The Original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701: Big Pic

Sept. 8, 2011 -- Today marks the 45th anniversary when the very first episode of Star Trek: The Original Series aired in the U.S. on NBC. The Sept. 8, 1966 episode was "The Man Trap," even though it wasn't produced first. The official Star Trek timeline considers "Where No Man Has Gone Before" -- the second pilot to be produced after the first, "The Cage," was initially rejected (only to be aired in 1988) -- to be the very first episode of the series.

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Although the running order of the initial episodes may seem a little confused, there was one constant -- the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701, a futuristic spaceship capable of traveling faster than the speed of light, a spaceship that became the basis for the design of all future incarnations of the Enterprise. In short, it's a science fiction icon.

Shown here in all her glory at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is the actual model used in the first adventures of Captain Kirk and his multi-national, multi-species United Federation of Planets crew.

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From the Smithsonian website: "Primarily constructed of poplar wood, vacu-formed plastic, rolled sheet metal tubes for both the engine pods from the back of the struts to the start of the nacelle caps, and plastic for the main sensor dish and detailing (light covers, etc.). The front and rear of the engine pods or nacelles are of wood. The nacelle grill plates brass. Rolled steel wires were also inserted through its original pipe support for lights."

The whole model measures 11 feet (3.4 meters) long and 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide and weighs nearly 91 kilograms. However, in The Original Series, the fictional ship measured 947 feet (289 meters) long and 417 feet in diameter, grossing 190,000 tons. The saucer-shaped hull included 11 decks, and was home to a crew of 430 explorers.

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After three seasons of The Original Series finished production in 1969, this NCC-1701 model was donated by Paramount Pictures to the National Collection in 1974.

-- by Ian O'Neill

Image courtesy National Air and Space Museum