Earth Spacedock

Earth Spacedock was designed by David Carson and Nilo Rodis and first seen in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. The model was built at Industrial Light and Magic.

The interior of Spacedock was represented by a large set. The original from The Search for Spock was destroyed after the end of filming. The production crew for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home had to rebuild the entire set from scratch.

Footage of Spacedock from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was reused several Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, most notably for “11001001”. The Enterprise-D was simply superimposed over the motion-picture Enterprise.

In a 2005 interview with Greg Taylor, Andrew Probert, senior illustrator for The Next Generation on its first season, remarked about the Enterprise's entry into Spacedock: “Going into the Spacedock was ludicrous, and I was fighting tooth and nail to get them to not do that. The producers simply shrugged their shoulders and said, Well, we'll say it's a bigger Spacedock, but that logic really didn't work for me. The system that I proposed was that the Enterprise to be serviced and docked on the existing space station exterior, because it has an umbrella-like rim—a mushroom head, if you will—under which the Enterprise could have been docked by connecting the dorsal replenishment systems, but... There's a lot of things that sort of fell by the wayside, and it is what it is.”

The following are storyboards for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, showing the Enterprise departing Spacedock.