The Star Trek franchise features many spacecraft. Various space vessels make up the primary settings of the Star Trek television series, films, and expanded universe; others help advance the franchise's stories. Throughout the franchise's production, spacecraft have been depicted by numerous physical and computer-generated models. Producers worked to balance often tight budgets with the need to depict convincing, futuristic vessels.
Beyond their media appearances, Star Trek spacecraft have been marketed as models, books, and rides. Filming models have sold for thousands of dollars at public auction.
Development and production Establishing basic designs (1966–1969)
The original Star Trek television series (1966–1969) established key tenets of the Star Trek franchise: an intrepid, diverse crew traveling through space and encountering the unknown. Matt Jefferies designed the crew's spaceship, the USS Enterprise. Jefferies' experience with aviation led to his Enterprise designs being imbued with what he called "aircraft logic". Series creator Gene Roddenberry wanted the ship's design to convey speed, power, a "shirt sleeve" working environment, and readiness for a multiyear mission. Roddenberry insisted the ship not have fins or rockets; Jefferies also avoided repeating fictional designs from Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, along with the real-world space exploration work done by Boeing, Douglas Aircraft Company, Lockheed Corporation, NACA, NASA, and Northrop. With Roddenberry's speed requirement, Jefferies decided the ship needed to be instantly recognizable from a distance, and that speed could be conveyed by the ship starting small in the background and growing as it accelerates toward the camera. Jefferies imagined the ship's engines were so powerful they would be dangerous to be near, hence the pair of external warp nacelles. Jefferies initially designed the habitable portion of the ship as a sphere, but it conflicted with the need to suggest the ship's speed. Although Jefferies wanted to avoid the cliche of a "flying saucer", the saucer-shaped upper portion of the hull eventually became part of the final design. Jefferies kept the exterior as plain as possible, both to allow light to play across the model and to suggest that the ship's vital equipment was on the interior, where it could be more readily maintained and repaired. Looking at an early balsa and birchwood model of the Enterprise, Roddenberry thought the vessel would look better upside down, and a TV Guide cover once depicted it as such; ultimately, however, the show used Jefferies' arrangement. The saucer module, engineering hull, and twin warp nacelle design influenced producers' designs of Starfleet vessels throughout the franchise's spin-offs and films.
The filming model's constituent parts cost under $600.Information plaque at the National Air and Space Museum, Jan 14, 2012 The Enterprise is depicted with a registry number of "NCC-1701". Jefferies combined the "NC" of American civilian aircraft registration codes with the "CC CC" of Russian aircraft, deriving "NCC". The "1701" digits were chosen for their readability on television screens. Although initially lacking internal lighting, the tight budget ultimately allowed the model's starboard side to receive illuminated windows. The show's limited budget also affected the Enterprises support craft: Jefferies wanted to give the show's shuttlecraft a more aerodynamic look than the Enterprise itself, but it was too expensive to build a life-size filming model with a curved hull.Reeves-Stevens, 18 Ultimately, toy model company AMT paid for the construction of the shuttle design in exchange for the rights to sell a model toy. The shuttlecraft became a key plot element in the episode "The Galileo Seven" (1967). The show's tight budget meant, more often than not, producers recycled models and footage, used cheaper animation techniques, or simply omitted the appearance of spacecraft.Whitfield As with the Enterprises design, alien spacecraft design in Star Trek—such as the Klingon starships' resemblance to a manta ray with a bulbous prow, and Romulan vessels' bird-of-prey markings and nomenclature—influenced future television and film productions.
Initial films (1979–1984)
Several years after Star Trek was canceled, Roddenberry and other producers began work for a new series, Star Trek: Phase II. Paramount Pictures, recognizing the market for science-fiction films after the success of Star Wars (1977), instead approved the production of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Many of the film's designs and models came from Phase II, although they were recreated to provide the higher level of detail needed for a big-screen appearance. Mike Minor, Joe Jennings, Harold Michaelson, Andrew Probert, Douglas Trumbull, and Richard Tyler redesigned the USS Enterprise while retaining the television series ship's overall shape. The Motion Picture introduced the rubberband-like "snap" effect for starships going to warp speed. Like the Enterprise, the Klingon vessel retained a design reminiscent of its television appearances.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) introduce models—Klingon bird-of-prey, Federation starbase, merchant ship, USS Excelsior, USS Grissom, and USS Reliant—that would be reused in at least one Star Trek television spin-off. These models were created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which would continue to generate models and assist with special effects for subsequent films and spin-offs. Producers still used some cost-saving measures when depicting some spacecraft, such as reusing footage from previous films. William Shatner's and Leonard Nimoy's demands for "sky-high salaries" for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) caused the studio to plan for a new television series. The seven-year production of Star Trek: The Next Generation overlapped with those of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)—and while those two films made heavy use of Next Generation sets, few spacecraft model assets were shared between the television and film projects.
Return to television (1987–1994) Among the first to join the design team of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1986–1994) were Probert, Rick Sternbach, and Michael Okuda.Nemecek, 5 The three had not only worked on the Star Trek films, but also had experiences working in science and aerospace.
