This would not be the complete end for the original Enterprise however. As the post-Khitomer peace of the 24th century cemented itself and the Federation and Starfleet began to grow at an unpredented rate, an effort began among the public to honour the Federation's flagship and it's crew in a unique way. An idea was suggested by Peter Kirk, James Kirk's surviving nephew of his brother Sam, and a rising star of his own within Starfleet, to to Starfleet's Corps of Engineers to cemmorate the 50th anniversery of the Enterprise's famous five year mission under his uncle's command by essentially rebuilding the ship, using whatever remaining components remained of the Enterprise that had been replaced and put into storage as part of its 2270s refit. While initially skeptical of the idea, citing the difficulty in tracking down surviving components stored across the Federation, the work required to restore these to operational standard and the need to find or fabricate replacement parts for those irreocably lost, the corps would in time be swayed when the idea formed into a public petition that had the backing of much of the original command crew such as Pavel Chekov and Nyota Uhura, as well as by other influential figures such as the at the time current captain of USS Enterprise-B, John Harriman and even from the Federation President.
With Starfleet enjoying a time of plenty and peace as well, the Corps of Engineers eventually granted Mr Kirk's request and set up a special team for the project. Over the course of several years, engineers would scour through depots and salvage yards, trawling through records to track down original components from the pre-refit Enterprise that could be restored. First and most prized among these were major elements such as the bridge module, the warp core, engine nacelles and their pylons, deflector dish, impulse asembly and surviving shuttlecraft. After this, more meticulous searches were conducted for eleents such as hull panels, equipment such as the tractor beam and torpedo launchers, interior corridor walls, etc. The team would make heavy use of the ship's blueprints and meticulously compiled engineering reports made by the Enterprise's cheif engineer Captain Scott over the years, as well as references taken from the Enterprise's preserved sister ship, the USS New Jersey. Once the team was satisifed that they had recovered as much of the salavageable peices of ship that could be located, work began on their restoration, while other members of the team set out about sourcing replacement parts for those that could not be found or repaired. These would either be taken from parts of other pre-refit Constitution class ships that had similarily been mothballed as part of the refit programme, or when necessary, were fabricated wholesale. As this work began, the team had already assembled what was essentially an outer sheel of the Enterprise.
By 23 , the team's work would come to fruition. A now rebuilt USS Enterprise was complete, sourcing about 62% of it's structure from the orignal vessel. For it's maiden voyage, the ship was christened as the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-M under the command of Peter Kirk and would entertain Captain Chekov, Uhura and Harriman as it's first guests, performing a short tour of Federation space.
It is also notable that the work done for this project would go on to inspire and inform the restoration of another Enterprise later on. After his promotion to commodore and being assigned as the head of Starfleet's Fleet Museum in orbit over Althan Prime, Geordi La Forge would use the original Enterprise's restoration as the basis for work in restoring the USS Enterprise-D, using similar methods and procedures though aided greatly by having much more of the original ship to work with, advances in replicator technology and the donation the USS Syracuse's stardrive section.
The Enterprise is now permanently berthed at the Starfleet museum in San Fransisco and continues to serve as a mueseum ship to this day. It is kept meticuously maintained and preserved and is even still capable of space travel. It is also still listed as a reserve ship that Starfleet can call upon and recommission into active service at any time if deemed necessary, though this has not occured so far, despite how it's successors have done so in other other emergencies, due to the ship's location on Earth's surface limiting any potential deployments and more critically it's older technology.
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