Smithsonian Restores Model of Enterprise

The Smithsonian recently published an article about restoring a model of U.S.S. Enterprise last modified in the Star Trek (TOS) for the “Trouble with Tribbles” episode. See the full article here, but an excerpt and pictures are provided below.

On Star Trek, a TV series that aired in the late 1960s, more than 400 crew members explored the galaxy aboard the USS Enterprise, which had a length of 947 feet and weighed 190,000 tons. In actuality, the starship was an 11-foot-long model made of poplar wood and vacu-formed plastic.

Film of the model appeared in all 79 episode of the original series (broadcast from 1966–69), and the model was donated to the National Air and Space Museum by Paramount Studios in 1974. Forty years later, the Museum undertook a two-year project to restore the Enterprise to how it looked during the filming of the 1967 episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”—the last known modification of the ship during the show’s production. Today the Enterprise is displayed in the Museum’s location in DC.