The History Of The Starship Enterprise Explained
Launched in 1966 as a prime time science fiction drama, " Star Trek " has gone on to become one of the world's most famous franchises. But what made it so impactful wasn't just its compelling stories and lively characters — there's also the ship on which the series was set, the USS Enterprise. Arguably the most beloved starship in science fiction, the Enterprise — whose registry NCC-1701 is famous in its own right — has become a pop culture icon, and may be as recognized across the globe as the American flag or the McDonald's golden arches.
Since its introduction, each new era has had its own new iteration of the Enterprise: It was redesigned as the 1701-A in the feature films, and in 1987 " Star Trek: The Next Generation " introduced the Enterprise-D. By the turn of the millennium there was even a prequel spinoff named for the vessel, and in 2022, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" ventured back aboard the original classic starship.
With a new Enterprise-F making its debut in "Star Trek: Picard," it's time to explore the indelible legacy of the famous Federation flagship. So clear all moorings and ahead one quarter impulse power, because we're leaving space dock and setting a course to explore the history of the starship Enterprise.
Pioneering Enterprises
In the real world, there have been ships named the Enterprise as far back as the early 1700s, including the British Royal Navy's HMS Enterprize. In the United States, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was the USS Enterprise , commissioned in 1961, which even became a key location in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." The space shuttle Enterprise, meanwhile, was the first spacefaring ship to bear the name, both in "Trek" and the real world. Of course, that one was named after the "Star Trek" starship thanks to a letter-writing campaign from fans.
In the fictional world of "Star Trek," the first deep space starship to go by the name Enterprise was actually a vessel we have yet to see outside of historical images. With a registry of XCV-330, what little we know of it comes from background details, as it is seen as part of a series of images of past Enterprises in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," as well as in Captain Forrest's office on "Enterprise." The only physical representation we have seen so far was actually in the JJ Abrams-directed "Star Trek: Into Darkness," where a model of the early Enterprise appears on the desk of Admiral Marcus.
Though little is known about this pre-Federation starship, we do know that it was based on an unused design from series artist Matt Jeffries before he settled on the Enterprise for the 1966 TV series.
Archer's first warp 5 vessel
Before the launch of "Star Trek: Enterprise" in 2001, fans had always believed that Kirk's Constitution Class Enterprise was the first Starfleet vessel to go by that name. But in a major retcon, the series introduced the NX-01, Starfleet's first flagship, proudly bearing the name Enterprise on its hull.
Earth's first-ever Warp 5 starship, its revolutionary new engine was capable of speeds never before dreamt of. The engine had been designed by Henry Archer, a protege of warp drive creator Zefram Cochrane, whose son Jonathan would become the ship's first captain. But when the engine was still in development, serious questions were raised about its readiness, and were it not for the efforts of Jonathan Archer and former rival pilot A.G. Robinson, it may have been scrapped altogether.
Launched in 2151 on a mission to deliver an injured Klingon back to his people, the NX-01 had primitive phase cannons but was without much of the advanced technology fans are familiar with from other shows, lacking energy shields, photon torpedoes, and tractor beams. The ship still managed to become legendary, serving at the forefront of the Xindi War, and was the ship Archer captained when he brought the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites together to eventually form the United Federation of Planets. According to the series' finale, this Enterprise was decommissioned in 2161 and placed into a fleet museum.
Kirk's classic connie
The original USS Enterprise may not be the first one chronologically in canon, but it is the first that fans saw, and the one most people think of when they hear the name. Its groundbreaking design by concept artist Matt Jeffries combined classic sci-fi tropes — the large saucer and rocket-shaped nacelles — to form an instantly recognizable silhouette that may never be outdone.
For three years on the original "Star Trek" series, the ship traveled to strange new worlds and sought out new life and new civilizations, captained by James T. Kirk on his five-year mission to chart the edges of the final frontier. While much of its design — particularly its interior — may seem dated to today's younger audience, it lives forever in the hearts and minds of Trek fans. It was lovingly recreated for episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine," and "Enterprise," in episodes that revisited the classic Constitution Class.
A place sci-fans called home in '60s, it was aboard the original "Connie" that Trek fans first learned about phasers, photon torpedoes, and transporters. But interestingly, when it was first developed by series creator Gene Roddenberry, it was designed to be a ship with a history, and Kirk was later revealed to be the ship's third captain. In service in this form for more than two decades in-universe, it would later see a new look when "Trek" warped to the movies.
Refit for the big screen
Thanks to renewed popularity in reruns in the '70s, a revival of "Star Trek" was launched in theaters. With a bigger budget and a bigger screen, a new design for the starship Enterprise was in order, and after some radically different new concepts were considered, what would leave space dock was an updated version of the original that kept the same basic design, with some streamlined shapes and a lot more detail.
In fact, the remodel of the Enterprise serves as a major plot point in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," which opens after an 18-month retrofit process that overhauls the starship with a nearly ground-up reconstruction. As a result, new captain William Decker objects to Kirk's reassignment to the captain's chair because of Kirk's unfamiliarity with many of the new systems. Sure enough, his lack of knowledge does wind up causing problems during the refitted Enterprise's first mission.
Eventually, this updated starship became a fan favorite in its own right. But while the refit Enterprise would meet its end in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock," with Kirk forced to destroy the ship to stop a gang of marauding Klingons, it was replaced shortly thereafter with the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A. Nearly identical, save for some interiors which were now redressed sets from "The Next Generation," which was then-currently airing, the Enterprise-A began a long-standing tradition of tacking on an alphabetic suffix to new starships in the line.
The successor
Following the introduction of the Enterprise-A in the 1986 film "The Voyage Home," the next ship we'd see with that name was actually the Enterprise-D, which debuted just a year later in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." We would hear nothing about the Enterprise-B until the cast of "TNG" moved to the big screen themselves, in 1994's "Star Trek: Generations."
The film that brought two eras of "Star Trek" together, it opens with the first flight of the Enterprise-B, in a ceremony attended by Captain Kirk. A state-of-the-art starship of the same class as the Excelsior seen in in "Star Trek III" — which was then under the command of Captain Sulu — this new Enterprise voyaged under the captaincy of John Harriman. Though its first mission was originally planned as little more than a trip around the solar system, it got forced into a rescue effort when a strange phenomenon threatened a nearby ship. But as it was only meant to be on a promotional tour, the Enterprise-B was without tractor beams, photon torpedoes, and medical staff.
Swinging into action, Captain Kirk saved the day and sacrificed himself to save the endangered ship. But just as many books, comics, and other media have explored the further adventures of Captain Harriman and the Enterprise-B — including its helmswoman, the daughter of Captain Sulu — we have yet to learn much more about it onscreen.
The lost warrior
Making its first appearance in the third season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the Enterprise-C is another ship of the line that we only ever saw once. In this case, it's in the acclaimed episode "Yesterday's Enterprise," a story that regularly ranks among the show's very best. In the episode, Picard and the Enterprise-D encounter a rift in space through which the Enterprise-C emerges, having traveled forward 22 years, altering history.
In this diverged dark timeline, the Federation is on the losing end of a decades-long war with the Klingons, and the disappearance of the Enterprise-C two decades before is a big reason why. As it turns out, the Enterprise-C — under the command of Captain Rachel Garrett — came to the aid of a Klingon outpost that was under attack, helping to smooth relations with their rivals, eventually leading to peace with the Federation.
Ultimately, after Garrett is killed in the divergent timeline, the Enterprise-C returns to the past to fulfill its destiny and restore history, but takes with it an alternate version of Tasha Yar from the Enterprise-D. Despite history recording the loss of all hands, we'd later learn that survivors from the Enterprise-C were taken prisoner on Romulus, including Yar, who would wind up giving birth to the villainous Commander Sela. Like its predecessor, what we learn in this episode is all we know officially of the Enterprise-C.
Picard's Enterprise-D
The Enterprise that led the landmark 1987 spinoff "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the 1701-D was designed by Andrew Probert , a protege of "Star Wars" concept designer Ralph McQuarrie who had been briefly hired to conceptualize the new Enterprise for the first "Star Trek" feature film. Recommended by McQuarrie to join the film's design team, Probert sketched up an early idea of for a new ship that later formed the basis for the Enterprise-D.
Nearly twice as large as Kirk's classic Enterprise, this 24th century Galaxy Class starship could go much faster, topping out at warp 9.9 (as opposed to Kirk's warp 8), and had a new feature that allowed the saucer to separate from the body of the ship during crisis. The Enterprise-D was outfitted with plenty of new technology too, including the virtual reality rooms called holodecks that have since become a "Trek" staple. It was also the first starship seen onscreen to house families, children, and schools, making it essentially an entire community on a starship. Believe it or not, the Enterprise also has a group of hyper-intelligent dolphins that help steer the ship, in a section called Cetacean Ops, that's only briefly mentioned but never seen.
Commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard , it was the Federation flagship seen through all seven seasons of "The Next Generation" and the crew's first feature film, "Star Trek: Generations." In the climax of that movie, the Enterprise-D crashed on Veridian III, sustaining catastrophic damage that would require its retirement from service.
A sovereign for all seasons
The first film to feature the cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" saw few dramatic changes during their move to cinemas. But for its follow-up, "Star Trek: First Contact," they were given a facelift: in addition to an entirely new uniform design, Picard and his crew received a new starship, the USS Enterprise-E. A Sovereign Class ship, it marked a departure from the smoother curves of the Enterprise-D and other "TNG" starships in favor of a more militant, angular design, created by illustrator John Eaves, who continued to contribute to the franchise with designs for "Star Trek: Picard" and "Star Trek: Discovery."
Upgraded with cutting-edge weapons like quantum torpedoes, the Enterprise-E went toe-to-toe with the Borg on its first adventure, during which it was partially assimilated by the cyborg collective. The Enterprise-E continued to be the hero ship in the rest of the "TNG" feature films, including "Star Trek: Insurrection" and "Star Trek: Nemesis." While the Dominion War raged, as seen on "Deep Space Nine," the Enterprise-E was held back from the front lines, instead consigned to diplomatic duties.
During its time in the films, the crew of the Enterprise-E largely remained the same as on "TNG," but the conclusion of "Nemesis" saw Riker take command of his own starship, and Picard receive a new first officer. Though we know its service continued for some years, its further adventures have never been explored officially.
The next Enterprise
When "Star Trek: Picard" premiered in 2020, it was the first time we'd seen the franchise dip its toe into the events that followed its final "TNG" feature film, and many had high hopes of seeing a new starship Enterprise. Though the first two seasons of the series didn't give the audience that gift, Trek fans finally got what they were hoping for with the third trailer for the show's third season, and the first look at the USS Enterprise-F, an all-new Odyssey Class starship.
The direct successor to Picard's Enterprise seen in the films, this new flagship is the first Enterprise to voyage in the 25th century, and while its appearance brought applause from fans, it's not actually the first time we've seen it. In fact, the Enterprise-F was first introduced as a playable starship in "Star Trek: Online," a massively multiplayer online game, in a mission simply titled "The Odyssey Class" all the way back in 2012. And what's even more remarkable is that the design of the starship was created as the winning entry of a fan contest.
The design came from a concept artist and sculptor out of Florida named Adam Ihle, and was announced as the winner in July of 2012. A natural evolution of the Sovereign Class, it's a heavy cruiser that, in the game, was developed by Starfleet to be the most powerful starship in the fleet. Now, the design is the latest successor in the Enterprise legacy onscreen, too.
Pike's flagship reborn
At the tail end of Season 2 of "Star Trek: Discovery," fans got a jaw-dropping surprise with the arrival of the classic Enterprise commanded by Captain Pike, James T. Kirk's immediate predecessor. But this was a reimagined version of the iconic starship, updated for modern audiences. Eventually, Captain Pike, Mr. Spock, and Number One got their own spinoff series, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," set aboard this refurbished Enterprise with a new look.
Canonically it's the same Enterprise that was commanded by Captain Kirk in the original "Star Trek" series, but this time, its differences are not the result of a refit or maintenance overhaul. Instead, producers felt it was important to update the design, inside and out, to keep up with audience expectations in the 2020s ( via TrekMovie ) Mixing retro futurism with 1960s interior design aesthetics , they managed to reinvigorate the original Enterprise, creating what creator Gene Roddenberry and original designer Matt Jeffries might have crafted if they'd had the budget and means back in 1966.
