Undoubtedly one of the coolest sets ever built for any Star Trek series, the NX hangar bay.
Being on this set is an experience unto itself. I’ve spoken before about sets that are immersive. This is one of them. When you are here, you are on the ship. Cool is walking from the top level, down the gangway, and into the shuttle pod.
Production designer Herman Zimmerman wanted a new approach for a shuttlebay. It has a very marine research feel to it, as if the pods were submersibles deployed into the ocean from the bottom of the ship. 
With his usual brilliance, John Eaves produced incredible sketches of the concept for the set designers to draw their plans from. John has a 3D program built into his head, and can draw anything from any angle. That’s Marvin Rush rounding the corner.
Love the control booth. Walking from this position to the booth is a very odd feeling. The sense of vertigo it generates is overwhelming. The shuttle pod hard contact pylons can be retracted into the ceiling. Stowed there are a variety of devices which can be deployed. You may recall in one episode a pylon containing a grappler.
Floor graphics and Pod nomenclature have yet to be applied. Originally we were quite excited about having blister canopies on the pods. The plan was to have VFX put CG characters in there, but unfortunately that fell through, and we ended up with the typical black opaque glass.
That looks like a very fun playground to have spent an afternoon running around and exploring.
I would like very much to have had a chance to walk through that space. Like Jay said, a very fun playground it must have been for you! Could you just imagine that around the corner would be a corridor of the ship rather than just stepping back into the 21st century?
I have had the same desire to check out the set they used for the Serenity in Firefly, since they basically could walk from one end of the ship to the other because they built the whole interior. You don’t happen to know anything about that, do you? I know, it way off topic, but I’m just curious if you have rubbed elbows with any of those folks.
I know many of the Firefly VFX folks. Geoff Mandel was one of our guys who ended over there.
John has a 3D program built into his head, and can draw anything from any angle.
Indeed, folks with this talent never cease to amaze me.
These are sooooO cool dude! Wowsers!
So why no CG pilots, just to much expense?
Thanks dude, these are sO cool!
PLL,
deg
Nice seeing the Hangar Bay in all it’s glory. Thanks for sharing these pictures.
I’d always thought the set reminded me of something, but couldn’t put my finger on it. Makes sense now. The shuttles kinda look like they’re about to be submerged into twin moon pools.
As for the CG pilots, at least you got some in the end with BSG (not to mention blister canopies on the raptors).
On BSG we got to do many things that we weren’t able to do on Trek. CG pilots most notably. Did you know that nearly everytime you saw a pilots POV of the dash and conopy it was CG? One thing we were especially pleased about was wrecking the Galactica little by little thru out the life of the series. We always hated that Voyager looked just as good in the finale, as it looked in episode one. We wanted the Voyager to be like the Bluesmobile at the end of the Blues Brothers… it hung on just long enough to get them there, then it sprang apart. We got to do that with the Galactica when it made it’s last jump. It was beautiful.
Again Thanks for the photos! I love SET PHOTOS!!!
Doug Could you PLEASE! Post some ST 5-7/TOS Movie set photos. Please!!!
Thanks
DeanneM – Geoffrey Mandel (Who worked on Trek also) did the graphic work for Serenity/Firefly. He also did the Trek Star Chart book.
I love the work he did on Firefly, You can get some blueprints and graphics from the show.
Here is the link.
http://store.quantummechanix.com/Serenity-Blueprints-Reference-Pack_p_1-3.html
The innovative work done with regard to the launch bay and the shuttlepods is one of my favorite aspects of the design work on ‘Enterprise.’
Say what you want about the writing quality of Enterprise (Season 2 and 3, I’m looking at you); but you cannot deny that the setwork of that series is very well done. I enjoyed the bare steel work, giving the appearance of a true prototype ship.
So Doug, did you just want to run around when they wern’t filming on the stage or what?
The complete hanger bay set it just too cool!
Matt – I DID run around the sets like a little kid, and I drank deep! As a makeup artist, I literally lived on the D.
It’s a pretty impresive set, and I agree with Talon that the setwork was amazing. I still think, though, that an aft-loading shuttlebay would have been a more logical choice, as a bottom-launching system is much more error sensitive than a system that relies on an external factor, instead of just needing to land the shuttle and that’s it…
BorgMan – I think it’s 6 of one, half a dozen of another. Land nose in or top in, makes not much difference. It’s like Tom Kelly said in The Earth to the Moon episode “Spider”…. Astronaut’s are smart.
Very cool pics!!! You are a lucky man, Sir! I’d love to build this set in 1/35th scale!
The design work on ENT was simply amazing. I really liked the look and feel of the interiors as well as the exterior. There was a functionality in the sets that I felt was missing from the previous 24th Century Treks.
Great shots of the set, Doug.
Now we’ll have to get John to post his drawings over at his blog!
joeralat (Joe?), I appreciate the link for Serenity. I know this will be utter blasephemy to all Enterprises and John Eaves, but I voted for Serenity in an online poll that pitted her against E-E (I’m ducking behind my chair, so go ahead and throw stuff!!).
This set is a true beauty! It looks like it would have been so much fun to play…er…work on. ;D
Was the feeling of vertigo due to the reflection off the glass (plexiglass?) of the control booth?
The Galactica finale was brilliant! When Galactica made that final jump and started to buck, I literally held my breath fearing that she had met her end. I remember thinking to myself, “Hold together girl! Hold together!”
It would have been neat to see Voyager slowly degrade over the years. I loved the way the ship had nearly fallen to pieces in the “Year of Hell” episodes.
Oh wow… I don’t know what to say… Wait? Do I really need to say anything? Probably not. You all knew that I would come running over the minute I had a moment didn’t you. lol
If anyone needs me I will be over here drooling on my shoes. I have some pictures to pick apart now.
I already see a few things that I missed on the railings. And just look at the clear shots of the ceilings…
Thanks Doug! You never fail to impress!
Really loved the industrial feel of the NX.
Always marveled at big interior sets. The NX shuttle bay and teh DS9 Promenade comes to mind.
This is one of my favorite sets of the series. Initially I found it strange that shuttles would be dropped and pulled in that way. But without having antigrav equipment in the pods themselves it makes a lot of sense.
@Matt Boardman
Although I can not speak for Doug, I think that the see-through/grating floor of the walkways easily can induce vertigo. I had the same feeling some odd-14 years ago when I first set foot on the first and second floor in our spare parts department. But you get used to the look of your feet some 3-5 meters above the ground.
The bad thing? That somehow funny feeling never returns, even if you haven’t walked over such a grating in years.
Regarding the set – I think whatever I could say has already been said. It definately was one of my favorites on that show too.
What I really liked when we first saw it on TNG (I think it was in “Transfigurations”) and late ENT were those control booths on the elevated level. Gave the whole shuttle bay a kind of aircraft carrier feeling. Despite those force fields, I never really bought the idea of having personal working on an unprotected / open console in the hangar bay whenever the doors were open and a shuttle went through. Those booths gave it a sort of “even it the field collapses, I will be safe” way of doing things.
Cheers
Thorsten
Not sure how this set was shot, but it always seemed more cramped-looking to me than it should have looked. Perhaps I’m just used to shuttle bays on the previous shows being spacious.
Woah, that looks huge!
What actually was the largest (interior) set created for Trek? The DS9 promenade?