The upside-down Enterprise

[TrickyDickie]

Several months ago, there was a discussion of where such images appeared.

Here is the ad in the back of Mudd's Angels:



And here is a listing from TV Guide for The Tholian Web:

[E-DUB]

In space there is no up or down.

[ZapBrannigan]

I think one of Matt Jeffries' design concepts for the Enterprise, just after the spherical hull version (now known as the USS Horizon), was pretty much the final model but upside down. His drawings are in THE MAKING OF STAR TREK.

[Albertese]

It was the final drawing right-side up. He had the prop department knock up a smallish model of it to push the design he favored (which is what we finally got) but the saucer and engineering hull were made of balsa and the engines were birch dowels (they had a pretty short time frame to finished model). Since the dowels were heavier, the model flipped over on it's string and Roddenberry really liked it that way and MJ had another fight on his hands to get it turned back right-side-up.

True story!

--Alex

[scotpens]

ZapBrannigan wrote:

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I think one of Matt Jefferies' design concepts for the Enterprise, just after the spherical hull version (now known as the USS Horizon), was pretty much the final model but upside down.

That would be this one.




This is pretty close to the final design.

Albertese wrote:

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It was the final drawing right-side up. He had the prop department knock up a smallish model of it to push the design he favored (which is what we finally got) but the saucer and engineering hull were made of balsa and the engines were birch dowels (they had a pretty short time frame to finished model). Since the dowels were heavier, the model flipped over on it's string and Roddenberry really liked it that way and MJ had another fight on his hands to get it turned back right-side-up.

I've never heard that story before, but it sounds plausible. Source?

[RPJOB]

scotpens wrote:

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That would be this one.

I think that the Kelvin would have looked pretty cool with this design.

[Tiberius]

The Enterprise on the covers of the Nitpicker's Guide for Classic Trekkers and Next generation Trekkers also had the Enterprise upside down, surrounded by floating televisions...

[ZapBrannigan]

I wish that TOS and all the spinoffs had been less rigid about maintaining "up and down" in space. As Spock said in TWOK, the spacial thinking was most often two-dimensional.

[RPJOB]

In my mind Regula One WAS upside down. We saw how the station was oriented at the beginning of TMP when Scotty and Kirk left in the travel pod. No reason for the entire station to be inverted and no reason the transporter couldn't compensate for the difference in orientation.

[YARN]

RPJOB wrote:

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In my mind Regula One WAS upside down. We saw how the station was oriented at the beginning of TMP when Scotty and Kirk left in the travel pod. No reason for the entire station to be inverted and no reason the transporter couldn't compensate for the difference in orientation.

Meh, ships should not be designed with bilateral symmetry either. There is only one axis which matters in space (forward/back). It makes sense for a ship to have a front end and a back end, but not to have a top or bottom or dedicated left and right hand side.

[Redfern]

I've read that anecdote as well, but looking at that "inverted" earlier illustration, I just can't fathom how that would flip to give us the orientation we know today.

Consider, the reasonable spot to secure a string would be upon the thicker cylinder (what is now the engineering hull) towards the end aligned with the saucer. Tell how THAT could flip to have the cylinder underneath and the saucer on top! Somebody activate a grav-plate mounted upon the celing during that fateful meeting? (Sorry, that was a bit snarky.)

Now, what I imagine could have happened is this. The wooden model is revealed, the longer cylinders simply resting upon the desk or table. Roddenberry lifts it and slowly turns it around in his hand, staring at it from various angles. Finally, he turns it over with the thick short cylinder now underneath. Since he stated the ship never lands upon planets (due to the effects budget needed to depict this on a weekly basis), he realizes this orientation better implies this thing CAN'T land, that it is a craft built purely for space travel.

I have my suspicions this is just another of those colorful anecdotes that makes for more interesting stories than the boring reality.

Sincerely,

Bill

[mb22]

[BoredShipCapt'n]

TrickyDickie wrote:

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Several months ago, there was a discussion of where such images appeared.

Here is the ad in the back of Mudd's Angels:

That is the image seared into my 11-year-old memory. Thanks.

[RPJOB]

YARN wrote:

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Meh, ships should not be designed with bilateral symmetry either. There is only one axis which matters in space (forward/back). It makes sense for a ship to have a front end and a back end, but not to have a top or bottom or dedicated left and right hand side.

Perhaps in real life but Trek has, for the most part, handled things differently. The notable exceptions are the Borg and the Fesarius.

[ToddPence]

There's an upside down Klingon ship in the photo section of David Gerrold's "The World of Star Trek",