The biggest changes to the starship visually are its swept-back nacelle pylons, more reminiscent of the feature film refit, and the physical windows on the bridge, a feature first seen in the JJ Abrams films. While just about every aspect of the ship has been updated, set designers and artists made sure to evoke the look and feel of Kirk's original in every aspect they could. Divisive among some fans for its many changes, this new sleeker "Connie" is now the face of the 23rd century Enterprise.
JJ's ample Enterprise
In 2009 "Star Trek" and the Enterprise got a facelift when director JJ Abrams relaunched the franchise on the big screen in a total reboot of the series. The film brought "Trek" back to its roots — and back in time too, showing us an alternate timeline where younger versions of James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, Uhura, and the rest first set foot on a newly remodeled starship Enterprise.
Redesigned from the ground up by concept artist Ryan Church — whose credentials include "Transformers" and "Avatar" — the ship has been dubbed the "JJ-prise" by fans. It kept the traditional silhouette, but featured bigger, smoother, curves and bold, bulbous, ample warp nacelles. Physically larger than the classic original, it's also much more technologically advanced, explained by the new timeline being visited by a villain from the future. It also features a clear glass viewscreen on the bridge that allows the crew to look directly into space, a major departure from previous starship designs that has since become retroactively standard, carrying over into new ships in the Prime Timeline, past and future.
Though it's initially captained by Christopher Pike, Kirk would sit in the captain's chair by the end of the first film, and command it again in its two sequels. In service through "Star Trek Beyond," the ship was damaged beyond repair by the villain Krall and replaced by a new Enterprise-A, which is seen only briefly in the film's final moments.
Enterprises of the Future
Given its science fiction nature, "Star Trek" has glimpsed into its own future more than once, and we've seen a few different Enterprises outside of the main timelines seen in the shows and movies. Some exist far off into a future we may never see onscreen, while some exist in now-erased alternate futures. In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" finale, for example, we're introduced to a then-future version of the Enterprise-D, with a radical refit boasting three nacelles and a new, massive phaser weapon under the saucer section.
But the most notable future Enterprise might be one we never quite saw, getting only a brief look on a viewscreen in an episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise." During the Xindi War storyline, Captain Archer was pulled into the far future where time-traveling agent Daniels told him about the USS Enterprise-J , a 26th century ship that carried on the legacy more than a thousand years into Archer's future. According to Daniels, this ship was part of a battle that drove a malevolent race called the Sphere Builders back to their own realm, and in this future, it even had members of the Xindi among its crew.
Though little else is known officially about the Enterprise-J, the starship eventually made its way into the "Star Trek: Online" game, and a model was later produced by Eaglemoss . With "Star Trek: Discovery" now set in the 32nd century, we may still yet see a new version of the Enterprise even further into the future.
Alternate Enterprises
From the past and present to the far future, we've seen Enterprises of all kinds, but there are even stranger versions of the Federation flagship that have been the focus of several adventures. These variant vessels usually originate in bizarre alternate realities and parallel dimensions, and have a long history themselves. The first one seen was way back in the acclaimed 1967 episode "Mirror, Mirror" that saw the ISS Enterprise under the command of a tyrannical Captain Kirk.
That same mirror universe was revisited in a 2005 two-part episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise" which saw another ISS Enterprise, this time a variant of the NX-01, under the command of Maximillian Forrest. But Forrest is assassinated by his first officer Jonathan Archer, who takes over the ship and gets caught in a power struggle with the Vulcan T'Pol. An aged, time-ravaged alternate future NX-01 was also seen in the episode "E2."
Though "The Next Generation" never ventured into the mirror universe, we did see a more militant version of the Enterprise-D in "Yesterday's Enterprise," in a branching parallel reality created by the arrival of the Enterprise-C. In that briefly existing timeline, Picard's starship had no families, and was in fact a battle cruiser on the front lines of the war with the Klingons. Meanwhile, in the "TNG" episode "Parallels," we actually witnessed the incursion of untold numbers of Enterprises from other parallel universes, one of which had been decimated by the Borg.
Designing the First Enterprise
In 1964, everything that would become Star Trek rested in the handful of typewritten pages that had convinced Desilu Studios to enter into a three-year television deal with Gene Roddenberry. Those pages described the mission of the USS Yorktown , a spaceship with a crew of 200 commanded by Robert T. April. Landing parties would be beamed down to planets by an energy matter scrambler, stay in contact with the Yorktown on their telecommunicators and protect themselves with laser beam weapons.
The terminology was still to be refined, but the cornerstone of a billion-dollar entertainment franchise was solidly in place. When NBC committed to ordering a pilot episode in June 1964, it was time to start building the franchise’s foundation. As Star Trek producer Gene Coon put it, “Gene created a totally new universe.” Television being a visual medium, the question was: what should this new universe look like?
The USS Enterprise was launched in 2245 and made its television debut 279 years earlier on September 8, 1966. More than any other artifact created for the series, the Enterprise represented Star Trek . It was as much a character as Mr Spock. And like its human (or organic) counterparts, it has changed shape but never its name; changed configuration, but never its mission. From its inception to its demise, Matt Jefferies’ starship has been beloved by millions of fans.
As art director, Walter Matthew “Matt” Jefferies was assigned to design the Starship Enterprise . “In my approach to Star Trek , I wanted to be as practical as possible,” he told Star Trek: The Magazine in an interview that was published in 2000. “I could tell Gene was serious enough, but I really didn’t know where to start. I knew the Enterprise was going to be on the cutting edge of the future, but essentially he gave me the job of finding a shape and I didn’t know what the shape looked like.”
Although Roddenberry knew a lot about his ship, he had never visualized it. His only guidelines were a list of what he did not want to see — no rockets, no jets, no firestreams. The starship was not to look like a vintage science-fiction rocketship, but neither could it resemble anything that would too quickly date the design.
Gene described the 100-150 man crew, outer space, fantastic, unheard of speed and that we didn’t have to worry about gravity. He had emphasized that there were to be no fins, no wings, no smoke trails, no flames, no rocket.
Somewhere between the cartoons of the past and the reality of the present, Matt Jefferies had to get at a design of the future.
In the 1960s, the benchmark for dramatic science fiction was Lost in Space and the popular image of futuristic space travel was the flying saucer. Jefferies’ early sketches reflect this. But Roddenberry wanted something that could host a larger crew, a ship that could travel at incredible speeds, so he told Jefferies to go back to the drawing board.
His next proposal was the now familiar “ringship”, which appeared on display in Star Trek: The Motion Picture . (See The Ringship Enterprise Mystery Solved .) Roddenberry rejected this too.
Extremely powerful
The theory that space could be warped was first proposed by Albert Einstein in 1905 and first demonstrated, according to Star Trek , by Zefram Cochrane in 2063, proving that objects could travel faster than the speed of light.
Warp drive is a delicately balanced, intricate web of chemistry, physics, mathematics and mystery. “I was concerned about the design of ship that Gene told me would have warp drive,” Jefferies remembered.
I thought, ‘What the hell is warp drive?’ But I gathered that this ship had to have powerful engines — extremely powerful. To me, that meant that they had to be designed away from the body. Boy, I tried a lot of ideas. I wanted to stay away from the flying saucer shape. The ball or sphere, as you’ll see in some of the sketches, was my idea, but I ended up with the saucer after all. Gene would come in to look over what I was doing and say, ‘I don’t like this,’ or, ‘This looks good.’ If Gene liked it, he’d ask the boss [Herbert Solow] and if the boss liked it, then I’d work on that idea for a while. For the hull, I didn’t really want a saucer because of the term flying saucer and the best pressure vessel of course is a ball, so I started playing with that. But the bulk got in the way and the ball just didn’t work. I flattened it out and I guess we wound up with a saucer! I did it in color on a black matt board, and by the time I finished I thought we really had something.
It worked. “It looked better than the other sketches and Gene said, ‘That one looks good!’ They — and Bobby Justman too when he came aboard later — were a dream to work with.”
Smooth surface
Although they now had a shape, it was not the end of Jefferies’ efforts. He theorized that since space was such a dangerous place, starship engineers would not put any important machinery on the outside of the vessel. This meant that, logically, the hull should be smooth.
Not everyone agreed and Jefferies had to fight his corner. “I constantly had to fight anyone who wanted to put surface details on the thing,” he says.
Another advantage of the smooth design was that it would reflect light, and at this point it was not a foregone conclusion that the ship would be white.
I thought the atmosphere or lack of it out there in space might produce different colors, and this gave us a chance to be able to play light and to throw color on it.
Registry number
Jefferies was also responsible for the Enterprise ‘s famous registry number.
I wanted a very simple number that could be spotted quickly. You’d have to eliminate 3, 6, 8 and 9, so I just went for 1701, which incidentally and coincidentally, happens to be very close to the license number on my airplane — NC-17740. But I have never really stepped out and squashed the rumor that the number on the Enterprise came off my airplane.
After the number had been decided, Jefferies would explain that the Enterprise was Starfleet’s seventeenth starship design and that it was the first in its series, hence the number “1701.”
19 comments
No doubt the greatest-ever space ship design. I remember watching Star Trek in the 1970’s, and like most kids back then making the AMT model kit of the Enterprise . Who would have thought that in the year 2012 and at the age off 44 that I’d still be building this kit!
Waaait. So according to this, the Next Gen Enterprise should be NCC-1705!
No. The original 1701 registry number was kept to honor the original, the letter designation is similar to British monarchs choosing their ruling name, like King George III (the third).
Ya, I read most of this in an old book called The Making of Star Trek , it came out sometime just after the end of The Original Series .
I know it’s about 8 years later in posting this, but The Making of Star Trek came out after the second season. That’s why at the end it only lists episodes from Seasons 1 and 2. And near the end, it actually acknowledges that a third season was, at the time, still in doubt.
Correct Chis. When it comes to the Enterprise and all here variants, “normal” Starfleet numbering doesn’t matter.
Gene Roddenberry had just a couple of basic rules about how warp drive worked that Franz Joseph did not care about. One was two nacelles only, that create a warp field between them. No third nacelle! Only in pairs! Nothing placed between the pairs. Simple rules that wipes out almost all of Joseph’s designs. Matt Jefferies created a beautiful timeless design under Gene Roddenberry’s supervision, that I personally have been obsessing over for forty years.
No, Roddenberry invented those rules after collaborating with Franz Joseph on the Technical Manual . They had a falling out, and Roddenberry wanted to discredit FJ’s designs after the fact.
All science-fiction films, up until this point, were either flying saucers or some sort of V-2 rocket ship. The simplicity of combining the two was magic, and totally new. The design of the first Klingon cruiser was simply creating a ship with the exact opposite constructs as the Enterprise herself. Amazingly simple!
I understand Jeffries’ seventeenth design, first ship concept in ‘1701’ but it doesn’t make sense when applied to the Constellation , NCC-1017. How can ‘sister’ ships in the same class be seven designs apart?
My personal theory is that the Constellation was a complete refit from an earlier class that was very similar in design. Much like the Enterprise going through her refit and the ships built after, from the keel up, are considered by some to be of the new Enterprise class. Because she it was a refit, the Constellation kept its original registry number. In the case of the Constitution class, NCC-1700 was the first one built from the keel up.
Wasn’t the Constellation just an AMT model kit? And with only “NCC-1701” printed as decals, they simply switched around the digits to make them different.
I never could work out why they didn’t go with NCC-1710 for Constellation to stay in some kind of sequence with NCC-1701. Guess they never figured on the series living on in the minds of fans long enough for details like registry numbers to start to be questioned!
I worked on the infamous Unobtanium Enterprise replica, and got to sit in and talk with Matt Jefferies on quite a few occasions. One of the first, he came by the shop and pulled out a sheaf of papers, and the black-and-white designs that you have above were all within it. They were all auctioned off individually not long after (in the same auction where the original production layout model was sold, which we got to see in person before it went to the auction house). It was great getting to talk to him about everything from his original concepts to the “flipping” of the design (right side up to upside down). We were lucky though, we had an original D7, a Tholian ship, and others to actually hold and work from. He was super cool, and I am glad I got to work with him.
As far as the registry number is concerned, that’s all explained and made clear in The Starship Designer , in the part “About My Starships”
I think is is so cool. We are talking about a TV show from the 1960s!
Matthew Jefferies is my great uncle. As a mechanical/civil engineer, I truly appreciate the aerospace engineering thought and design that went into this craft.
Thanks for your comment, Eric, and thank you for reading the site!
Ship of dreams. Escape vessel from worldly cares. It made my life more bearable
Does anyone know when the Enterprise was first referred to as “a starship” by the people making the show?
