What's new - Sep 2003

One of the sadder duties of Star Trek fans over the last few years has been to mark the occasional passing of those who helped to shape the series. Today we at the DITL salute the memory of a true legend, for it is with great regret that we must report that Matt Jefferies has passed away.

For many of us who are interested in the more technical aspects of Star Trek, that interest began with the original USS Enterprise. At a time when science fiction spaceships were either flying saucers or finned rockets, the Enterprise design was a truly revolutionary work. Here was a breathtaking combination of art and functionality, a design which really made you believe that this was a craft built to take people to the stars.

As well as the Enterprise exterior, Jefferies worked on the interior sets - including the famous bridge set, the design for the hand phasers, and many other sets and props. On screen, his contribution to Trek was acknowledged in the famous "Jefferies Tubes" - the access-ways which we occasionally see engineers crawling along to reach some vital bit of machinery, often lined with piping labelled GNDN for "Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing".

But perhaps no greater testament to Jefferies can exist than the fact that even today, nearly 40 years after the original series, Star Trek continues to field vessels which are variations of his original USS Enterprise. His fingerprints are all over the shows, and will surely remain there for as long as Star Trek continues to exist.