Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Enterprise D You Need To Know

7. You Never Actually Saw The Main Shuttlebay

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Stage 9

Rarely depicted in the show for budgetary reasons (that's going to be a recurring theme in this article, by the way), the Enterprise-D's shuttle bay usually looked about big enough to accommodate one or two small craft, and whatever cargo or crew they happened to be carrying. Small, but efficient, you'd probably assess them as.

However according to the official design schematics of the ship, as drawn by Rick Sternbach the man responsible for the vast majority of props and sets seen on the show, the main shuttlebay was absolutely massive. One singular space the spanned three entire decks of the ship and, at any given time, was home to over a dozen small craft.

Not only that but there were a number of repair facilities, refueling stations, cargo storage areas, and even a central control tower that was three decks tall. The cost of building a practical set for this was deemed too high for the show, but Stage 9 Studio did render it in VR for their tour of the ship, before CBS shut them down for copyright issues.

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Managing Editor

WhatCulture's Managing Editor and Chief Reporter | Previously seen in Vice, Esquire, FourFourTwo, Sabotage Times, Loaded, The Set Pieces, and Mundial Magazine