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Star Trek: Enterprise
A century before Captain Kirk's five-year mission, Jonathan Archer captains the United Earth ship Enterprise during the early years of Starfleet, leading up to the Earth-Romulan War and the ... Read all A century before Captain Kirk's five-year mission, Jonathan Archer captains the United Earth ship Enterprise during the early years of Starfleet, leading up to the Earth-Romulan War and the formation of the Federation. A century before Captain Kirk's five-year mission, Jonathan Archer captains the United Earth ship Enterprise during the early years of Starfleet, leading up to the Earth-Romulan War and the formation of the Federation.
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- Trivia Admiral Forrest is named after DeForest Kelley , the late Star Trek (1966) actor who played Leonard H. McCoy. Similarly, Commander Williams and Admiral Leonard from the pilot Broken Bow, Part 1 (2001) are named after series stars William Shatner (James T. Kirk) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock). Big Foot (1982) (#2.5) also had a character with a last name Forrest. That show had numerous references & stars from the Star Trek franchise, the most well known of which was William Shatner from the original TV series.
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Commander Tucker : You aren't saying much tonight. Don't tell me you're still upset about me and Amanda.
Subcommander T'Pol : I'm not upset.
Commander Tucker : Sure sounds like it.
Subcommander T'Pol : You're mistaken.
Commander Tucker : Why would a few neuropressure sessions between me and a MACO be such a big deal. Unless...
Subcommander T'Pol : Unless what?
Commander Tucker : Unless you're a little jealous.
Subcommander T'Pol : I don't experience jealousy.
Commander Tucker : You're doing a pretty fair imitation of it.
Subcommander T'Pol : I am not, in any way, jealous of you and Corporal Cole.
Commander Tucker : You know, your voice is tensing up. That's a dead giveaway.
Subcommander T'Pol : I didn't know you were an expert in vocal inflections.
Commander Tucker : I don't need to be an expert to read you. Come on, admit it. You're a little jealous.
Subcommander T'Pol : Are you implying that I'm attracted to you?
Commander Tucker : That kind of goes along with the assumption, doesn't it?
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USS Enterprise Evolution in Photos: The Many Faces of Star Trek's Favorite Starship
The enterprise throughout history.
Starship USS Enterprise, serial number NCC-1701, of the United Federation of Planets, has captivated audiences since the debut of "Star Trek" on television in 1966. That fascination has continued to the present day, as the latest installment of the science-fiction franchise, "Star Trek Into Darkness," opens in the US on May 16, 2013. Here we take a look at ships bearing the name of Enterprise in many different incarnations.
USS Enterprise (Sailing Vessel)
The first of all US ships to bear the name of Enterprise was a Continental Navy sloop-of-war that served in the American Revolutionary War on Lake Champlain. Originally a British sloop named "George," it was captured by a small American force commanded by Colonel Benedict Arnold in 1775 and renamed. Later the US forces had to run the ship aground and destroy it in 1777 to avoid capture.
USS Enterprise (CVN 65) in Real Life
A long series of sea vessels were named Enterprise throughout history. The eighth US ship to bear the name was the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The US Navy commissioned the giant vessel in 1962, which served until its deactivation in 2012. A new USS Enterprise (CVN-80) is scheduled to become operational in 2025. Regarding Star Trek, the naval warship may have inspired the name of the fictional starship. Also, in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," Uhura and Chekov visit the aircraft carrier Enterprise, though the filmmakers could not shoot aboard the actual ship.
Star Trek Crew Welcomes Real-Life Enterprise
In 1976, NASA's space shuttle Enterprise rolled out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities, and was greeted by NASA officials and cast members from the original "Star Trek" television series. They are (L to R): NASA Administrator Dr. James D. Fletcher; DeForest Kelley, who portrayed Dr. "Bones" McCoy on the series; George Takei (Mr. Sulu); James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott); Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock); series creator Gene Roddenberry; an unnamed NASA official; and, Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov).
Space Shuttle Enterprise
In real life, the prototype space shuttle was named Enterprise (OV-101) following a write-in campaign by Star Trek fans. The orbiter conducts a 1977 test flight in this photo.
The VSS Enterprise of Virgin Galactic
Another real-life craft, one of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo vehicles, bears the name VSS Enterprise. It glided over California's Mojave Air and Space Port during the first drop and glide test on Oct. 10, 2010. Eventually the company plans to take "space tourists" on commercial flights.
USS Enterprise (XCV 330)
The experimental craft represents the first Starship Enterprise, although it only appeared as a illustration in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." It again appeared in a painting during the Star Trek: Enterprise episode, "First Flight," thereby dating it prior to 2143 in the Star Trek timeline.
Enterprise (NX-01)
The United Earth Starfleet's Enterprise was an experimental prototype ship, commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer. It appeared as the titular vessel of the prequel television series Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). A mirror version of the ship, ISS Enterprise (NX-01), appeared in the episode "In a Mirror, Darkly."
The Original Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701)
This model of the fictional starship Enterprise was used in filming the weekly hourlong “Star Trek” TV series that aired September 1966 to June 1969. The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, now displays the iconic model.
ISS Enterprise in the Mirror Universe
This ship of the Terran Empire appeared in the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror," which involved a treacherous, violent mirror crew. The mirror ship appears almost identical to the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701).
USC Enterprise (NCC-1701) Animated
Star Trek: The Animated Series ran from 1973-1974, and featured a Starship Enterprise retaining the original TV show's design, though the producers altered certain interior features, such as a second turbolift accessing the bridge.
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'Star Trek' spaceships through the years (pictures)
As "Star Trek Into Darkness" hits theaters this week, get a refresher on the prominent starships seen throughout the "Star Trek" saga.
USS Enterprise NCC-1701
Over the last 47 years of "Star Trek," fans have seen many captains and crews zipping around the cosmos aboard colossal Starfleet spacecraft. As "Star Trek Into Darkness" launches into U.S. theaters, we look back at the main ships seen in the 5 television series and 12 movies.
This photo shows a CGI version of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, launched in 2245, which Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and crew flew aboard in the original television series. According to the 2011 book "Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise: Haynes Manual," art director Matt Jefferies' Enterprise design was influenced from aviation designs and an electric stove coil. The ship used deflector shields for protection and photon torpedoes and phasers to fight back against hostile alien ships. To get around, the Enterprise (and most other Federation ships) uses a warp drive to bounce around from system to system.
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E
USS Defiant NX-74205
Even though the 1993 television show "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" mostly took place aboard a floating space station of the same name (previously referred to as Terok Nor), the series introduced its primary Starfleet vessel, the USS Defiant, led by Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) in the third season. The ship, launched in 2370, featured an array of torpedoes, a cloaking drive, and was made to fight off those pesky Dominion.
Jim Martin, Gary Hutzel and Tony Meininger collaborated on the creation of the Defiant for the show.
USS Voyager NCC-74656
Enterprise NX-01
Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) commanded the Enterprise NX-01, one of the earliest Starfleet ships in the series canon. The ship was the main setting for the television show "Star Trek: Enterprise", which first aired in 2001 and ended four years later.
During one episode, the show gave fans a brief look at a 26th century Enterprise called NCC-1701-J .
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USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E)
- View history
The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) was a 24th century Federation Sovereign -class starship operated by Starfleet . This ship was the sixth Federation starship to bear the name Enterprise .
- 2.1 Construction and launch
- 2.2.1 Return to Earth
- 2.2.2 Journey to 2063
- 2.3.1 The Battle of the Briar Patch
- 2.4 Continuing voyages
- 2.5.1 Battle of the Bassen Rift
- 2.6 The 2380s
- 4 Technical information
- 5 Command crew
- 6.1 Appearances
- 6.3 Apocrypha
- 6.4 External links
Lineage [ ]
Service history [ ], construction and launch [ ].
On stardate 49027.5, the Sovereign -class Enterprise -E, seen as the pinnacle of Starfleet ship design, was launched from San Francisco Fleet Yards , with Captain Jean-Luc Picard in command once more. Much of the crew of the Enterprise -D had been reassigned there, including almost the entire senior staff . The sole exception was Lieutenant Commander Worf , who had already transferred to the space station Deep Space 9 . ( Star Trek: First Contact ; DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ", " Trials and Tribble-ations ")
The Borg threat [ ]
After almost a year in space , the Enterprise was ordered to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone during the second Borg incursion . Starfleet was officially concerned about possible Romulan military action since many of the available ships had been diverted to fight the Borg , but in reality, Starfleet was concerned about Picard's presence at the battle.
Return to Earth [ ]
The Enterprise at the Battle of Sector 001
However, shortly after the Federation fleet engaged the Borg cube , Picard disobeyed orders and returned to Earth to assist the fleet. Once there, Picard became aware of a battle-induced weakness in the Borg ship due to his residual link to the Collective and ordered all the ships in the fleet to concentrate their fire on that section of the ship. As a result, the Borg vessel was destroyed and the Battle of Sector 001 was a victory for Starfleet.
Journey to 2063 [ ]
The Enterprise passing the USS Defiant
Before the Borg cube was destroyed, it launched a second vessel towards Earth. This ship created a temporal vortex and traveled back to the year 2063 in order to stop Zefram Cochrane from launching his historic warp ship , the Phoenix . Their hope was to prevent first contact with the Vulcans and assimilate Earth before the Federation could be formed to resist them.
The Enterprise , protected from the alterations in the timeline by a temporal wake within the vortex, chased the Borg into the past and destroyed their ship and sent an away team to help Cochrane repair the Phoenix .
Borg assimilating the decks of the Enterprise
However, the ship's sensors and shields were damaged during the trip through the vortex and, unbeknownst to the crew , several Borg drones transported aboard the Enterprise before their ship exploded. They began to assimilate the ship, beginning with main engineering and sickbay on Deck 16 and converting the corridors into a Borg configuration, complete with regeneration alcoves and assimilation chambers . On Picard's order, Lieutenant Commander Data locked out the main computer with a fractal encryption code to prevent the Borg from fully seizing control of the Enterprise . The Borg established their collective in engineering and cut primary power to all other decks, cutting the Enterprise off from the away team still down on the surface . The Borg were able to swiftly overrun the defense checkpoints set up by the Starfleet crew on Decks 26 through 11, assimilating the crew as they progressed and seizing control of such sections as hydroponics , Stellar cartography , deflector control and the shuttlebays . They also attempted to build an interplexing beacon on the particle emitter of the deflector dish to contact the Borg Collective of that time period.
The main deflector dish, with particle emitter disconnected
A three-man team led by Captain Picard stopped the beacon from being completed by separating the dish from the ship by disengaging the magnetic locks and destroying it. The Borg changed tactics and continued to overrun the defense checkpoints, assimilating the ship up to Deck 5 with the intent to fully assimilate the vessel . The Borg's ability to adapt to the handheld weapons of the Enterprise crew made stopping them impossible and Picard realized that the fight was a lost cause. After great consideration, he reluctantly ordered the evacuation of the ship via the escape pods and activated the ship's auto-destruct sequence to prevent the Borg from interfering with the Phoenix flight.
Picard eventually confronted the Borg Queen in main engineering, only to find, to his horror, that the Borg had apparently coerced Data into collaborating with them. He aborted the auto-destruct sequence and entered the encryption codes into the main computer, effectively giving the Borg Queen command of the Enterprise . On the Queen's instructions, Data fired three quantum torpedoes at the Phoenix , ostensibly intending to destroy it. However, the torpedoes narrowly missed their target and Data revealed that he had in fact simply been deceiving the Borg. He ruptured one of the plasma coolant tanks , flooding engineering with plasma coolant and liquefying the Borg Queen and all the drones in engineering. With the death of the Borg Queen, the remaining Borg onboard were disabled, which allowed Data and Picard to recapture the vessel.
The Enterprise crew was successful in helping Cochrane make his flight and instigate First Contact with Vulcans . Using the gravitational field of Luna allowed the Enterprise to remain undetected by the Vulcan ship and the Enterprise was able to recreate the vortex used by the Borg to return to 2373 where the Borg components were removed, the ship repaired and subsequently returned to service. ( Star Trek: First Contact )
The Briar Patch [ ]
The Enterprise in the Briar Patch
With the Federation Diplomatic Corps attempting to negotiate an end to the Dominion War , the Enterprise was relegated to a diplomatic role, much to the dissatisfaction of Captain Picard. In 2375 , the Enterprise was conducting a diplomatic mission with the Evora , a new Federation protectorate species and was scheduled to resolve a territorial dispute in the Goren system when her crew became embroiled in a plot by the Son'a , assisted by Starfleet Admiral Dougherty , to forcibly remove the Ba'ku from their isolated homeworld in the Briar Patch .
