Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance: Enterprise Gets an Owners' Manual
What do you do when orbiting Wolf 359 and secondary hull integrity drops to 35 percent, or the dilithium crystals crack in the middle of surveying a nebula, or the Heisenberg compensator goes wonky just before an away mission?
Get out the owner's manual.
That's right, for those enterprising (har har) Star Trek enthusiasts, renowned car manual printer Haynes has published an owner's manual for Captain Kirk's original ride.
This isn't the first time Haynes has gone beyond earth-bound vehicles; the company has published manuals pertaining to other science fiction franchises. But in keeping with Haynes' reputation for thorough instructions, the company has produced an in-depth manual on how all the major components of the USS Enterprise work.
"People want to know how warp engines work. We explain that. People want to know how transporters work. We explain that," Derek Smith, editor at the Book Division of Haynes Publishing, told StarTrek.com.
The Haynes manual actually covers several iterations of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, including the Enterprise-D captained by Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, Haynes admits that the material goes deeper on some models than others.
This is not the first printed guide to the Enterprise though. Other manuals, such as the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, have given in-depth looks at the inner workings of the Enterprise-D. Smith says the Haynes manual is different because it continues the company's tradition of taking complex subjects and making them "understandable for the non-expert."
The Haynes manual was created in conjunction with some of the same experts who worked on other Enterprise technical documents. The most notable is Michael Okuda, art supervisor and technical script consultant for every live action Star Trek series except for the original.
Despite the expert input, the Haynes USS Enterprise Owners' Workshop Manual might not be quite as exhaustive as the car manuals the company is known for.
"It just wasn't possible to do a complete strip down and rebuild of each ship like we would for our car and motorcycle manuals. For a start, most of the Enterprises have been destroyed, but I think workshop space would have been tight in any case."
Still, it'll be good to have around the next time life support goes down on Deck 3.
