Smithsonian Video: Sally Ride’s STAR TREK: VOYAGER Commbadge

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We’ve spent the last two years talking a lot about the Enterprise model’s adventure at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, but there’s one other Star Trek artifact that’s landed on public display this month: the first Star Trek: Voyager artifact to become part of the museum’s holdings.

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Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Kate Mulgrew at the 1995 “Voyager” launch. (Courtesy of Larry Nemecek.)

Astronaut Sally K. Ride, who became the first American woman to venture into space in 1983, was invited to Paramount’s 1995 premiere of “Caretaker,” the pilot episode of Voyager – and as a thank you for helping to launch the first Trek show helmed by a woman, the scientist was presented with her very own, screen-used Starfleet commbadge.

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Sally Ride and Kate Mulgrew share the stage, as Jeri Taylor looks on.

After Ride’s death, the twenty-year-old commbadge prop was rediscovered by the Smithsonian team at her home, and is now part of the Sally K. Ride collection on display in the new Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall in Washington.