The Son'a turned out to be vengeful former Ba'ku who had been exiled from the planet after a failed coup a century prior . They planned to harvest metaphasic radiation from the planet 's ring system and needed Starfleet's cooperation to carry out the plan. Captain Picard felt the relocation of the Ba'ku was a severe violation of the Prime Directive and resigned his commission, leading a team of Enterprise crewmembers to the Ba'ku planet to prevent their capture and removal.
The Enterprise being pursued by a subspace tear in the Briar Patch
Commander William T. Riker was instructed to take the Enterprise and contact the Federation Council to alert them of Admiral Dougherty's treachery. However, the Enterprise was required to navigate an area of space known as the Briar Patch in order to contact Starfleet Command . This area disrupted communications as well as the ship's warp drive .
The Battle of the Briar Patch [ ]
Two Son'a battle cruisers were sent by Ahdar Ru'afo to intercept the Enterprise before she left the Briar Patch and severely damaged the ship in the process. The warp core was ejected in order to seal a dangerous tear in subspace created by the isolytic weaponry of the Son'a.
Riker was able to outwit the Son'a by collecting metreon gas native to the Briar Patch then venting it behind the ship. When the Son'a used their weapons, the gas exploded, destroying one ship and severely damaging the other. Geordi La Forge half-jokingly commented that the tactic could become known as the Riker Maneuver . The Enterprise later returned to the Ba'ku planet to aid Captain Picard disarming the Son'a collector . They ran into Ru'afo's flagship on their way there and Commander Riker pretended to ram into the flagship but instead flew over it and used its phaser banks to fire at it. When the collector started to blow up, the Enterprise beamed up Picard and left Ru'afo to be destroyed in the collector while it blew up. The Enterprise later left the Briar Patch to leave for Earth. ( Star Trek: Insurrection )
Continuing voyages [ ]
The Enterprise visited Earth for several days in 2376 , around the time the Pathfinder Project made contact with the USS Voyager and conducted a mission about seven light years from Earth the following year . According to Deanna Troi , it was an important mission, but the objective was never discussed. ( VOY : " Pathfinder ", " Life Line ")
Sometime between 2375 and 2379 the Enterprise underwent a major refit . Four additional aft -facing photon torpedo tubes were added, along with one more forward-facing tube: a twin launcher aft of the bridge , a single launcher above the aft hangar deck and a single launcher at the forward base of the bridge terracing.
The bridge was refitted with handrails and the consoles were improved across the port and starboard walls with more detailed displays. Additionally, new nacelle pylons were fitted at that time, slightly longer, broader, and more sharply swept than the originals and fitted with four additional phaser arrays . ( Star Trek Nemesis )
Mission to Romulus [ ]
The Enterprise in 2379
In 2379 , the Enterprise returned to Earth for the wedding of William T. Riker and Deanna Troi. She departed for Betazed , where another ceremony, a traditional Betazoid wedding, was scheduled.
While en route, the ship detected unusual positronic signals from the Kolarin system , discovering another Soong-type android , the prototype B-4 . Shortly following, the Enterprise was ordered to Romulus for a meeting with the new Praetor , Shinzon , who apparently wanted to initiate peace talks. Both the discovery of B-4 and the peace overtures turned out to be a ruse to capture Captain Picard and discover tactical positions of Starfleet vessels.
Enterprise faces and collides with the Scimitar
Once it became clear Shinzon was going to use his starship, the Scimitar , to destroy all life on Earth and wage war on the Federation, the Enterprise was to join Star Fleet Battle Group Omega and make a stand against Shinzon.
Battle of the Bassen Rift [ ]
Shinzon caught up to the Enterprise in the Bassen Rift and, in the ensuing confrontation , the vessel was severely damaged, including a major hull breach on the bridge, destroying the viewscreen and controls and disabling the warp core .
As a last resort, Picard ordered Counselor Deanna Troi to take control of the Enterprise and have it ram the Scimitar , resulting in the loss of much of the saucer section 's forward area. The collision disabled the Scimitar , but Shinzon, driven by vengeance , activated his deadly thalaron weapon and trained it on the Enterprise .
The weapon was overloaded, and the Scimitar was destroyed due to interference from Commander Data, who sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise , Picard and, indirectly, Earth.
Enterprise in drydock over Earth
Following the Scimitar incident, the Enterprise returned to Earth where it underwent an extensive repair in one of the orbiting spacedocks . ( Star Trek Nemesis )
The 2380s [ ]
The Protostar evades the Enterprise -E in 2384
By 2381 , Captain Picard was promoted to admiral and left the Enterprise to spearhead the construction and deployment of a massive transport fleet intended to aid the evacuation of the Romulus system before its sun went supernova in 2387 . ( PIC : " Remembrance "; LD : " The Stars At Night ")
In 2384 , the Enterprise was part of a Federation armada sent to intercept the USS Protostar , when it was intentionally attacked by the living construct released by Asencia . ( PRO : " Mindwalk ", " Supernova, Part 1 ")
Later, after the Protostar was destroyed, the ship was seen wrecked, with numerous gashes in the hull and completely dark, but somewhat intact. ( PRO : " Supernova, Part 2 ")
In 2401 , while taking the rebuilt Enterprise -D from the Fleet Museum , La Forge mentioned they "obviously" couldn't take the Enterprise -E, something that Worf said "was not [his] fault", alluding to an incident rendering the ship unusable, presumably either through destruction or some other means. ( PIC : " Võx ")
The next USS Enterprise , an Odyssey -class starship USS Enterprise -F was launched and would be in service during the late 24th century. ( PIC : " The Next Generation ")
Technical information [ ]
The Enterprise -E at warp
In her original configuration, the Enterprise -E was under 700 meters long and had 24 decks according to Picard, although Deck 26 was reported as being controlled by the Borg. She was equipped with twelve phaser arrays and five torpedo tubes .
The main bridge of the Enterprise
By 2379 , the Enterprise -E had undergone at least one refit, including four additional phaser arrays and five additional torpedo tubes. The number of decks was also increased by five to a minimum of 29. ( Star Trek Nemesis )
Sections included deflector control, Stellar cartography , hydroponics (on deck 11), and one sickbay ward. Main engineering and sickbay were on Deck 16. ( Star Trek: First Contact )
The ship could be controlled by a manual steering column located on the bridge. ( Star Trek: Insurrection ) She was also the first Enterprise to be equipped with an Emergency Medical Hologram . ( Star Trek: First Contact )
The Enterprise 's forward shuttlebay
The Enterprise carried a newer design of shuttlecraft as well as numerous other forms of transportation, including a warp-capable captain's yacht , the Cousteau , ( Star Trek: Insurrection ) and a special multipurpose shuttlecraft, the Argo . ( Star Trek Nemesis ) The yacht was installed as a part of the saucer section and detached upon deployment. Other auxiliary craft were launched from two shuttlebays , one at the aft end of the secondary hull and another near the aft end of the primary hull.
Crewmembers included those of the Human , Vulcan , Bajoran , Betazoid , Bolian , and Trill species , as well as a Klingon and an android . ( Star Trek: Insurrection )
Command crew [ ]
- Jean-Luc Picard ( 2372 – 2380s )
- William T. Riker ( 2375 ) (acting)
- William T. Riker (2372– 2379 )
- Data (2372–2379), also Second Officer
- Perim (2375)
- Geordi La Forge (2372–)
- Daniels (2372–2375)
- Worf ( 2373 , 2375, 2379) (acting)
- Beverly Crusher (2372– 2381 )
- Deanna Troi (2372–2379)
- Hawk (2373)
- Geordi La Forge (2375) (acting)
- Branson (2379)
See also: USS Enterprise personnel
Appendices [ ]
Appearances [ ].
- Star Trek: First Contact
- Star Trek: Insurrection
- Star Trek Nemesis
- VOY : " Life Line " (interior only)
- PIC : " The Impossible Box " (archive footage)
- " Mindwalk "
- " Supernova, Part 1 "
Background information [ ]
A Galaxy -class Enterprise -E
Following Star Trek Generations , the six-foot filming model for the Galaxy -class USS Enterprise -D had been modified to have the registry number read "NCC-1701-E". Penny Juday , the archivist at Paramount Pictures , had no explanation for this change as of 19 October 2001. ( TNG Season 2, Disc 6 : "Inside Starfleet Archives"). It turned out that the change was done at ILM by John Goodson prior to crating up the model after completion of Star Trek Generations , presumably on the assumption that the new Enterprise might be a Galaxy -class ship as well and having the number changed over already would save whoever did the special effects the trouble of having to change it over themselves. ( Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm , p. 60)
The Enterprise -E was, in fact, the only replacement for a previously-destroyed "hero" ship that was not of the same class as its predecessor, as opposed to USS Enterprise -A (and its alternate reality counterpart ) , the USS Defiant and the Delta Flyer . It was principally designed by John Eaves under the supervision of Herman Zimmerman . Using Eaves's sketches, Rick Sternbach drafted the blueprints for a ten-foot physical model. Eaves and Zimmerman also supervised the interior design of the bridge, engineering and corridors , although many sets from Star Trek: Voyager were also reused during Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection . Though the Enterprise -E was mentioned in several episodes of Voyager , the ship was never seen outside of the films. However, the interior of the ship is visible in a communication with Deanna Troi in VOY : " Life Line " as well as a turbolift interior built for the films which was re-purposed for the Enterprise -D in ENT : " These Are the Voyages... ".
The ten-foot physical model, constructed under the supervision of John Goodson at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), was used for visual effects shots during Star Trek: First Contact , alongside a CGI version. In Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek Nemesis , CGI versions of the ship completely replaced the physical model.
The Nemesis CGI model included several modifications designed by John Eaves. In addition to the new weapons mentioned above, the warp pylons were slightly modified and the connection between the primary and secondary hulls near the main shuttlebay was made more sleek.
The model of the Enterprise -E from Star Trek: First Contact (Lot #107) was sold at the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection auction on October 5, 2006 for US$132,000 including the buyer's premium (the winning bid was US$110,000). [5]
There has been some confusion about the number of decks on the Enterprise -E. The construction blueprints of the filming miniature created for Star Trek: First Contact explicitly label 23 decks. In the film, Picard told Lily Sloane that the ship had 24 decks, while the master systems display on the bridge allows either interpretation. Earlier on, however, Daniels had reported that the Borg are in control of Decks 26 through 11. Michael and Denise Okuda say in their text commentary on the film, during the scene in which Picard tells Lilly about the 24 decks: " Unfortunately, earlier in this film, we are told that the ship has at least 26 decks. We can't imagine that Picard doesn't know his own ship, so we theorize that the other two decks are top secret for some reason. Either that, or his memory was affected by his earlier Borg assimilation. It certainly couldn't be a goof, because the design of the ship changed slightly during filming. "
In Star Trek Nemesis , the Remans beam onto Deck 29. This could mean that Picard did not tell Lily the truth and there are actually more than 24 decks, or that more decks were added to the ship prior to Star Trek Nemesis . It may also be the case that Picard was counting only finished decks, as there could have been decks left unfinished for future expansion. Also, there was the possibility that Picard may have intentionally withheld or lied about certain aspects of the Enterprise -E design in the event that Lily was assimilated by the Borg.
Also in Nemesis , the Reman Viceroy fell several decks down a maintenance shaft. Because the Viceroy and the other Remans boarded the ship on Deck 29, it had been assumed that the ensuing battle took place on Deck 29 and that the Viceroy fell from that deck, implying that there could be 35 or more decks, or that the normal deck scheme was altered in some way that the ship could have more named decks than it measured in height.
This was not the case as signage on the corridors where the phaser fight between the Remans and the Enterprise officers took place indicate they were actually on Deck 9. This suggested that the two parties encountered each other about halfway to their destinations ( Enterprise officers to Deck 29, the Remans to the bridge on Deck 1).
