USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

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Career
Image:USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), ENT1231.jpg The U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701), a Constitution class starship
Launched:	2245 San Francisco Yards
Commissioned:	2245
Status:	Destroyed: 2285
General Characteristics
Class:	Constitution
Star Trek Template Project

In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the USS Enterprise, (NCC-1701) was the ship in the original NBC TV series Star Trek, which chronicled the vessel's most famous assignment, a five-year mission of exploration and diplomacy under Captain James T. Kirk's command. It is the first Federation starship to bear the name Enterprise, and possibly the most famous spaceship in history (real or fictional).

It was a Constitution-class heavy cruiser that was commissioned in 2245.

During the 1966-1969 run of the show, the ship's dedication plaque listed it as "Starship Class", since the creators originally intended ships of the Enterprise's configuration to be "Starships" (with other styles having different class names). However, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ("Relics") later officially revealed that the ship was officially designated a Constitution class starship (this had been fanon for many years). The registry number (1701) of the ship was chosen to be easily visible at a glance by television viewers. "NCC" (unofficially known as ' Naval Construction Contract ') was chosen by analogy to modern civil aircraft identification codes.

Fictional history

The first officially known commanding officer of the Enterprise was Christopher Pike, who served as captain for more than a decade prior to Kirk's fabled voyages. Star Trek: The Animated Series revealed a previous captain, Robert April, however as TAS was not considered canon by Gene Roddenberry or Paramount Pictures, owners of the Trek franchise, April's tenure as captain remains a matter of fanon, not canon, until a future live-action film or TV series establishes otherwise. (It has been reported that April is identified as the first captain of the NCC-1701 on a computer display visible in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly", however this has not been verified.)

Following Kirk's five-year mission, as explained in the 1979 film Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Enterprise was out of service for two-and-a-half-years, undergoing an extensive rebuild and upgrade while in dry-dock orbiting Earth under the command of Willard Decker. When it was recalled to service prematurely in order to deal with the V'ger threat, Kirk, now an admiral, took command of the vessel from Decker who subsequently disappeared with V'ger.

It is a commonly held belief among fans that, following the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Admiral/Captain Kirk commanded a second mission (possibly for another five years), and a number of novels and reference works have assumed this. However, official canon has never indicated that a second mission occurred. All that is known is approximately 5-9 years after the V'ger incident, the Enterprise was under the command of Captain Spock and being used as a training vessel.

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Khan Noonien Singh stole the U.S.S. Reliant and used her to disable the Enterprise. Kirk, who once again took command of the NCC-1701 at the urging of Spock, employed a strategy to equally disable the Reliant. Khan planned to use a weapon called Genesis to destroy the Reliant and the Enterprise, but the Enterprise and her crew were able to survive, partly because of the self-sacrifice of Mr. Spock. The vessel, heavily damaged and with a skeleton crew, limped back to Earth.

In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which immediately followed Khan, Starfleet decided to scrap the ship, thinking that the age of the ship wouldn't make a repair worthwhile. (There is a continuity error involved in this decision; see Trivia, below.) Nevertheless, the command crew stole the ship and took it to the Genesis planet, to bring Spock's body back to Vulcan. At the Genesis planet, the Enterprise was attacked by a Klingon Bird Of Prey under the command of Commander Kruge. Despite being able to inflict some damage on the Klingons, the control systems of the Enterprise began to fail, and a torpedo from the Klingons disabled the ship completely. Faced with being captured by a Klingon boarding party or being killed, Kirk, Chekov, and Scott set the ship to auto destruct. The primary hull was blown apart, and the secondary hull fell into the Genesis planet's atmosphere and was incinerated, taking with it all of the Klingons except for Commander Kruge and one officer, Maltz.

Following the destruction of the NCC-1701, Kirk and his officers were instrumental in saving Earth from a mysterious probe (as chronicled in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). As a reward, Kirk (who was demoted to captain as punishment for disobeying orders and taking the NCC-1701 to the Genesis Planet) was given command of a new U.S.S. Enterprise, a virtually identical (from the outside) vessel with the registry number NCC-1701-A. This began a long tradition of continuing the NCC-1701 registry number through successive generations of Enterprise which in some timelines continues until at least the 26th century (see Starship Enterprise).

Filming miniatures

The original Enterprise was designed by Star Trek Art Director Walter M. "Matt" Jefferies. Two filming miniatures, one approximately 3 feet (91.4 cm) long and the other 11 feet 2 inches (3.4 m) long were built by Richard Datin for the pilot episode "The Cage". When NBC ordered a second pilot ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") be filmed, the models were slightly altered, the larger model being wired for electronic lighting effects. The first regular series episode filmed ("The Corbomite Maneuver," actually the tenth episode broadcast) saw still more alterations made, including the addition of translucent domes and blinking lights at the forward ends of the engine nacelles on the large model. Save for re-used footage from the two pilot episodes, this was the appearance of the ship throughout the run of the series. The larger model, restored by Ed Miarecki in 1992, is currently in a display case on the lower level of the gift shop of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The smaller model disappeared some time after the cancellation of the series.

Another model of the original Enterprise seen on screen was Greg Jein's, built for the Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." Jein's model was built to be exactly half the size of the larger of the two original models, and has since appeared in the 1998 Star Trek wall calendar (ISBN 0-671-00936-2). (The first image on this page is from the center spread of that calendar.) In addition, a CGI model of the ship made a brief cameo at the very end of the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise ("These are the Voyages...").

The Enterprise as it appears in the first three Star Trek films was designed by Mike Minor, Joe Jennings, Andrew Probert, Douglas Trumbull, and Harold Michaelson. The model was re-used as the Enterprise NCC-1701-A beginning with the fourth feature, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. For the "Director's Cut" DVD release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a CGI model of the ship was built to add footage as envisioned by director Robert Wise during the original 1970's filming, but never shot because of budget and time constraints.

Trivia

The NCC-1701 may or may not have had a bowling alley for the recreational use of its crew. Such a feature is mentioned by Lt. Riley in the first season episode "The Naked Time" though it's hard to tell if this was intended a joke since Riley was under the influence of an alien virus at the time. In 1973, an officially licensed set of blueprints of the ship, drawn by Franz Joseph, was published, and a bowling alley was indeed included on the plans. Whether this makes the bowling alley canonical or not is a matter of debate.
The age of the vessel at the time of its destruction has never been firmly established, although there have been some non-canon and semi-canon conjectures. The first on-screen reference to the age of the ship occurs on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; just prior to its destruction when the ship is said to be 20 years old which is given as Starfleet's rationale for scrapping the vessel. This, however, is clearly erroneous since the film takes place roughly 15 years after the events of the original series episode "Space Seed", and it is known that Christopher Pike commanded the vessel for at least a decade prior to Kirk taking command. And this doesn't even take into account the conjectured command of Robert April. It can be safely speculated that the age of the NCC-1701 at the time of its destruction was closer to 40 years, a fact later confirmed by the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" during which a computer screen displays the commissioning year for the NCC-1701 as 2245. It may be that "20 years old" referred, in round terms, to the time since the ship's last overhaul and refit after Captain Pike's mission (or perhaps since Captain Kirk's initial voyage in the pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before," since after that episode the ship, its crew, and even the uniforms changed noticeably).
Space Shuttle Enterprise is named after the spaceship Enterprise.
Before the era of the Federation & the NCC-1701, the first deep-space starship named Enterprise was the smaller, warp-5 capable NX-01 of the 2150s.
The bridge design of the NCC-1701 was once considered for use by the real-life United States military, due to the efficiency of its style and layout.