Star Trek: Inside Earth Space Dock

For many years Starfleet depended on single-ship orbital platform facilities for the construction and maintenance of its starships.

However, the rapid expansion of the Federation during the late 22nd and early 23rd centuries and the increase in the size and demand of Starfleet, and the existing platforms were becoming unable to cope.

Due to the rapid expansion of the Federation during the late 22nd and early 23rd centuries, the existing platforms were unable to keep up with the increased demand.

By 2266, Starfleet decided to create a new orbital facility.

The requirement was for a space station that would put all the refining, processing, manufacturing, and assembly facilities required for the manufacture and maintenance of starships into one place.

When finished in 2278 the station was essentially a small city, dedicated to Starship production.

Blueprint of Spacedock

3D model and Textures of Spacedock by Alex Klemm

Here is a list of books and tools I have used to recreate these animations. (affiliate links)

Star Trek: The U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 Illustrated Handbook

ASUS ROG Strix NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti OC Edition

Logitech MX Master 3 Advanced Wireless Mouse

SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 500GB - M.2 NVMe

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-core

0:00 Introduction
1:40 Exterior
3:29 Size
4:09 Brilliant
6:09 Command Center
5:18 Interior
7:47 Living Quarters

[lutherd]

ESD was never the “sole” location for starship contraction and maintenance. It was a docking and resupply facility capable for light maintenance and repair. Construction and major repairs and refits took place in fleet yards and dry docks.

[Alun]

I have been a passive fan of Star Trek since the late '60's. It struck me though.watching this, that real dedicated fans must have a far more sophisticated knowledge of the ST universe and its "history" than I could even begin to grasp. Having been on our screens for nearly sixty years, I hope that it is still around in some form by the 100yr mark. I will be long gone I fear, but what an amazing phenomena it is.

[Kiyosuki]

Spacedock is just awesome. It still has to be one of the most iconic and striking technical marvels in space sci fi cinema. I'd even argue its more iconic to Star Trek than many of the ships.
I've always wanted to see more of the floating city that you've always known is in there somewhere even at first glance, so this video's been great to know whats up there.

[Adarkanexi]

ST III was when the world-building designs went into overdrive. The Producers of the film shrewdly let ILM design everything (with input from Leonard Nimoy). ILM just happened to be coming off of Return of the Jedi, and were at the top of their game. They knocked it out of the park too, with the Oberth Class (the Grissom), the Excelsior, the Spacedock and the Bird of Prey — all designs used for decades, literally.

[ServantOfOdin]

Wow, you really outdid yourself here. It always irked me how little details about the starbases interior ever were and Cygnus' layouts were a great marvel. But seeing them in 3D gives the whole size an entirely new feel and really shows the size better.

[nicholasmorsovillo]

Aside from Earth Space dock the only other stations of a similar design we saw was Star Base 74 and that Star Base the Enterprise D docked at in the season 4 episode 'Remember Me'.

[GatchamanG]

As I’ve said many times before, this channel is so underrated. Live Long & Prosper. 🖖🏻
A small city, this thing is enormous!

[nullvoid]

Earth Space Dock is one of, if not THE best space station in all Sci-Fi to have ever had the pleasure of existing. Both on and off screen it is magnificent, inviting and outright incredible. Whenever you approach it, you know you are safe here and welcome by the United Federation of Planets. It's also a visitable hub in Star Trek Online, and is my favorite place to hang out at ingame.

I personally hope Humanity is able to build something similar to this eventually, in size, scale, and design. Here's to hoping cause I think it would make an excellent fit to a command and control station for the solar system and further space exploration, once we have the technology and resources to do so. Optimistic thinking, sure, but it would truly be awesome.

[WhiteScarsEmo]

Even as kid (this was in the mid-80's), I marveled at the required sciences needed to make a construction of that size and complexity! Consider the logistics, material, manpower required, too! Is it impractical? Probably. But dang, this station still looks so cool. (Well, right until we got to see Babylon 5 and DS9. LOL)

[ncdevildog]

We don’t talk enough about starbases and space dock operations and massive power and contributions to the Starfleet mission they embody. Soacesock, and the starbases like her, are massive, and dwarf they starships they support. One day they should get some respect for the massive technical and scientific contributions they make to the fleet.

[spiritofthewolfx]

A correction;

Typically, ESD was unarmed, but phaser and torpedo turrets could easily be mounted in case of emergencies.

[Rayfire]

My favorite space station in Science fiction, in a WALK! I adore Spacedock and thanks for doing a video and cutaway of her.

[andytol]

Nice video!

Earth Space Dock was a big reason why I never really could accept the Breen attack in DS9 as a good story element. Between it, and orbital defenses, assaulting that planet would be suicide unless you brought so much force to bear, everyone would know you're coming for weeks before.

[darrensmith]

Wow amazing!!
Would love to see a video on the Space 1999 Eagle ?

[guyvanarsdall]

Really enjoyed seeing some of the other areas of the space dock besides the main hanger.

[WujekFu]

40 phaser belts and 10 km big (over three times bigger than a Borg Cube). Damn, I would love to see a battle between these two.

[lukesearle]

I was curious about this Spaceport last month and searched YouTube for a video like this. I must admit out of all the ones I watched this one is the best so far, it had exactly what I want on it. Thanks.

[JETWTF]

9:10 The main viewscreen is in the back not the front unless the stations and command chair are backwards. Then you would expect the staions in the middle would face the middle or the viewscreen but the command chair should face the viewscreen.

[kamdesheru]

Great job! Most detailed depiction I've seen for Spacedock. Thanks for sharing!

[dalenewton]

HT, I watch your videos as soon as you upload them. Sir, you do fantastic work in every respect.