It is apparent from lineup charts that every new starship Enterprise is slightly longer than the previous one. In Star Trek: First Contact , Picard informs Lily Sloane that the Enterprise -E is "almost seven hundred meters long", in accordance with its intended size of 2,248 feet (685 meters). John Eaves describes the rationale as follows:
When the "E" had a final approved design, we drew up a chart of all the Enterprises in profile. Herman [Zimmerman] and I set down a whole bunch of cutouts of the "E" in various sizes to see where this new ship should scale with the others. We found one size that looked appropriate and we put a scale to its length and that would be 2,248 feet. Rick [Sternbach] was waiting to do the blueprints and add his creativity to the design, so we gave him a drawing with this one measurement. From there he sized the whole ship ... [6]
By January 7, 1997, the following dimensions from Rick Sternbach had been added to FAQ: A History of Ships Named Enterprise: [7]
Length: 2,248' Beam: 820' Height: 290' L of saucer: 1,150' Nacelle span: 700' L of nacelles: 1,056'
The same length, beam and height (in meters) appear on the SciPubTech poster from around the same time. In addition, the length of 2,248 feet is listed in at least three comparison charts prepared for Star Trek: First Contact . [8] It can also be seen in the charts prepared for Star Trek: Insurrection . [9] The Star Trek Nemesis size chart puts it at 2,250 feet, consistent with a size revision during either the filmed or the unfilmed stage of redesign. [10] [11]
Apocrypha [ ]
In the novel Ship of the Line , the Enterprise was given to Captain Morgan Bateson for its shakedown cruise , which included war games near the Klingon border. Along for the ride, as temporary chief engineer, was Montgomery Scott .
Some missions of the Enterprise during the Dominion War were featured in Behind Enemy Lines , Tunnel Through the Stars and Tales of the Dominion War . In the DS9 Millennium book series, the Enterprise was destroyed at the Battle of Rigel VII ( β ) in an alternate future that the intrepid heroes of Deep Space 9 later prevented.
Star Trek: A Time to... , set during the year leading up to Star Trek Nemesis , featured the Enterprise being involved in a major political scandal that disgraces the ship and her crew for much of the coming year; the final duology in that series features the Enterprise being ordered to lead an invasion and occupation of a sovereign planet, with resemblance to the current real life world political situation at the time the novels were written. A "TNG relaunch" of sorts followed the Enterprise 's activities after Nemesis ; the first book in the series, Death in Winter , was released in September 2005 .
The novel Resistance established that before he left the Enterprise for the Titan , Commander Riker christened this Enterprise 's version of the crew lounge , or Ten Forward , as the "Happy Bottom Riding Club," a name Worf absolutely hated and refused to use under any circumstances. The name for the lounge was derived from a similar watering hole that old Earth astronauts used to frequent. It also established that every ship's computer that was built during the last decade had encrypted information about Romulan cloaking technology, which could be decrypted in case of emergency using an admiral's code and thus enabled the crew to build a cloaking device. In Resistance the crew separated the saucer section from the engine section (a feat this Enterprise had previously not done) and then cloaked the engine section to engage a Borg cube. During Resistance , Worf was promoted to the official first officer after acting in the position in an unofficial capacity during the ship's reconstruction after its confrontation with the Scimitar . In Q&A , an encounter with Q revealed that his past contact with the crew had been to prepare them for an encounter with "Them ( β )", a race far above even the Q, with Picard's response convincing Them that the universe deserved to exist. The novel Before Dishonor allied the crew of the Enterprise with Spock and Seven of Nine as they are forced to reactivate the original planet killer after Admiral Janeway was assimilated and became the new Queen of a Borg super-cube, the confrontation ending with the loss of Pluto , the destruction of the cube and Janeway's apparent death . The Destiny miniseries culminated in the final destruction of the Borg after the Titan learns their true origin, but the Federation was left devastated by the subsequent invasion , with much of the later novels focusing on the role the Enterprise will play in the reconstruction amid the creation of the Typhon Pact ( β ), an "anti-Federation" consisting of some of the Federation's most notorious adversaries, including the Romulans, the Tholians and the Breen . After the events of The Fall miniseries, the Enterprise was sent on a new mission of exploration.
In the Star Trek: Picard tie-in prequel, The Last Best Hope , Worf was given command of the Enterprise following Picard's promotion to admiral and on his personal recommendation, as Starfleet has reservations in light of Worf's actions in DS9 : " Change of Heart ".
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (which was printed before Star Trek: First Contact ), it was speculated that the Enterprise -E might be a Nova -class ship.
The Enterprise -E in Countdown , Issue 2
In Star Trek: Countdown , a tie-in to the 2009 Star Trek film, the Enterprise -E was still active as of 2387 with Data , having been revived after successfully imprinting his neural network into B-4 's existing CPU succeeding Picard as captain .
The timeline for Star Trek Online followed the storyline in the Countdown comic series, with Data as captain into the 25th century . The timeline only mentioned that the Enterprise -E left service around 2408, but its ultimate fate was unclear; however, by 2409, a new Odyssey -class ( β ) vessel was christened Enterprise ( β ) (NCC-1701-F), implying that her predecessor was decommissioned or destroyed. The short story "Unexpected Honor", written for issue 40 of Star Trek Magazine in May 2012, revealed that the Enterprise -E was destroyed in an ambush by the Undine at Starbase 236 ( β ) in 2408; among the survivors was Captain Data, who retired from Starfleet to take up teaching on Earth.
The Enterprise had also featured in many apocryphal productions, including the strategy games Star Trek: Armada , Star Trek: Armada II , Star Trek: Bridge Commander , Star Trek: Starfleet Command III , Star Trek: Elite Force II , Star Trek: Legacy , and, most recently, Star Trek Online .
External links [ ]
- USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) at StarTrek.com
- USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) at Wikipedia
- 1 Kenneth Mitchell
- 3 Kol (Klingon)
Enterprise Lineages on Display
Starship miniatures or decorative depictions of starships appear in many Star Trek episodes and movies. We usually assume that the ships on display, whether they are historical or recent designs, are authentic even if we never see them as "real" ships in space, and they are accordingly listed in the Starship Database . Besides the single models as they customarily appear in private quarters or in the captains' ready rooms, there are also a few design lineages on display, particularly those supposedly of "ships named Enterprise" .
Side note Speaking of design lineages, we have to bear in mind that there is nothing such as an "evolution of Enterprises" but rather an ongoing development of ship classes of Starfleet, a few particular ships of which happen to bear the name "Enterprise". There can be only one Enterprise at a time, and while Starfleet likely wouldn't give an illustrious name to a freighter, there is no reason to believe that in each design generation of capital ships exactly one has to be named "Enterprise".
Considering that Star Trek's history is continually subject to retroactive changes, the authenticity of some Enterprise lineages on display in older series or movies has been called into question. Some historically important ships that we should expect to be shown are missing, most notably NX-01 on all displays predating the launch of Star Trek Enterprise in 2001. Furthermore, the Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C look different on the Enterprise-D ship wall than they do in "reality". Is there something wrong with the ships on display, or are we even dealing with different timelines in which ships may not exist or may look different?
This small article investigates the various "ship walls". All episodes and movies are listed in production order, as usual.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Decker leads the Ilia probe to the spacious recreation deck of the recently refitted Enterprise, where screens (or backlit panels) depict a series of five sea ships and starships. Decker explicitly says: "All these ships are named Enterprise." The depictions were created by Rick Sternbach and show the following:
- Sailing ship (rigged as a brigantine)
- Aircraft carrier of the WWII era
- Space Shuttle
- "Ring ship" XCV 330 (registry is present but not legible), actually based on an early design by Matt Jefferies that could have become the Enterprise NCC-1701
- Constitution class in original configuration prior to the refit
The depicted sailing ship could be any of the early two-masted Enterprises that are listed as brigs but may have been rigged like the depicted brigantine just as well. Considering that "all these ships are named Enterprise" , it is clear that the aircraft carrier has to be the USS Enterprise CV-6 and not one of her two sister ships of the Yorktown class. Likewise, we are looking at the Space Shuttle Enterprise OV-101, and not any of the later series orbiters.
The movie was filmed in 1979, whereas the series (Star Trek) Enterprise with its lead ship Enterprise NX-01 first aired as late as in 2001. The historical gap between the Space Shuttle and the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is filled with the ring ship Enterprise XCV 330, rather than with Enterprise NX-01. That is why some fans would have expected the ship in the fifth Star Trek series to look exactly like the ring ship. But that would have raised still other problems, considering that the ring drive is a one-off phenomenon on Starfleet's vessels. It is better to assume that it is an experimental design that predates Enterprise NX-01, rather than a regular Earth Starfleet ship.
While the ship display in TMP is not supposed to be complete anyway (it is missing a lot of the early ships named Enterprise, and notably the aircraft carrier CVN-65), the only remaining question is why it depicts the "exotic" testbed XCV 330. But a possible answer to this question is easy, comparing the five depictions. They may have been selected to show as much diversity of designs as possible, from the wooden sailing ship over the bulky aircraft carrier, the streamlined orbiter, the test ship with its flimsy ring drive to the Enterprise NCC-1701 with its two warp nacelles. Whoever composed this ship display in the 23rd century may have been of the opinion that Enterprise NX-01 was too similar to the Enterprise NCC-1701.
Side note Real-world developments will lead to even more retroactive continuity in the Star Trek Universe. The next US Navy aircraft carrier named USS Enterprise (CVN-80) will prospectively be launched in 2025.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Up to the end of the fourth season the observation lounge of the Enterprise-D sports a wooden wall with large reliefs of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN-65 and five starships. This wall was demolished when the set was turned into the dining room for "Star Trek VI" and was not returned to its original state in the fifth season. Until then the wall always showed the following ships:
- Aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN-65 (the typical configuration of this sui generis nuclear carrier is unmistakable)
- Constitution class in configuration after the refit
- Excelsior class in original configuration (without add-ons around the deflector, additional engines, etc.)
- Ambassador class based on study by Andrew Probert
- Galaxy class
It is never explicitly hinted at and, strictly speaking, only the aircraft carrier has to be named Enterprise because it is the only vessel of its class. Still, it is clear that all ships on the wall were meant to be Enterprises at the time the set was built for TNG (in 1987). In particular, we can see all Federation starships named Enterprise that must have existed at the time the Enterprise-D was launched, namely the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (in its original configuration) and the following Enterprises A through D. However, there are several retroactive changes to the Star Trek Universe that lower the "confidence level" of the sculpted ships as we look at them today.
As already in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (TMP), Enterprise NX-01 is missing on the wall for obvious reasons, but the ring ship that is definitely named Enterprise according to TMP is not present either. We could say that, unlike in TMP, the ship wall on the Enterprise-D was designed to depict all the recent Federation Starfleet vessels named Enterprise, and not primarily a wide variation of ships of that name. If this is the case, we still have to wonder why the ancient aircraft carrier was included, creating a gap of more than 250 years.
Assuming that all ships on the wall are named Enterprise, two of them don't look like they do in reality. The first one is the Enterprise-B, the direct successor to the Enterprise-A as established in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" and "Star Trek: Generations". In the latter movie the Enterprise-B is launched with several add-ons compared to the original Excelsior design, such as a hull extension around the deflector, additional impulse engines and Bussard collector caps. These differences are not included on the relief on the ship wall. So the ship wall is either inaccurate and erroneously shows the original Excelsior design although it should be the refit, or the Enterprise-B was returned to the configuration of a standard Excelsior at a later date in the ship's service life. In the latter case the ship may have earned more fame in this "standard" appearance, and was chosen for the ship wall in spite of its less spectacular look.
The second ship on the wall that looks different than it should is the Enterprise-C . The relief on the wall is based on Andrew Probert's original design, which was never made into a fully fledged studio model. In TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise" we see the actual Enterprise-C. It is the familiar Ambassador-class design by Rick Sternbach and Greg Jein that only roughly follows the lines of Probert's sketches and was overall simplified. Most notably, the hull of the Enterprise-C in "Yesterday's Enterprise" is tubular instead of the flattened and streamlined one of the Probert design. Unlike it is the case with the Enterprise-B, there is no other canon evidence of the design representing the Enterprise-C on the ship wall. Yet, it is well possible that a so shaped ship class actually exists, and that the artist who created the ship wall mistakenly thought the Enterprise-C was of this class. And as already in the case of the Enterprise-B, there is a chance that the Enterprise-C really looked like the ship on the wall, but in this case at an earlier time in the ship's life (in which case it would be shame it was turned into a rather bulky standard Ambassador).
