An orbital inspection pod was a type of shuttlepod used by the Starfleet in the 22nd century.
Prior to the first exterior inspection of the nearly complete prototype NX class starship Enterprise in 2151, Commander Charles Tucker III called Captain Jonathan Archer at home to inform him that all three inspection pods were getting their weekly overhaul that night and would not be available for their use until noon the following day. (ENT: "Shockwave")
The next day, while Enterprise was undergoing final preparations for departure of one of Starfleet's drydock facilities, in orbit of the planet Earth, the inspection pod accidentally scratched the paint on Enterprise's hull, after Tucker got distracted. When a member of Starfleet contacted the inspection pod, Commander Tucker referred to the pod as Orbital 6. (ENT: "Broken Bow")
Throughout the first two years of Enterprise's ten-year mission, at least one such pod was carried aboard the starship. Unlike the craft's shuttlepods, the inspection pod was stored in a cargo bay, not in one of the vessel's shuttlebays. (ENT: "Shuttlepod One")
In 2152, Captain Archer and Commander Tucker inspected damage to Enterprise's primary hull in an inspection pod. The ship had been damaged in a Romulan minefield approximately four days before the officers' inspection. As Enterprise would take a decade to reach Jupiter Station, Captain Archer decided to appeal to others for assistance. He contacted Ensign Hoshi Sato and told her to begin work on a general distress call. (ENT: "Dead Stop")
A year later, Captain Archer and Admiral Maxwell Forrest used an inspection pod to survey the starship Columbia, the second NX-class spacecraft to be built. Uncompleted, the Columbia was docked in another of Earth's orbital drydock facilities. While Archer piloted the pod, he spoke to Admiral Forrest about preparing Enterprise for the starship's lengthy search for the Xindi superweapon in the Delphic Expanse. (ENT: "The Expanse")
Appendices
Appearances
- ENT:
- "Broken Bow"
- "Shuttlepod One"
- "Dead Stop"
- "The Expanse"
- "Damage"
- "Borderland"
Background
Concept artwork of the orbital inspection pod by John Eaves
The name used here to describe this craft is derived from the script for "Broken Bow". [1] The script initially requested that the inspection pod be a barrel-like craft that was cramped to the point of seeming claustrophobic. Rather than simply adhering to this description, the art department devised another concept for the craft, which was embraced by the producers. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 22)
The design staff decided to make the inspection pod's cockpit a modification of the Phoenix's cockpit, from Star Trek: First Contact. ("Broken Bow" text commentary, ENT Season 1 DVD; Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 22) Senior illustrator John Eaves, who helped design the pod with concept artwork that he created, noted, "We always knew we were going to reuse the Phoenix capsule for the inspection pod." However, some significant alterations were made before the art department went ahead with the reuse. Explained Eaves, "We changed the windows; the Phoenix had a little round window on its side, so we got rid of that and put a third window on top. And we changed the seating inside – cut it down to two seats." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 22)
The set for the inspection pod cockpit was constructed on Paramount Stage 8, between the set for Enterprise's engineering and the set for the starship's launch bay. The interior of the cockpit included a reuse of an "Overthruster" prop from the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. The seats for the craft's pilot and co-pilot were pieced together from aviation surplus. [2]
Once the production crew finished filming the interior sets for the pod's appearance in "Broken Bow", the process of rendering the craft digitally began. Production illustrator Doug Drexler recalled, "Now it was my turn to build the CG version of the vehicle. One thing that was different about this ship, was that its design featured great big inspection windows. None of the standard blacked out ports. This time around the audience would be able to see straight in, so I had to build the model complete, inside and out [....] So John [Eaves] and I went down to the stage and we took a slew of reference shots." [3] (The aforementioned photographs can be viewed here.)
Doug Drexler reconstructed the entire craft in CGI. He reflected, "I spent about 5 days on it. Did I think I went too far? No... I knew we’d be using it again, and I knew that whenever we saw it, we would be close. The interior is complete down to the carpet. It isn’t a polygon heavy model either." Regarding the seating for the pilot and co-pilot, Drexler noted, "I built it in CG down to the screws." [4] The inspection pod's docking ring was added by scenic art supervisor and technical consultant Michael Okuda. John Eaves remembered, "Mike Okuda put the door from the international space station on it. That technology might just be on the edge of retiring at that point." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 22) For "Broken Bow", visual effects company Eden FX contributed to the digital rendering by building CG versions of Archer and Trip to pilot the craft. [5]
John Eaves is of the opinion that the inspection pod has similarities to some spacecrafts from Star Trek: The Motion Picture; he believes the pod bears a likeness to the later-period cargo management units, observing that they both were primarily for service, and likened the rear docking ring of the inspection pod to that of the travel pod from The Motion Picture. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 22)
The set for the interior of the inspection pod was reused as the Vissian stratopod's innards in ENT: "Cogenitor". [6]