Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Danube-class Runabout

Going all the way back to the impressive 1:1 scale Galileo built for Star Trek: The Original Series, full-size shuttlecraft mockups were de rigueur for Star Trek productions, including complete shuttles constructed for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

However, the relatively large size of Deep Space Nine's runabouts (23.1 meters long compared to the Galileo shuttle's 6.8 meters) meant a full-size version of the ship just couldn't be built on a television budget. Still, a few episodes called for portions of the runabout's exterior to be filmed live on set, resulting in the construction of various segments of the runabout's hull.

The most frequently seen partial exterior set piece was the runabout's hatch, first used for the wormhole planet scenes in "Emissary" then subsequently attached to DS9's airlock set for scenes in which crewmembers board and disembark from a runabout directly onto the station. Initially constructed to stand-in for the hull of the runabout, this set piece would be repainted and redressed to represent numerous starships docked at the station... just another reused and recycled set piece whose history could fill an entire listicle on its own.

Even larger than the runabout's hatch, though, was the huge chunk of the nose section of the runabout USS Yangtzee Kiang built on Paramount Studios Stage 18 for the first season episode "Battle Lines". Consisting of the port side of the Yangtzee Kiang, including the side cockpit windows and a working escape hatch, the construction of this large piece of runabout actually contributed to driving the episode overbudget, despite the production saving costs by very obviously reusing the warp nacelle from TNG's existing full-size Type-6 shuttlecraft... much to the chagrin of production staffer Doug Drexler:

We all knew it was wrong. We pointed it out, but the feeling was that it was general texture, and the camera would never see it. Ha ha!