Star Trek: 10 Secrets About Spacedock One You Need To Know

As the USS Enterprise stops inside the vast hall of Spacedock One, it passes by a series of large windows and a lounge. All rise and watch as the patched-up and scarred starship arrives at the base. Keep an eye out for Grace Lee Whitney among the crowd.

This lounge would then house that janitor, complete with mop and bucket, who gets to witness that same Enterprise reversing toward the very-closed space doors.

At the time, the only way to create that effect was to use the world's largest bluescreen which was housed at ILM's Marin County Headquarters. In one of those ironic franchise twists, it was also the same bluescreen that was used for the speeder bike and Jabba's Sail Barge sequences in some other sci-fi sequel called Return of the Jedi. Some 40 extras were drafted in for the arrival of the Enterprise while additional height and scale was added to the set through the inclusion of a matt painting to the top and sides. The interior wall model of Spacedock and the USS Enterprise were then composited into that shot. The cafeteria was contained within the central structure and fans can also spot part of the Excelsior docked just to the left of the screen. 

In a near homage to the docking shots in The Search for Spock, a smaller control room was featured in 11001001 with the Enterprise-D docking through the windows in the background. This would also mirror the Enterprise-D's theft by the Bynars where the ship is seen reversing out past the same windows again!