Star Trek Was Missing An Important Part Of The USS Enterprise Early In Season 1

Mr. Sulu (George Takei) nearly died early in Star Trek: The Original Series season 1 because the USS Enterprise was missing something important. Although Star Trek launched on NBC in 1966 with Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in command of the Starship Enterprise's five-year mission of exploration, much of Star Trek was still a work in progress. From Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) calling himself "second officer" to the United Federation of Planets yet to be created, early Star Trek was still figuring it out as it went along.

Star Trek: The Original Series season 1, episode 5, "The Enemy Within," saw a transporter accident duplicate Captain Kirk into good and evil halves. As the crew of the Starship Enterprise solve the crisis of two Kirks, Mr. Sulu and three officers are stranded on the planet Alfa 177 with temperatures rapidly dropping to lethal sub-zero levels. The Enterprise's malfunctioning transporters couldn't beam Sulu and company aboard, which begged a logical question: Why didn't the Enterprise send down a shuttlecraft?

Star Trek’s USS Enterprise Didn’t Have A Shuttlecraft In Season 1’s “The Enemy Within”

Sulu Almost Died Because Enterprise Had No Shuttlecraft

The Starship Enterprise didn't send down a shuttlecraft to rescue Mr. Sulu and the other frozen officers in "The Enemy Within" because Star Trek lacked a shuttlecraft set at that early point in the series' run. A shuttlecraft as an option to save Sulu is never discussed in "The Enemy Within," and the officers in jeopardy on the planet below were a ticking clock plot point in the Star Trek episode. Sulu's only salvation was for the Enterprise's transporters to be cleared of the danger of duplicating Sulu like it did Captain Kirk.

Even though Sulu was dying on Alfa 177, Captain Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) were primarily concerned with the damage the evil Kirk was doing aboard the Enterprise, including sexually assaulting Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney). When the two Kirks were finally merged by the repaired transporters, Sulu and his colleagues were finally beamed aboard the Enterprise. A shuttlecraft would have solved this dilemma instantly, but Star Trek simply didn't have one yet.

Star Trek Finally Got A Shuttlecraft Later In Season 1

"The Galileo Seven" Debuted Star Trek's Most Famous Shuttlecraft

A Starfleet shuttlecraft was first seen in Star Trek: The Original Series season 1's "The Menagerie" two-parter. Captain Kirk and Commodore Jose Mendez (Malachi Throne) used a shuttle to chase the Starship Enterprise that Spock hijacked to bring the grievously wounded Fleet Captain Christopher Pike (Sean Kenney) to Talos IV. However, a full-fledged shuttlecraft Galileo set was finally seen in Star Trek: The Original Series season 1, episode 13, "The Galileo Seven."

Now that Star Trek finally had a shuttlecraft, "The Galileo Seven" was designed to show it off. When Spock is in command of the shuttlecraft, which is stranded on a planetoid of hostile aliens, the Vulcan Science Officer's authority and reliance on logic are repeatedly questioned by his crew. The shuttlecraft Galileo also led to the Starship Enterprise gaining an impressive hangar bay set used throughout Star Trek: The Original Series.

Star Trek: Prodigy Revealed A Surprising Fate For The Shuttlecraft Galileo

Galileo Helped Inspire The Enderprizians

Star Trek: Prodigy season 1's classic episode 13, "All the World's a Stage," revealed a surprising fate for the shuttlecraft Galileo. Dal R'El (Brett Gray) and the young crew of the USS Protostar discovered Ensign David Garrovick (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) of the USS Enterprise crash-landed the Galileo on a pre-warp planet over a century before. The inhabitants of the planet modeled their society after "En-Son" and the records of the Starship Enterprise, naming themselves the Enderprizians.