10 Obscure Star Trek Secrets That Took Years To Discover

The special effects team behind The Original Series had to use a lot of strange and creative methods to save money on the show.

For example, the main physical model of the original Enterprise was only ever filmed from its right side. This is because the special effects team decided to run electrical wiring along the left side for lights. Keeping the left side hidden proved to be easier than trying to hide the wiring.

The Enterprise was mostly seen from its right side on the show and for promotional photos, but, when it needed to be seen from the left, the video was mirrored and the lettering on the hull was replaced with reversed decals so the text could be read normally.

There's very little information online about the models left side, but you can find images of the wiring in the reference book To Boldly Go: Rare Photos From The TOS Soundstage - Season Two. Additionally, the Smithsonian National Air And Space Museum in Washington D.C. acquired the model in 1974, and Margaret Weitekamp, a curator at the museum, talked about the lack of detail on the left side in an interview with The Washington Post in 2017, shortly after the model went through a full restoration at the Museum.