+ Spacecraft models created for Star Trek: The Next GenerationShipAppearanceDesigned byProduction notesBorg cube"Q Who" (1989)Richard James and Rick SternbachNominated for an Emmy AwardNemecek, 86Borg variant"Descent" (1993)Dan CurryNemecek, 253Cardassian Galor class"The Wounded" (1991)Sternbach Reminiscent of an ankh,Nemecek, 153 a symbol chosen because the Cardassians are like pharaohs to the enslaved Bajorans.USS Enterprise-C"Yesterday's Enterprise" (1990)Andrew Probert and SternbachFirst appearance of an Ambassador-class shipUSS Enterprise-D"Encounter at Farpoint" (1987)ProbertFirst appearance of a Galaxy-class shipFerengi marauder"The Last Outpost" (1987)Jein and ProbertInspired by the shape of a horseshoe crabNemecek, 38Gomtuu"Tin Man" (1990)Jein and SternbachInspired by the thermal pods in Buckaroo BonzaiNemecek, 123Husnock ship"The Survivors" (1989)Tony MeiningerReused as a Promellian derelictNemecek, 103, 106Klingon Vor'cha class"Reunion" (1990)Jein and SternbachFollows original Star Trek design while reflecting Klingon-Federation allianceNemecek, 146-47USS Kyushu"The Best of Both Worlds" (1990)Ed MiareckiCreated by combining an Enterprise-D model with custom parts. First appearance of a New Orleans-class ship.USS Pasteur"All Good Things..." (1994)Bill GeorgeBased on a camera-ready "Olympic-class" model George created.Nemecek, 303 Ultimately labeled as a Hope-class starship.USS Phoenix"The Wounded"JeinBased on a desktop model created by Ed Miarecki.Nemecek, 148, 153 First appearance of a Nebula-class ship.Romulan warbird"The Neutral Zone" (1988)Jein and ProbertNemecek, 60USS Stargazer"The Battle" (1987)Probert and SternbachBased on a kitbash and created as an alternative to reusing movie-era Enterprise model.Nemecek, 41 First appearance of a Constellation-class ship.Vulcan starship"Unification" (1991)Jein and SternbachNemecek, 185 Roddenberry envisioned the new series occurring in an era when people were preoccupied with improving the quality of life, and he emphasized this point in calling for a larger, brighter, and less-sterile USS Enterprise than the ship in the original Star Trek. Probert's design of the new Enterprise was based on a "what if?" painting he created after designing the refit Enterprise for The Motion Picture. It suggested a merging of technology and design into a sleeker ship, yet retained the overall shape of a saucer section, engineering hull, and warp engine nacelles from the original television show.Nemecek, 9 The final Enterprise-D design was revealed to the public in a July 1987 column in Starlog. After rejecting the idea of using CGI for special effects and shooting miniatures, the producers hired ILM—which worked extensively on the Star Trek films—to build a pair of Enterprise models. Six modelmakers, led by Star Trek film veteran Greg Jein, built the models for $75,000.Nemecek, 11 Another model was created midway through the third season.Nemecek, 99 ILM also created the distinct "rubberband" effect of the Enterprise going to warp speed—an effect initially created for The Motion Picture.Nemecek, 12
The new series' creators were concerned that budget constraints for The Next Generation could be even more of a problem for them as they had been for the original Star Trek.Nemecek, 7 To help avoid them, the producers reused and recycled sets, models, props, and footage created for the movie franchise;Nemecek the development of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine also saw resources being shared across the two television series.Nemecek, 251Nemecek, 266Nemecek, 298 ILM created a catalog of effects shots, which they thought would help the show save money. In practice, however, the catalog was insufficient to meet the show's needs, and using catalog footage as an element in a shot placed constraints on the movement of shooting models added to the shot. By the end of the first season, the producers moved away from that catalog. Robert Legato, who supervised the show's in-house visual effects, was eventually able to enhance the appearance of shooting models by using a moving camera for its effects shots, allowing objects in a shot to move in relation to each other.Nemecek, 12, 60 When The Next Generation depicts combat between spacecraft, it is usually single ship-on-ship; however, there are exceptions, such as a "Star Wars-like" battle in "Preemptive Strike" (1994) between numerous Maquis fighters and a Cardassian ship. According to Sternbach, there usually wasn't enough time to create and make a new ship each week;Nemecek, 103 nevertheless, producers created numerous new spacecraft for The Next Generation. Dan Curry said that to conserve the budget for use on ships to be seen in close-up, small "worker bee" vessels not requiring significant detail were made out of cheap, everyday objects. Additionally, the Next Generation team used models from the first three Star Trek films; the Excelsior, Grissom, and Reliant models were redressed to become various Excelsior-, Oberth-, and Miranda-class starships, respectively.
The visual effects shot of the "USS Pegasus" spacecraft was a re-dress of the Oberth class model. The VFX model auctioned off in 2006 by Christie's. The Oberth-class was designed by David Carson, and built at Industrial Light & Magic. The model was made for the 1984 theatrical film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, where it depicted a ship called the "USS Grissom".