To Boldly Go...

A Man and His Dream

Bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Panoramic photo by The Bear.

When the original Star Trek series was cancelled in 1969, no one anticipated the lasting impact that the show would have. As a result, the original sets were summarily destroyed. Over many years, James Cawley -- Star Trek fan and Elvis impersonator -- constructed what is recognized as the most complete and accurate reproduction of the original Enterprise set that once existed at Desilu Studios. The reproduction sets are exactly to scale, constructed from the original blueprints and well informed by close scrutiny of series footage. Because of this exacting authenticity, the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour is recognized by CBS as an official Star Trek property and routinely hosts surviving original cast members. For about five years, the set has been open to the public for tours.

The small town of Ticonderoga, New York is home to this tangible love letter to a series that fired the imaginations of so many and even inspired careers in science and aerospace. Six people from the Williamson Flying Club flew three actual airplanes across New York state for an opportunity to sit in the captain's chair of a fictional starship representing a very 1960s vision of the future.

Voyage To Starfleet's Ticonderoga Shipyard

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
19 Sep 2021	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - 4B6 (Ticonderoga, NY) - SDC	3.6	2366.8

This particular flight of fantasy was something that The Bear and I were anticipating for a couple of years. We both wanted our moment in Captain Kirk's chair! Weather forced cancellation of all previous plans, but the sky was clear and the winds light on September 19. This was also not our first trip to Ticonderoga. In 2014, we landed there for a memorable visit to historic Fort Ticonderoga. 

The Ticonderoga Airport sits on a plain between the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain. We arrived just behind Dan and Rick, landing to the northeast on runway 2.

Dan and Rick were waiting for us on the ground with Five Five Whiskey.

Squinting into the sun. Photo by Rick.

Scott made the classic aviator's error. He was the last to launch, which meant that he had the rest of us as an audience to his landing at Ticonderoga in Eight Five X-Ray. Despite all the witnesses, he pulled off a great landing.

Scott and Tony taxi to parking in Eight Five X-Ray.

Scott shuts down Eight Five X-ray on the Ticonderoga ramp.

Scott and Tony with Eight Five X-Ray.

Tony was the only one of our party who actually wore a Star Trek shirt. But I already knew that he was an enthusiastic fan. "If we don't get to Ticonderoga this year, I'm gonna throw a hissy fit," he confided  early in 2021. His frustration with the past cancellations was just as great as mine.

By comparison, The Bear pushed the boundaries of good taste by wearing a Star Wars shirt to our Trek odyssey. To my surprise, no one called her out on it.

I am amused by the fact that we were all more excited to visit the fake Starship Enterprise than we were about piloting actual flying machines to get there. We left our small fleet of three aircraft at the Ticonderoga Airport and rode into town with Cy from Adirondack Cab. Cy was the same driver who took my family to the Fort back in 2014 and I was glad to see that his small family run business had survived the pandemic.

Where's the Food Replicator?

We stopped in downtown Ticonderoga for a late breakfast. It was no Quark's, but Libby's Bakery Café in Ticonderoga makes a mean Lumberjack breakfast sandwich. (In my case, that meant two eggs, sausage, cheese, and hash browns stacked between two thickly sliced pieces of homemade sourdough.) 

The Bear talked me into buying this enormous piece of apple strudel for her.

She made short work of it, though dainty is not a word that I would apply to the process.

"Everybody Remember Where We Parked."

None of us really knew what to expect when we arrived at the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour. What kind of building would it be in? Would it be incredibly futuristic?

Or would it appear to be former Auto Zone? I'll take a pair of windshield wipers and some Romulan ale, please! Our tour guide told us that this was their third home. As the set grew over time, larger accommodations became necessary.

The Galileo Seven Six

Photo by The Bear

A relatively crude mock up of the shuttle Galileo stood outside. It looked as though it was originally constructed as a parade float. The Bear immediately hopped on board and began pushing the colorfully tempting buttons on the instrument panel.

WHOOOOSH, went the shuttle! It was the classic photon torpedo launch sound from the original series and it caught all of us by surprise. We turned to see The Bear sheepishly crouched behind the instrument panel in embarrassment.

Thus began a systematic exploration of other sound effects built into the plywood shuttlecraft. None of them had quite the effect as the unexpected WHOOOOSH, though.