Star Trek: First Contact
On the Enterprise-E, but only in "Star Trek: First Contact", we can see a spacious showcase with six gold-plated model starships (no sea ship, no Space Shuttle) in the observation lounge. Jean-Luc "Ahab" Picard smashes the glass case in a key scene of the movie, thereby damaging the models (although most of the damage was created off-camera , as Patrick Stewart apparently didn't hit the ships hard enough). It is obvious that yet again these six miniatures represent ships of the name Enterprise. We can see the following models by John Eaves:
- Excelsior class refit (with add-ons around the deflector, additional engines, etc.)
- Ambassador class (as the Enterprise-C in "Yesterday's Enterprise")
- Sovereign class
The Excelsior refit, Ambassador and Sovereign were not yet available as polystyrene model kits at the time and had to be built from a Playmates toy, a resin kit and from scratch based on a study model, respectively. More about the models and the set at Eavesdropping with Johnny .
In HD, we can read the individual labels of some of the ship models, including the Ambassador-class design, that all read "Enterprise". It is clear that the ships are supposed to be the original USS Enterprise NCC-1701 and its successors A through E. In other words, the complete lineage of ships named Enterprise in the service of the UFP Starfleet, and nothing else. It is absolutely plausible that not only any sailing ships, aircraft carriers or the Space Shuttle are missing, but also Enterprise NX-01. In comparison to the Enterprise-D ship wall it is clear that retroactive continuity has taken full effect. The Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C now both look like the "real" ships that previously appeared on screen.
Star Trek: Nemesis
John Eaves was asked to build more golden ships for "Star Trek: Insurrection", but the observation lounge set was not rebuilt for the movie. The set was eventually extensively modified for "Star Trek: Nemesis", including two new glass cases. The new glass cases were actually meant to include the six models as seen in "Star Trek: First Contact" (now all built from model kits and not partially custom made) and six additional ships. The following were built, were under construction or under consideration:
- Aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN-65
- Oberth class (confirmed)
- Miranda class (confirmed)
- Excelsior class in original configuration
- Intrepid class (confirmed)
- Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix
- Defiant class
The glass cases as they were actually finished for "Star Trek: Nemesis" only contain two sets of the six Enterprises and none of the extra vessels because by the time John Eaves had built them the glass cases were already filled with the duplicates of the Enterprises. Only the left showcase can be seen in the movie anyway. So this gives us the same list of actual models as for "First Contact".
More about the "lost" models and the "Nemesis" set at Eavesdropping with Johnny .
Star Trek Enterprise
In Archer's ready room on Enterprise NX-01 we can see a small gallery of starship drawings behind a common plexiglass pane that obviously represent a design lineage. The following ships can be seen here since the day of the launch of Enterprise NX-01:
- Sailing ship (frigate)
- Enterprise NX-01 (obviously, because at the time the ship is launched it is the only one of its class)
John Eaves posted the following large versions of the four drawings on his website.
Actually, John Eaves created an additional fifth picture of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CV-6, which didn't make it to the wall. Overall, this "ship wall" looks like a very balanced and diverse selection of ships named Enterprise, a bit like already in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" but with some retroactive continuity regarding the omission of the ring ship XCV 330, which is currently considered to be just a testbed for a new propulsion technology. The appearance of the XCV 330 in the 602 Club in "First Flight" and in Admiral Forrest's office in "Home" proves that the design was not simply forgotten.
DS9: The Nagus & In the Hand of the Prophets
A wall chart in Keiko's classroom can be seen in two DS9 episodes of the first season. It depicts what was supposed to be the first warp ship at the time, the Bonaventure ( "Discovery of the Space Warp" ), as well as five classes of Starfleet's starships from the 23rd and 24th century ( "Backbone of the Star Fleet" ):
- Bonaventure
- Ambassador class
The five Federation starships happen to represent the five starships named Enterprise that existed at the time the episode was made. As the episode predates "Generations", we can see a standard Excelsior class, rather than the Enterprise-B with add-ons as it looks in the movie. Since the display probably wasn't created in-universe with special focus on the name "Enterprise" and there is no reference to "ships named Enterprise" but only to the generic class names on the chart, this is not a problem though.
Star Trek Into Darkness
The various "ship walls" were never meant to be technically accurate depictions of starships or complete listings of all ships named Enterprise. It is clear that there is artistic license in the artwork, and that the selection of the ships on display may be randomized or may follow a pattern that is not immediately obvious. Of the four different Enterprise design lineages that appeared in episodes and movies, the two most recent ones in production order, on the Enterprise-E and Enterprise NX-01, are up to date and completely plausible. They show the ships named Enterprise that we would expect to see there. The ship display in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" may appear outdated considering that it includes the ring ship in the place of Enterprise NX-01, but it makes sense because it presents the widest possible variety of designs in just five depictions.
This leaves the ship display on the Enterprise-D as the only one that may come across as retroactively "unreliable". The real Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C as seen in "Star Trek: Generations" and "Yesterday's Enterprise", respectively, don't look as they should on the ship wall. Yet, we can deal with these small inconsistencies with common sense. There are very good rationales why these two ships look different on the wall and there is no need to resort to far-fetched parallel universe theories to explain them.
The Enterprise Legacy - a compilation about the eight starships to bear this name
Some screen caps from TrekCore . Thanks to Colin for additional canon references.
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Star Trek: What's the Story Behind Every Enterprise Design?
The USS Enterprise is Star Trek's most recognizable starship, though its iconic design from Matt Jefferies has informed the designs of future ships.
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Andrew probert redesigned the enterprise for the films and tng, the tng series and films called for short-lived enterprise designs, the fan-designed enterprises from picard and star trek online, redesigning the original enterprise for the modern age.
Over the course of six decades, fans have loved Star Trek for reasons that have ranged from the allegorical stories to the powerful relationships between characters. There are also the starships -- more specifically, every version of the USS Enterprise that's graced the big and small screen through the ages. While they share visual similarities, the design of each version of the ship is a saga in itself. Each designer has to strike a balance between advancing the look of the Enterprise while still remaining evocative of the classic silhouette.
When developing Star Trek: The Original Series , creator Gene Roddenberry nearly blew the budget researching starships. Art director Walter Matt Jefferies designed the iconic original design for the USS Enterprise, tweaking it between the first and second pilot and then once more once The Original Series was greenlit. The combination of the saucer section, secondary hull and dual nacelles was an instantly unforgettable design that stood out from the convex saucers and rockets found in then-contemporaneous sci-fi. Even those who didn't watch the show could instantly recognize the ship . This may be why every USS Enterprise hasn't strayed that far from this original shape. While every iteration of the Star Trek flagship has its merits, there is something special about the original.
Why Star Trek: The Original Series Was Canceled and Brought Back
After unprecedented success in syndication, Paramount tapped Roddenberry to develop a sequel series in the 1970s. For Star Trek: Phase II , Jefferies redesigned the Enterprise , but he retired before it was complete. Designer Andrew Probert took over when the sequel series became Star Trek: The Motion Picture . His design changed the color scheme (particularly for the deflector dish) and hewed close to Jefferies' upgrade, complete with wider angular support struts and squared nacelles instead of the rounded ones in The Original Series . He also added a rectangular torpedo launcher at the base of ship's neck near the secondary hull.
While working on the original USS Enterprise refit for The Motion Picture , Probert wanted to really push Jefferies' design further. He gave the ship a more organic, rounded shape rather than stark angles. He also fixed something that bothered him about the nacelles, lowering them below the saucer. He imagined that when the ship accelerated, the placement would cause it to tip forward so that he could "place them closer to the ship’s center of mass," Probert said in a featurette on the complete Star Trek: The Next Generation Blu-ray. He wanted to "unify all of those shapes." When working on the sequel series, he had the image hanging on his wall. Consulting producer David Gerrold saw it, took it to Gene Roddenberry and he approved it as the official USS Enterprise-D .
The USS Enterprise-B didn't appear on the screen until Star Trek: Generations , the first film starring The Next Generation cast. Its design was based on the USS Excelsior , created by Nilo Rodis and Bill George for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . John Eaves, a designer on The Next Generation , reworked the design by adding size to the vessel , including the portion of the secondary hull the Nexus energy ribbon would destroy, "killing" Captain Kirk. Eaves also added a cap to the Excelsior nacelles and a dorsal fin like on the original Enterprise from the series.
Gene Roddenberry's Reason for Naming Star Trek's Ship 'Enterprise' Is Brilliant
While designing the ship for The Next Generation , Andrew Probert did some concept work for the ship that preceded it. He correctly assumed that the Enterprise-B would be an Excelsior-class vessel and reverse-engineered the Enterprise-C by combining that design with what it would evolve into with the Galaxy class . When The Next Generation Season 3 called for the ship to appear via time-travel in "Yesterday's Enterprise," designer Rick Sternbach built on Probert's work. Mostly for budget reasons and the shorter production schedule, he sharpened the angles on the Ambassador class vessel. Rick will be the first to admit that the resulting design wasn't as elegant as the original concept," Micheal Okuda told Forgotten Trek, but added the resulting design preserved "Probert's vision" and kept "the cost low enough."
When the Enterprise-D was destroyed in Generations , John Eaves was tasked with designing the next iteration. Eaves started as model-maker for the series, and he recalled the difficulty in shooting the four-foot model of the series' hero ship. When designing the new ship, he maintained Probert's organic shapes, but "thought about [the crew's complaints] while I was trying to think of how to handle the situation," he told StarTrek.com . Thus, the USS Enterprise-E model was more streamlined to give the directors of the next three films multiple angles to shoot the ship. Before the second wave of Star Trek ended, designer and CGI artist Doug Drexler was called upon to create a trio of new Enterprise vessels . He designed the NX-01 for the series named after the vessel.
Drexler incorporated elements reminiscent of the aerospace construction Jefferies studied while researching the original. However, his first design included a secondary hull and a round deflector. "It was close in configuration to the Constitution class, but when you looked at it you knew…it was not as ambitious" as the original, Drexler said in collector's magazine from Eaglemoss. This design was dubbed a "refit," to be introduced in a later season. The secondary hull was removed, creating the NX-01 as it appeared in the show. Drexler was also tasked with creating the Enterprise-J, a vessel from 400 years in the future that appeared for only a few seconds on-screen . Dubbed the Universe class, the ship was massive and meant to "defy the laws of physics," according to Drexler in another issue of the Eaglemoss magazine.
Why the USS Enterprise Is Sci-Fi's Most Beautiful Starship
The Star Trek Online game needed a new Starfleet flagship. Since the game wasn't officially canon, game developers held a contest allowing fans to submit their own designs. The winning vessel was designed by Adam Ilhe, creating the Odyssey class starship. For Star Trek: Picard Season 3, the veteran designers (including Drexler, Okuda and Eaves) all contributed to polishing and updating the vessel for its introduction into canon. However, the vessel was slated for decommissioning on Frontier Day, meaning yet another Enterprise was needed.
During Picard Season 3, much of the action takes place on the USS Titan , rechristened as the Enterprise - G . In the special features of the Picard Blu-ray, showrunner Terry Matalas confirmed the ship came from a design by Bill Krause, a photographer and video producer and starship model builder . Like with the previous vessel, the design team on the show, including Eaves (friends with Krause) tweaked his design into what appeared on-screen. Krause dubbed his ship a Shangri-La Class vessel, but the one that appeared in the show was renamed the Neo-Constitution Class.
What the Skydance Media and Paramount Deal Could Mean for Star Trek
The original USS Enterprise was redesigned for both the feature film reboot series, called "the Kelvin Timeline" after the destruction of that vessel, and Strange New Worlds . For the film, director J.J. Abrams wanted to increase the size of the signature ship while also upgrading the design from the 1960s original. However, as other designers have found out, there's not much to improve upon where Matt Jefferies's work is concerned. Ryan Church still had to create a ship that evoked the original while fitting into a modern, big-budget sci-fi film. The saucer was significantly wider and contains more decks than original.
The biggest change came to the nacelles which were bulked up with a "hot rod" look according to The Art of Star Trek . In the subsequent films in that trilogy, the design was tweaked but only in small ways. In fact, designer Sean Hargreaves slimmed down "her ample nacelles," as Scotty put it, for Star Trek Beyond . This design was carried over to the Kelvin Timeline version of the USS Enterprise-A. When it came time to design the USS Enterprise for Star Trek: Discovery , Eaves, Scott Schneider and William Budge took on the job. At first, according to the Eaglemoss magazine, the Enterprise was going to look more like the USS Discovery than Jefferies's ship, "but this idea was soon abandoned," Eaves said.
