Lot Essay
In "Space Seed" in Star Trek: The Original Series, we learned that the "sleeper ship" S.S. Botany Bay was launched in 1996. Clearly, Earth had no such space vehicles back then, and couldn't even launch something that big. The Botany Bay launch photo was a fanciful attempt to show how Space Shuttle booster rockets might have been able to do just that. The same image was used in Rain Robinson's SETI laboratory on Earth in "Future's End" in Star Trek: Voyager, an episode set in the year 1996. Another image in this collection is a faux painting of the "ring ship" Enterprise from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Our first glimpse of that mysterious craft was in the rec deck in that film, where we saw it among a display of past vessels named Enterprise. In actuality, the ring ship was designed by The Original Series art director Walter M. Jefferies for a proposed Gene Roddenberry television project that was never made. Little is known about the design in the Star Trek universe, except that it was called Enterprise and it apparently predated The Original Series ship. This print is therefore a glimpse into a nearly-lost corner of Star Trek history.