The Trouble with Tribbles

Yes, there were tribbles for sale. They cooed. They shrieked as though in the presence of Klingons. They vibrated like faceless, limbless "Tickle Me Elmo" dolls. But the real trouble with tribbles was that they were $30 apiece. While one cannot put a price on childhood delight, I told The Bear that I would need to ponder her purchase request.

Tony posed with a not-to-scale Enterprise model.

"I am Nomad."

A nicely detailed Enterprise model on display in the lobby.

Quiet on Set!

Our tour began at the studio door, proudly adorned with Lucille Ball's photo. She was truly the patron saint of Star Trek. Without Lucille Ball and her support, the voyages of the starship Enterprise may have never launched at all.

A quick pull on a rope caused the doors to whisk open smoothly and the six of us stepped on board the Enterprise. There were no sound effects, of course. Those would have been added in post-production.

For whatever reason, I expected to see a number of individual set pieces linked by utilitarian backstage hallways. As a result, I was surprised to step into a contiguous Enterprise that included corridors (one main corridor with two spurs) giving access to each room. Evidently, this was exactly how the original set was configured. The set is immersive and aside from missing a ceiling (like the real set), we felt that we were actually aboard Captain Kirk's 1960s Enterprise.

Six To Beam Up

The first room we encountered was the transporter room.

Photo by The Bear.

Scott and I crossed our fingers for no transponder accidents. Fortunately, we did not fall victim to any Star Trek plot tropes that day.

Phasers? Check. Did everyone ditch their red shirts? Check. Two to beam down!

This console is a reproduction of the original navigation/helm console used in Star Trek's pilot episode, "The Cage". Due to budget limitations, the console was repurposed for the transporter room in that episode which is why we found it there.

The glowing pads marking each position on the transporter were created from Fresnel lenses.

Some of the toggle switches on the console looked suspiciously like the same rocker switches Piper used when they built Warrior 481. Others looked like translucent resin gumdrops.

Photo by The Bear

The combined, interconnected areas of sick bay, McCoy's office, and the medical lab occupy the largest portion of the set. The main corridor describes a partial, gentle arc around this area. The brilliance of the curving corridor is that it not only makes logical sense for the saucer section of the Enterprise, but also hides each end of the corridor from the other for convenient filming. This portion of the set stood in for all Enterprise corridors in the series with changes in camera angle and set dressing used to suggest different decks.

"He's Dead, Jim"

Our next stop was sick bay

Ticonderoga's Enterprise features upgraded diagnostic equipment: an electronic display of vital signs in lieu of the mechanical indicators from the 1960s.

Photo by The Bear.

Photo by The Bear.

Khan famously snatched one of the scalpels from this display in the "Space Seed" episode.

Conference Room

Photo by The Bear.

Photo by The Bear.

This reproduction of the Vulcan lute was signed by various Star Trek cast members when they visited Ticonderoga. George Takei came the following weekend and presumably added his signature to the collection.

The conference room window incorporated the bridge viewscreen from "The Cage". Stars were applied to black cloth that billowed slightly as actors moved past it, a low tech special effect that gave the impression of distant stars twinkling.

A Starfleet flag was designed as an homage to studio cofounder and Cuban-American Desi Arnaz. Wisely, showrunners realized that displaying what was essentially a Cuban flag on television in the 1960s would not be well-received by American audiences and the "Starfleet" flag was never unfurled on camera.

"He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates 2 dimensional thinking."

"This Is a Big Ship. I'm Just a Country Doctor."

From the conference room, we returned to the medical complex and Dr. Leonard McCoy's office.

From the collection, one might infer how McCoy got his nickname, regardless of any retconning that took place in JJ Abrams' rebooted Star Trek movies.

Remember seeing these creatures stuck to Spock's back in "Operation -- Annihlate!"? Fake novelty vomit, of course.

Photo by The Bear.

The Bear brandishes her iTricorder. (Actually, that is my iTricorder because she ran hers out of battery. By the time we left the set, mine was dead, too.)

Khan tortured Kirk in this medical lab decompression chamber in "Space Seed".

Photo by The Bear.

Help! Help! We're trapped in the decompression chamber!

 "Leave Any Bigotry in Your Quarters.
There's No Room for it on the Bridge!"