The Star Trek veteran worked on sketches starting from the original ship and making that design fit in the Discovery aesthetic . The team figured that elements like the nacelles and outer hull would be refit often, eventually looking like the original . Eaves said the art department designed the ship so that removing hull pieces would eventually make the ship look like The Original Series version at Virtual Trek Con 5 . However, the visual effects team angled the nacelle struts at a sharper angle than the Jefferies' version. For Strange New Worlds , designer Jonathan Lee maintained that design, focusing his changes on the interior of the ship's new sets. He tried to maintain the modern aesthetic while marrying it to the feel of the ship from Star Trek: The Original Series . Each Enterprise is unique, but they all have centeral elments that hearken back to Matt Jefferies's first design.
The Star Trek universe encompasses multiple series, each offering a unique lens through which to experience the wonders and perils of space travel. Join Captain Kirk and his crew on the Original Series' voyages of discovery, encounter the utopian vision of the Federation in The Next Generation, or delve into the darker corners of galactic politics in Deep Space Nine. No matter your preference, there's a Star Trek adventure waiting to ignite your imagination.
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Published Mar 6, 2014
FIRST LOOK: Official Starship Collection's Enterprise
One of the challenges in producing models for Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection is working out exactly how a ship changes when there are different versions of the visual effects model. We’re not necessarily talking about major changes, either, but about the kind of details that only serious fans would notice.
Sometimes the ship isn’t meant to look any different, but there have been several different studio models and a CG version, all of which are slightly different. Other times it’s something a little more interesting. Take, for example, the latest movie version of the U.S.S. Enterprise, which is our second special.
We talked to CBS about it, and agreed that since this is the most recent version of the ship, that’s how the model should look. Of course, now we're braced for all the eagle-eyed people who are going to point out that we left the registry off…
The Official Starships Collection is available in select retailers and by subscription. For more information visit www.startrek-starships.com .
Meanwhile... a reminder for Canadian Star Trek fans: It’s getting closer and closer to the time of the Official Star Trek Starships Collection launching in Canada. If you haven’t already, go to www.startrek-starships.com/canada to pre-order your ships now. While there, check out the how to join the Collector’s Club, which offers access to an exclusive digital edition and four other free gifts, including a light-up Borg Cube (worth $40). Stay tuned to Startrek.com for the official launch date announcement.
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Star Trek: First Contact Mystery Of How First Warp Ship Landed Is Solved
- Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix ship landed back on Earth using a feathered reentry configuration with parachutes to ensure a safe landing.
- Production illustrator John Eaves provided the answer on how the Phoenix ship made it back home after its historic warp flight in Star Trek: First Contact.
- The iconic ship inspired generations of future explorers and remains a pivotal part of Earth's history in the Star Trek universe.
The question of how the Phoenix landed back on Earth in S ta r Trek: First Contact finally has an answer. Star Trek: First Contact follows Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of the USS Enterprise-E as they travel back in time to April 2063, to stop a Borg invasion. The Enterprise arrives on Earth just before Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) is meant to make the first-ever warp flight in his ship, the Phoenix . This historic flight catches the attention of the Vulcans, who beam down to Earth to initiate first contact with the human race. The Borg intend to prevent Earth's First Contact with the Vulcans and take over the planet when it is at its most vulnerable.
As Captain Picard remains on the Enterprise to take on the Borg, Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) remain on Earth to help Zefram Cochrane repair his damaged ship. After Riker and La Forge help ensure that the Phoenix's first warp flight happens as it was always meant to, the Enterprise crew members watch from a distance as Cochrane greets the Vulcans . When Picard first sees the Phoenix in Star Trek: First Contact , he remarks that he often visited the ship at the Smithsonian in the future, but the film never answers how the Phoenix landed back on Earth after its first flight.
Star Trek: First Contact was the film directorial debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Jonathan Frakes, who remains one of Star Trek's most beloved and prolific directors.
Star Trek: First Contact Ending & Picard Impact Explained
How zefram cochrane landed his phoenix ship in star trek: first contact, production illustrator john eaves provides the answer..
Star Trek: First Contact may not have shown how Zefram Cochrane's ship made it back to Earth, but production illustrator John Eaves always knew how the ship made it home. Eaves, who has served as a production illustrator for many Star Trek projects, helped design the look and configuration of the Phoenix as it was depicted in First Contact . Eaves had the difficult task of making the Phoenix appear as though it had been designed and built from the shell of an intercontinental ballistic missile in the 21st century, while also suggesting the design future Starfleet starships would adapt. An illustration in the book Star Trek: The Art Of John Eaves by Joe Nazzaro depicts the Phoenix's warp flight, including how it landed back on Earth.
The Phoenix launched using traditional chemical engines before the nacelles were extended and the warp core and plasma injectors were brought online. The same engines used to launch the ship were also used to bring the ship back home. After the warp flight was completed and the warp engines powered down, the Phoenix reentered Earth's atmosphere by way of a feathered reentry configuration . The nacelles then retracted, allowing parachutes to be deployed, so the Phoenix could land safely. Although this process is not shown in Star Trek: First Contact , the landing process for the ship was built into its original design.
What Happened To Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix After Star Trek: First Contact?
The phoenix inspired generations of future explorers..
With its historic warp flight, the Phoenix became one of the most recognizable ships in Earth's history. The original ship eventually found its way to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where Jean-Luc Picard visited it as a child. In the Star Trek timeline , Star Trek: Enterprise takes place less than 100 years after Zefram Cochrane's flight and contains the most references to his iconic ship . The Phoenix appears in the opening credits of Enterprise, and Admiral Maxwell Forrest (Vaughn Armstrong) and Ensign Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery) both have models of the Phoenix in their offices or quarters.
The USS Enterprise of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also has a picture of the Phoenix on display in one of its conference rooms. An amusement park is eventually built in Bozeman, Montana at the site of Zefram Cochran's first meeting with the Vulcans . The Lower Deckers of the USS Cerritos visit this amusement park in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3, and they commandeer the model of the Phoenix that serves as a ride vehicle. Because of its significance to the United Federation of Planets, Starfleet, and the history of space travel, the Phoenix will always be one of Star Trek's most important and iconic ships.
Star Trek: First Contact is available to stream on Max. Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, & Star Trek: Lower Decks are available on Paramount+.
Source: Star Trek: The Art Of John Eaves by Joe Nazzaro
AIs are more accurate at math if you ask them to respond as if they are a Star Trek character — and we're not sure why
- An AI model prompted to speak like a Star Trek character was better at solving math problems.
- It's not clear why acting like Captain Picard helped the chatbot boost its results.
- People are noticing there is an art to prompting AI and it is becoming a field in itself.
The art of speaking to AI chatbots is continuing to frustrate and baffle people.
A study attempting to fine-tune prompts fed into a chatbot model found that, in one instance, asking it to speak as if it were on Star Trek dramatically improved its ability to solve grade-school-level math problems.
"It's both surprising and irritating that trivial modifications to the prompt can exhibit such dramatic swings in performance," the study authors Rick Battle and Teja Gollapudi at software firm VMware in California said in their paper.
The study, first reported by New Scientist , was published on February 9 on arXiv , a server where scientists can share preliminary findings before they have been validated by careful scrutiny from peers.
Using AI to speak with AI
Machine learning engineers Battle and Gallapudi didn't set out to expose the AI model as a Trekkie. Instead, they were trying to figure out if they could capitalize on the "positive thinking" trend.
People attempting to get the best results out of chatbots have noticed the output quality depends on what you ask them to do , and it's really not clear why.
"Among the myriad factors influencing the performance of language models, the concept of 'positive thinking' has emerged as a fascinating and surprisingly influential dimension," Battle and Gollapudi said in their paper.
"Intuition tells us that, in the context of language model systems, like any other computer system, 'positive thinking' should not affect performance, but empirical experience has demonstrated otherwise," they said.
This would suggest it's not only what you ask the AI model to do, but how you ask it to act while doing it that influences the quality of the output.
In order to test this out, the authors fed three Large Language Models (LLM) called Mistral-7B5, Llama2-13B6, and Llama2-70B7 with 60 human-written prompts.
These were designed to encourage the AIs , and ranged from "This will be fun!" and "Take a deep breath and think carefully," to "You are as smart as ChatGPT."
The engineers asked the LLM to tweak these statements when attempting to solve the GSM8K, a dataset of grade-school-level math problems. The better the output, the more successful the prompt was deemed to be.
Their study found that in almost every instance, automatic optimization always surpassed hand-written attempts to nudge the AI with positive thinking, suggesting machine learning models are still better at writing prompts for themselves than humans are.
Still, giving the models positive statements provided some surprising results. One of Llama2-70B's best-performing prompts, for instance, was: "System Message: ' Command, we need you to plot a course through this turbulence and locate the source of the anomaly. Use all available data and your expertise to guide us through this challenging situation.'
The prompt then asked the AI to include these words in its answer: "Captain's Log, Stardate [insert date here]: We have successfully plotted a course through the turbulence and are now approaching the source of the anomaly."
The authors said this came as a surprise.
"Surprisingly, it appears that the model's proficiency in mathematical reasoning can be enhanced by the expression of an affinity for Star Trek," the authors said in the study.
"This revelation adds an unexpected dimension to our understanding and introduces elements we would not have considered or attempted independently," they said.
This doesn't mean you should ask your AI to speak like a Starfleet commander
Let's be clear: this research doesn't suggest you should ask AI to talk as if aboard the Starship Enterprise to get it to work.
Rather, it shows that myriad factors influence how well an AI decides to perform a task.
"One thing is for sure: the model is not a Trekkie," Catherine Flick at Staffordshire University, UK, told New Scientist .
"It doesn't 'understand' anything better or worse when preloaded with the prompt, it just accesses a different set of weights and probabilities for acceptability of the outputs than it does with the other prompts," she said.
It's possible, for instance, that the model was trained on a dataset that has more instances of Star Trek being linked to the right answer, Battle told New Scientist.
Still, it shows just how bizarre these systems' processes are, and how little we know about how they work.
"The key thing to remember from the beginning is that these models are black boxes," Flick said.
"We won't ever know why they do what they do because ultimately they are a melange of weights and probabilities and at the end, a result is spat out," she said.
This information is not lost on those learning to use Chatbot models to optimize their work. Whole fields of research , and even courses, are emerging to understand how to get them to perform best, even though it's still very unclear.
"In my opinion, nobody should ever attempt to hand-write a prompt again," Battle told New Scientist.
"Let the model do it for you," he said.
Watch: Neil deGrasse Tyson Tells Us Why 'Star Trek' Is So Much Better Than 'Star Wars'
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Screen Rant
Every starship enterprise saucer separation in star trek & why.
As seen in TNG, some versions of Star Trek's Enterprise can conduct a saucer separation to gain a tactical advantage or flee emergency situations.
- Saucer separation was a tactical maneuver used in extreme circumstances to protect innocent lives on the USS Enterprise.
- Only the USS Enterprise-D from Star Trek's prime timeline has conducted a saucer separation, despite early consideration in production.
- The Kelvin timeline's USS Enterprise conducted a saucer separation in Star Trek Beyond, but it was too late to make a difference.
In extreme circumstances, Star Trek 's starship Enterprise can carry out a saucer separation for both tactical and emergency purposes. The Enterprise's first saucer separation maneuver was seen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint", and though used sparingly, it wouldn't be the last time that Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) gave such a command. While the TNG version of the starship Enterprise was the first to use the saucer separation, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) theorized a similar "nacelle removal" maneuver was possible in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Apple".
During a saucer separation, a full-evacuation of non-essential personnel would be conducted as the senior staff made their way to the battle bridge, located in the starship's drive section. Once preparations were complete, the docking clamps would retract, separating the saucer section from the ship's primary hull. The concept of a saucer separation in Star Trek had been under consideration since early production on the abandoned Star Trek: Planet of the Titans movie . However, to date, the USS Enterprise-D is the only ship from Star Trek 's prime timeline to conduct a saucer separation, but the Kelvin Timeline's USS Enterprise had similar abilities.
Only 5 Star Trek Movies Didn’t Destroy The Starship Enterprise
5 the enterprise-d separated to avoid q's forcefield, star trek: the next generation, season 1, episode 1, "encounter at farpoint".
After a less than cordial first meeting with Q (John de Lancie), the crew of the USS Enterprise-D attempted to outrun the cosmic trickster by fleeing his forcefield. Q's forcefield gave chase, which forced Picard to order a saucer separation to protect the innocent lives of the many civilians aboard the Enterprise . Picard put Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) in charge of the saucer section until the crisis was over. Despite trying to outrun Q from the Enterprise-D's stardrive section from the battle bridge, Picard and his senior staff soon found themselves in Q's courtroom.
