| Spacedock-type | |
|---|---|
| Type: | Orbital Docking Station |
| Owner: | United Federation of Planets |
| Operator: | Starfleet |
| Status: | Active (2372) |
 | |
The Spacedock-type space station was a space station and Starbase design, in use during the later 23rd and 24th centuries.
Contents |
Technical arrangement
The massive layout was designed to harbor numerous starships inside its upper, mushroom-formed section.
Stations commissioned
Appendices
Appearances
Background information
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The Spacedock type was designed by David Carson and Nilo Rodis at Industrial Light & Magic. They took their cue from the story outline for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Carson later recalled, "I was trying to work out how we could make this space station interesting, and I thought, 'What if it is so big that the Enterprise actually goes into it?' I did a drawing of a space station that was big enough. It was a bit clunky, but Nilo took that and in his typical fashion turned it into a really wonderful design. So we presented this idea." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 3, Issue 8, p. 48)
The mushroom-like aspect of the Spacedock-type's appearance developed from Nilo Rodis maintaining that the dock have a distinctive look, intentionally varying the facility's design from the results of ILM's recent work on the Star Wars franchise. "We pitched a whole bunch of design ideas to Harve [Bennett] and Leonard [Nimoy]," stated Rodis. "I wanted to make sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with 'Star Wars', so it was more reality-based in its own Star Trek way." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 3, Issue 8, pp. 48-49)
The studio model was built at Industrial Light & Magic. It has been suggested, by Mike Okuda among others, that the Spacedock type was over three miles in height, which gives it the ability to house many different starships in its hull. Behind the scenes, it was nicknamed "mushroom". (Penny Juday, TNG Season 2 DVD special feature "Inside Starfleet Archives, Penny Juday, Star Trek Coordinator")
The interior of the Earth Spacedock was represented by a large set. The original from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was destroyed after the end of filming. The production crew for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home had to rebuild the entire set from scratch.
Footage of Spacedock at Earth was reused more than once in Star Trek: The Next Generation, with the USS Enterprise-D superimposed over the motion picture Enterprise.
The enclosure around Drafting Room 5 at Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, as seen in "Booby Trap", was also quite similar to the interior of this type of spacedock.
Apocrypha
According to the Star Trek Space Ships (1996) calendar, for the month of April, this type of docking facility was identified as an Ournal-class Space Station with an NCC registry prefix. From this same source, a total number of twelve of these stations were built. [1]
External link
- Building the Earth Spacedock at Forgotten Trek - a gallery of images showing the spacedock model under construction