First Flight (Star Trek: Enterprise)

"First Flight" is the fiftieth episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, the twenty-fourth episode of the second season. It first aired on May 14, 2003, on UPN. It was written by John Shiban and Chris Black, and was directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation actor LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge).

Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first Starfleet starship Enterprise, registration NX-01. In this episode, after Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) is informed of the death of his former colleague, A.G. Robinson (Keith Carradine), he relates the story of breaking the warp 2.5 barrier to T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) while investigating a dark matter nebula.

The episode was inspired by the story of the first American astronauts as seen in the film The Right Stuff. Several sets were specifically built for this episode, and a reference to the designer of the Enterprise from the original Star Trek series is included in the story. Three crew-members from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65) appeared in this episode, and handed over a flag from the ship to the cast and crew. Critical reception to this episode was mostly positive, with praise directed at Scott Bakula. The episode received the second-lowest number of viewers received by Enterprise at that point, which was blamed on it being aired opposite the series finale of Dawson's Creek.