Spacecraft in Star Trek

The Star Trek franchise features many spacecraft. Various space vessels make up the primary settings of the Star Trek television series, films, and expanded universe; others help advance the franchise's stories. Throughout the franchise's production, spacecraft have been depicted by numerous physical and computer-generated models. Producers worked to balance often tight budgets with the need to depict convincing, futuristic vessels.

Beyond their media appearances, Star Trek spacecraft have been marketed as models, books, and rides. Filming models have sold for thousands of dollars at auction.

The original Star Trek television series (1966–1969) established key tenets of the Star Trek franchise: an intrepid, diverse crew traveling through space and encountering the unknown.Matt Jeffries designed the crew's space ship, the USS Enterprise. Jeffries' experience with aviation led to his Enterprise designs being imbued with what he called "aircraft logic". Series creator Gene Roddenberry wanted the ship's design to convey speed, power, a "shirt sleeve" working environment, and readiness for a multiyear mission. Roddenberry insisted the ship not have fins or rockets; Jeffries also avoided repeating fictional designs from Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, along with the real-world space exploration work done by Boeing, Douglas Aircraft Company, Lockheed Corporation, NACA, NASA, and Northrop. With Roddenberry's speed requirement, Jeffries decided the ship needed to be instantly recognizable from a distance, and that speed could be conveyed by the ship starting small in the background and growing as it accelerates toward the camera. Jeffries imagined the ship's engines were so powerful they would be dangerous to be near, hence the pair of external warp nacelles. Jeffries initially designed the habitable portion of the ship as a sphere, but it conflicted with the need to suggest the ship's speed. Although Jeffries wanted to avoid the cliche of a "flying saucer", the saucer-shaped upper portion of the hull eventually became part of the final design. Jeffries kept the exterior as plain as possible, both to allow light to play across the model and to suggest that the ship's vital equipment was on the interior, where it could be more readily maintained and repaired. Looking at an early balsa and birchwood model of the Enterprise, Roddenberry thought the vessel would look better upsidedown, and a TV Guide cover once depicted it as such; ultimately, however, the show used Jeffries' arrangement. The saucer module, engineering hull, and twin warp nacelle design influenced producers' designs of Starfleet vessels throughout the franchise's spin-offs and films.

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