Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of Enterprise NX-01 You Need To Know

Over the course of its inception, the NX-01 went from pencil drawings by John Eaves to primitive CGI models created by Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine veteran artist Doug Drexler. Drexler used the then-relatively new tools of computer graphics to create 3D models of the NX-01 as he honed in on its design.

What resulted was one of Star Trek's most detailed "hero" starships, meticulously detailed down to every line and plate on the ship's hull. According to Doug, many of these details unfortunately never made it to the screen, sometimes simply due to dramatic requirements.

Doug recalled one such instance:

We did an episode called “Minefield” where they had Malcolm trudge halfway across the primary hull to get to this mine that was on the hull... It really makes them look unprepared and stupid that they have to walk and carry stuff halfway across the hull... But you can see the grid work on the hull and the plate work on the hull, and the idea is that there were cars that you could ride to any section. They would rise up out of the hull and you could ride to any section on the ship to do repair work.

While Malcolm climbing into a cart and riding comfortably along the hull may have been far less dramatic (and prohibitively more costly) than what appeared on screen, Drexler also said there were other features incorporated into the NX-01's design that could've done the trick:

Not only that, the NX-01 has several arms, like the International Space Station, that could remotely fix things like the warp nacelles without anybody ever leaving the ship.