek, and lots of ties to real-life space travel.
But before that facility sported Northrop Grumman’s logo, we were another company: Orbital Sciences Corporation (that eventually became Orbital ATK before NG acquired us).
I worked for Orbital for a few years in the late 90’s and again since 2009. (My resume is up on LinkedIn.) I remember when I first came to work there. I assumed everyone was like me: a massive Trekkie drawn into the industry by the TV show. Nope. Turns out I was the odd one out! Yeah, there were a few Trekkies here and there, but we were (and still are) the exception, not the default.
However, our founder and CEO, David W. Thompson, was and is a big Star Trek fan, particularly of TNG. Because of that, there are a couple of fun tie-ins between the company and Trek.
On the most recent Captain Picard Day, I was thinking that I had a memory that the TNG episode “The Pegasus,” which spawned the day, had some connection to our company’s Pegasus Rocket. When I couldn’t find what I thought I remembered on the internet, I reached out to Dave for clarification. He has since retired, but was more than happy to take me down memory lane.
Here are the three stories that came out of my exchange with Dave, who graciously agreed to let me recount them here:
1. Warp Drive
In some ways, this story isn’t terribly exciting. It was a straightforward matter of dealing with the local department of transportation and the county. The original name of the road was Steeplechase Drive and there was a light at the intersection of Steeplechase and State Route 28, a few miles north of the Dulles International Airport. I spent many a morning sitting at that light waiting for that green turn signal.
VDOT (Virginia Dept. of Transportation) had been working their way up Route 28 for a while, getting rid of all the lights on the road. Removing the light at the Steeplechase intersection would “land lock” our campus making it more difficult to get in or out. Dave tells me that he was able to appeal to the powers in the county with the following deal: they would intercede with VDOT to keep the entrance ramp open if the company paid for a deceleration lane and a banked curve — and we would get to rename the road from Steeplechase to Warp Drive as part of that deal.
I’ve worked there since it was Steeplechase and the name change was exciting. I get to say: “I work on Warp Drive” with a straight face (often adding: “No, really! It says so on my business card!”) It’s also pretty neat that George Takei even posted the image on social media several years ago! Every now and then someone re-discovers this road and posts in on a Star Trek FB group, and it makes me smile. (Often, I chime in with something like: “I work there and we’re hiring, so you can work there, too!” Since we are indeed often hiring. Go to the Northrop Grumman careers site and search for the Dulles campus. We employ a variety of engineers, but all the other functions that make a company work: administrative, facilities, finance, etc.**)
2. Pegasus and Stargazer
Any knowledgeable ST:TNG fan knows that the Stargazer was Picard’s first ship. It is also the name of the L-1011 plane that launches our Pegasus rocket.
Orbital purchased the L-1011 from Air Canada in 1992 and sent it to Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge, England to be modified to carry the Pegasus XL rocket. The “XL” version of Pegasus was too heavy for NASA’s B-52 carrier plane, which was used to launch the original Pegasus rockets from 1989 through 1994.
Dave tells me: “When the L-1011 returned from its modification work in England, we held a commissioning ceremony at the Dulles airport on November 30, 1993, when it was officially christened the ‘Stargazer.'”
…and yes, Dave chose that name because he thought the name of Picard’s first ship would be a fantastic name for this aircraft!
Now – I thought at some point I had heard or learned that Riker’s first ship, the USS Pegasus, was named after our rocket either before this, or as reciprocation for “Stargazer.” Dave tells me he can’t recall if there was a genuine connection. At the time, Pegasus was operated out of NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center (although it was NASA Dryden at the time) in the Mohave desert and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and it was covered extensively in the L.A. media, so it’s possible someone from Paramount decided to use this?
If anyone from Paramount—like any of the ST:TNG producers or writers—see this and could shed some light, I (and those of us who love bits of ST trivia) would love to hear from you!
3. Pegasus and Roddenberry’s remains
A lot of folks know that Gene Roddenberry’s remains were launched into orbit. But do they know the details? The whole story is simple to find on the internet—and includes the fact that they were launched, spent some time in space and came home. Then, they launched again! On our Pegasus rocket. That launch occurred in April 1997 from the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands?? That sounds random and not like a typical launch location.
It was part of the world’s first private memorial spaceflight as Roddenberry’s and several other’s remains were launched by Pegasus on the Celestis spacecraft. The spacecraft stayed in orbit for a few years, re-entering the atmosphere in May 2002.
Most people, if they think about rocket launches at all, they think about a few places on the planet. In the US, they think about Kennedy SFC in Florida, for instance (and maybe VAFB on the west coast). But one of the amazing and innovative things about the Pegasus rocket is that because it’s launched from the underside of a plane, it offers a lot more flexibility to be launched from anywhere that can host the plane.
Well, those are the Orbital/Star Trek stories I have so far. NG has some, too, like how the original series episode “Operation — Annihilate!” was filmed at what is today an NG location (it was TRW back in the 60s). There’s probably more that I am not aware of.
Not to mention that there are a lot of folks like me who are in the aerospace industry in large part because Star Trek encouraged us to dream big when it came to our future (as individuals and as a space-faring race) — more than what I encountered during my first few months at Orbital back in 1998. We’re proud Trekkies who wear lanyards that say ‘NCC-1701’ on it, have models of the Enterprise in our offices (Dave had a beautiful one of 1701-D), and find other ways to bring Star Trek into our real lives.
LLAP.
(** If you are indeed serious about looking for a job with us, read the articles I wrote on LinkedIn about resumes and interviewing. I was a hiring manager for a while, and interviewed and hired a lot, especially last year. While it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll be the one interviewing you, I think most of my advice works for most people in most situations.)
Excellent article Adeena! You summarized the story of the road name change nicely. I helped brief Dave on our options for maintaining access to campus from Route 28 and smiled when he asked us to rename the road to Warp Drive. I say smiled, but the sense of responsibility for carrying out the vision was enormous. Norm Schafer and Mike Williams deserve major credit for the suuccess of the project.