Kirk's quarters (or Spock's quarters when appropriately redressed) existed in two halves, a bedroom and an office.

Photo by The Bear.

Photo by The Bear.

This little gold box is one of the few original set artifacts in Ticonderoga. It was discovered in an estate sale by James Cawley who reportedly paid "too much" for it. But there was a mystery centered on the box. It disappeared from Kirk's quarters partway through the series and was missing for the final run of the show. On a past visit to Ticonderoga, William Shatner spotted the box and confessed that he was the culprit. Sometime during filming of the original series, he swiped the box to present as a last-minute gift to the president of his fan club. Mystery solved!

Photo by The Bear.

In the ISS Enterprise, flagship of the authoritarian Terran Empire from the episode "Mirror, Mirror", the mirror universe Kirk used the Tantalus Field device hidden behind this wall hanging to make his enemies disappear, including former captain Christopher Pike.

As a pandemic project, the Tantalus Field was recently added to Kirk's quarters.

The bedroom side of Kirk's quarters even featured a food replicator. It's good to be the king captain!

Mirror on the wall in Kirk's quarters. Photo by The Bear.

"They Called the Enterprise a Garbage Scow!"

The main corridor ends at Engineering, domain of the formidable Montgomery Scott.

So-called "plant ons", like the yellow artifact on the corridor wall, were added to the walls to give the appearance of different decks.

Immediately outside of Engineering is what came to be called a "Jefferies tube" in Star Trek: The Next Generation. These utility access tubes were named in homage to Matt Jefferies, the designer of the original USS Enterprise and art director for the original series.

Photo by The Bear.

Forced perspective existed long before Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings movies and gave the Enterprise warp core an impression of depth that it did not possess in reality.

That troll just keeps popping up everywhere this year! Staging this photo earned us a curiously amused smirk from our tour guide.

When we were finished with Engineering, our guide led us through some equipment in the back corner of the engine room where we entered a hallway with a steadily rising floor. It terminated in a turbolift and, from there, we entered...

"Mr. Sulu, You Have the Conn."

...the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

Photo by The Bear.

Everyone in our party was extremely excited to be on the bridge.

Indeed, it was the captain's chair that drew the most attention from everyone.

William Shatner sat in this very seat a few months before in celebration of his 90th birthday.

Photo by The Bear.

Photo by The Bear.

Damn. And me without a scrap of velour. Clearly, I came unprepared.

Photo by Tony.

Scott tried out command and found that it suited him well.

Tony also took his turn in the role of the steely-eyed starship captain.

Who needs a photographer when your arms are long enough to grab a selfie? Seeing me take this photo of Rick, our tour guide chuckled and commented, "Oh, I am so glad that someone got a picture of that!"

"Uhura is busy. I am monitoring."

Attention to detail was so high, it was though Uhura had just set this earpiece down and walked away from her post a few moments prior to our arrival.

William Shatner once commented that Ticonderoga's LCD view screen was far superior to the original.

Photo by The Bear.

Overall, our entire group was extremely impressed with the exactingly detailed Enterprise set. Personally, I was sad to leave when our hour tour was over. So much love went into this meticulous recreation of the original Enterprise. I was a child again, watching Star Trek reruns with my grandmother on WKBD, Channel 50 out of Detroit. She would have loved this experience.

"Engage!"

James Cawley is not done yet. He has his eyes on recreating Star Trek: The Next Generation sets. Portions of this work were visible in the parking lot as we departed. I think they are going to need a bigger building. Again.

"They Used To Say That If Man Was Meant To Fly, He’d Have Wings. But He Did Fly. He Discovered He Had To."

Before departure for home, The Bear performed surgery on her tribble (dubbed Timmy the Teal Tribble) so that it would not be agitated during the flight. Yes, I caved on purchasing a tribble. The Bear talked me into it more capably than even Harry Mudd himself.

An exercise in futility. Tribbles do not have ears.

View of the terrain to the north upon launching from Ticonderoga.

Southern end of Lake Champlain.

Famous Last Words...Again

Harkening back to our recent discussion at Basin Harbor when The Bear asserted that she never sleeps in the airplane anymore, I present additional refuting photographic evidence. Perhaps that is not fair in this case. After all, many people seem to find tribbles to be spectacularly soothing.