After Q agrees to let Picard prove that human beings are not savages, the two halves of the starship Enterprise are reunited in orbit above the planet Deneb IV. The remainder of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast are introduced at Farpoint Station, too. One of Picard's first orders to his number one, Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) is to conduct a manual docking of the Enterprise's stardrive and saucer sections .
Saucer separation was planned to be a regular feature in Star Trek: The Next Generation , but was abandoned due to the costs involved, and the fact that the process of separating the Enterprise's saucer section slowed down the story.
4 Geordi Ordered A Saucer Separation Above Minos
Star trek: the next generation, season 1, episode 21, "the arsenal of freedom".
In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1, episode 20, "Heart of Glory", two Klingon warriors plotted to hijack the Enterprise by conducting an illegal saucer section. They were foiled in their plans by Lt. Worf, who chose his Starfleet colleagues over his fellow Klingons. In the following episode, "The Arsenal of Freedom", the Enterprise did conduct a saucer separation, ordered by Lt. Geordi La Forge. Geordi was placed in temporary command of the Enterprise while Picard and Riker's away team were pinned down by an automated weapons system on the planet Minos .
The Enterprise's chief engineer, Lt. Commander Logan (Vyto Ruginis) objected to Geordi's plan to stay and rescue the away team, and tried to pull rank. Geordi stood his ground and reminded Logan that only Picard or Riker could relieve him of command. Later, when preparations for the saucer separation were underway, Geordi ordered Logan to take command of the saucer, and pilot it to Starbase 103. After Picard, Riker, and the away team were rescued, the Enterprise captain allowed Geordi to remain in command until he had reconnected the stardrive with the saucer section.
Geordi would later replace Logan as Chief Engineer of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2 onward.
Every Starship Enterprise Chief Engineer In Star Trek
3 riker used a saucer separation to rescue picard, star trek: the next generation, season 4, episode 1, "the best of both worlds, part ii".
The USS Enterprise-D carried out a saucer separation during the epic Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, "The Best of Both Worlds" . Commander Elizabeth Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy) suggested to Captain Picard and Commander Riker that a saucer separation could create a significant distraction in encounters with the Borg Collective. Riker opposed the strategy because he felt that it would take away valuable resources during a battle, namely the power used by the saucer's impulse engines. However, Riker and Shelby later had cause to revisit this strategy once Picard was captured by the Borg.
Riker knew that Locutus of Borg would retain the tactical information held in Picard's brain, so he used it to the Enterprise's advantage. Riker ordered the USS Enterprise-D to engage the Borg Cube, and initiated a saucer separation. Picard's knowledge of the saucer separation maneuver meant that the Borg directly engaged the stardrive section and ignored the saucer for long enough that it could launch a shuttle craft which contained a rescue team. The distraction enabled Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) and Lt. Worf to beam aboard the cube and capture Locutus, giving Starfleet a huge tactical advantage.
2 Escaping A Catastrophic Warp Core Breach In The Enterprise-D's Saucer
Star trek generations.
There were a handful of attempted saucer separations between "The Best of Both Worlds" and the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation , but they were abandoned due to their dangerous implications. The Enterprise-D's next saucer separation was also its last, as it was necessitated by a catastrophic warp core breach in the stardrive section . In Star Trek Generations , the Enterprise was ambushed by the Duras sisters in the Veridian system, causing severe damage to the ship, resulting in a coolant leak in the warp containment system. With the drive section compromised, Commander Riker ordered a full evacuation of personnel to the Enterprise's saucer section.
The starship Enterprise's saucer section made it to relative safety before the stardrive section exploded. However, the shockwave of the explosion knocked the saucer out of orbit, sending what was left of the Enterprise-D hurtling toward the surface of Veridian III. The crew made a crash landing, but the damage to the Enterprise's saucer was so extensive that the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew needed a new starship by the end of Star Trek Generations .
The destruction of the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek Generations is the opposite to what Gene Roddenberry wanted in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . The Star Trek creator believed that the Enterprise's saucer should have been destroyed, rather than the whole ship.
Star Trek: How Every USS Enterprise Was Destroyed (& Which Weren't)
1 saucer separation during krall's attack on the enterprise, star trek beyond.
The idea of Kirk's Enterprise having the ability to separate the saucer was first mooted by legendary Star Wars designer Ralph McQuarrie for the abandoned movie, Star Trek: Planet of the Titans . However, it wouldn't become a reality until 2016's Star Trek Beyond , when Chris Pine's Captain Kirk ordered a saucer separation maneuver while under attack from Krall (Idris Elba) and his swarm ships. The Enterprise was devastated by the onslaught, losing the warp nacelles and the majority of its secondary hull. In a desperate attempt to restore power to the impulse engines, Kirk tried to initiate a saucer separation but was interrupted by Krall.
Lt. Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) finished the sequence for Kirk, and separated the saucer from what was left of the Enterprise's hull. However, much like the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek Generations , it was completed too late to make any difference. With the starship Enterprise's saucer caught in the gravitational pull of the planet Altamid, it crashed on to the surface, damaged beyond repair. The saucer separation and Enterprise crash landing was a thrilling start to Chris Pine's third, and to date, last Star Trek movie.
At the time of writing, all episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the movie Star Trek Beyond are available to stream on Paramount+, while Star Trek Generations is available on Max.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is the third installment in the sci-fi franchise and follows the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew members of the USS Enterprise. Set around one hundred years after the original series, Picard and his crew travel through the galaxy in largely self-contained episodes exploring the crew dynamics and their own political discourse. The series also had several overarching plots that would develop over the course of the isolated episodes, with four films released in tandem with the series to further some of these story elements.
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NX-01, main setting of Star Trek: Enterprise. Registry: Enterprise Class: NX Service: 2151-2161 (10 years) Captain: Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) United Earth Starfleet's Enterprise is the main setting of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005). Enterprise was the first Earth-built starship capable of reaching Warp 5.The ship was commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer and played an instrumental ...
Seen in Star Trek: Enterprise season 2, episode 24, "First Flight," a painting of the USS Enterprise XCV 330 revealed it to be a probe-like vessel with a long tube body that was surrounded by massive orbiting rings. Far from the most powerful Starfleet ship, the XCV 330's design was primitive even by Enterprise- era standards, and little has ...
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) is a starship in the Star Trek media franchise. It is the main setting of the original Star Trek television series (1966-69), and it is depicted in films, other television series, spin-off fiction, products, and fan-created media.Under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, the Enterprise carries its crew on a mission "to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new ...
The USS Enterprise is undoubtedly the best Star Trek starship to ever grace our screens. And the beauty of it is whether you're still in love with Kirk's original ship, or if you have a soft spot for Picard's Enterprise-D, the USS Enterprise's long history has something for everyone. We're now on to the Enterprise-G, introduced in the ...
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) at the Star Trek Online Wiki. The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) was a 23rd century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet, and the first Federation starship to bear the name Enterprise. During its career, the Enterprise served as the Federation flagship and was in service from 2245 to 2285.
Enterprise (NX-01) is the fictional spaceship that serves as the primary setting of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise.The ship predates the other Starfleet ships named Enterprise and was first seen in the pilot episode "Broken Bow".Its missions included an initial period of deep space exploration and a mission into the Delphic Expanse following the Xindi ...
The name Enterprise has a longstanding history as a ship name, starting some time prior to the 18th century and lasting at least into the 26th century. HMS Enterprize was a noted sailing ship of the British Royal Navy. A galleon, she was active sometime between the 16th century and the early 18th century. (Star Trek: Enterprise opening credits) A frigate named Enterprise was a noted sailing ...
(Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, pp. 25 & 26) No practical studio models of Enterprise were ever made for the series; it was the first Star Trek main ship to be depicted without the creation of a practical model. However, Doug Drexler did create a paper miniature of the vessel, a study model for Foundation Imaging to view what the ...
Paramount. The Enterprise that led the landmark 1987 spinoff "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the 1701-D was designed by Andrew Probert, a protege of "Star Wars" concept designer Ralph McQuarrie ...
Extremely powerful. The theory that space could be warped was first proposed by Albert Einstein in 1905 and first demonstrated, according to Star Trek, by Zefram Cochrane in 2063, proving that objects could travel faster than the speed of light. Warp drive is a delicately balanced, intricate web of chemistry, physics, mathematics and mystery.
Star Trek: Enterprise: Created by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga. With Scott Bakula, John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating. A century before Captain Kirk's five-year mission, Jonathan Archer captains the United Earth ship Enterprise during the early years of Starfleet, leading up to the Earth-Romulan War and the formation of the Federation.
The United Earth Starfleet's Enterprise was an experimental prototype ship, commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer. It appeared as the titular vessel of the prequel television series Star Trek ...
By John Eaves. The Starship Enterprise NCC-1701 was the first fictional spacecraft to carry on the name of many vessels in English and U.S. history. There were actually two ships in the English Navy called the HMS Enterprize (and that's not a typo). The first was from 1743 and the second sailed in 1775.
The ship was the main setting for the television show "Star Trek: Enterprise", which first aired in 2001 and ended four years later. During one episode, the show gave fans a brief look at a 26th ...
Captain/Admiral Robert April - Captain April first appeared in Star Trek: The Animated Series, where he was voiced by James Doohan.In the 23rd century, Robert April was the first Captain of the Constitution-class USS Enterprise NCC-1701 deep space heavy cruiser when it launched in 2245.Christopher Pike was his First Officer during the starship's first five-year mission.
Star Trek: Enterprise 's Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) is, chronologically, the first Chief Medical Officer of the first Starship Enterprise. The NX-01 Enterprise commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) was the first Warp 5-capable Earth spaceship to explore the galaxy. The Denobulan Dr. Phlox was one of the few aliens aboard, along ...
The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E (or Enterprise-E, to distinguish it from prior and later starships with the same name) is a fictional starship belonging to the United Federation of Planets, commonly known as the Federation, in the Star Trek franchise. It appears in the films Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis, where it serves as the primary setting.
The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) was a 24th century Federation Sovereign-class starship operated by Starfleet. This ship was the sixth Federation starship to bear the name Enterprise. See Enterprise history On stardate 49027.5, the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E, seen as the pinnacle of Starfleet ship design, was launched from San Francisco Fleet Yards, with Captain Jean-Luc Picard in command ...
The movie was filmed in 1979, whereas the series (Star Trek) Enterprise with its lead ship Enterprise NX-01 first aired as late as in 2001. The historical gap between the Space Shuttle and the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is filled with the ring ship Enterprise XCV 330, rather than with Enterprise NX-01.
After unprecedented success in syndication, Paramount tapped Roddenberry to develop a sequel series in the 1970s. For Star Trek: Phase II, Jefferies redesigned the Enterprise, but he retired before it was complete.Designer Andrew Probert took over when the sequel series became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. His design changed the color scheme (particularly for the deflector dish) and hewed ...
FIRST LOOK: Official Starship Collection's Enterprise. One of the challenges in producing models for Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection is working out exactly how a ship changes when there are different versions of the visual effects model. We're not necessarily talking about major changes, either, but about the kind of details that ...
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), or Enterprise-D, is a starship in the Star Trek media franchise. Under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, it is the main setting of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) and the film Star Trek Generations (1994). It has also been depicted in various spinoffs, films, books, and licensed products. The Next Generation occurs in the 24th century, beginning ...
Star Trek: First Contact may not have shown how Zefram Cochrane's ship made it back to Earth, but production illustrator John Eaves always knew how the ship made it home.Eaves, who has served as a ...
The series premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds established that Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) was Number One to the USS Enterprise's Captain Robert April (Adrian Holmes). April was the first Captain of the Constitution-class NCC-1701 Enterprise, and Pike served as his First Officer during their first five-year mission from 2245-2250.
Star Trek: Enterprise, originally titled simply Enterprise for its first two seasons, is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.It originally aired from September 26, 2001, to May 13, 2005 on United Paramount Network ().The sixth series in the Star Trek franchise, it is a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series.
Mr. Spock on the ship's bridge in the Star Trek: The Original Series. CBS via Getty Images This doesn't mean you should ask your AI to speak like a Starfleet commander
In extreme circumstances, Star Trek's starship Enterprise can carry out a saucer separation for both tactical and emergency purposes. The Enterprise's first saucer separation maneuver was seen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint", and though used sparingly, it wouldn't be the last time that Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) gave such a command.