I was crunching some numbers about TOS with other fans re: the twelve ships that originally launched during Kirk's era as Captain of the Enterprise for that first five year mission.

It made me really appreciate the TOS crew and the wild frontier era that they managed to survive -- not only survive, but became the staple and measure of success for the Starfleet that took shape after them.

Folks forget that Kirk's crew were one of the few of the original 12 Starships launched that actually returned from their assigned mission with some semblance of crew and ship intact.

A lot of information was gathered and established during that exploratory time -- the reason the TOS crew findings are often mentioned in TNG onward is largely due to them being among the lucky few crew who made it back to share their findings during that time.

This benefited every crew afterward who built upon their findings as they revised based on experiences. Things that happened in that time were addressed in regulation later as a lesson learned.

Regarding the 12 ships:

- The Immunity Syndrome (USS Intrepid)

- The Doomsday Machine (USS Constellation)

- The Tholian Web (USS Defiant).

Considering only 12 flagships were in the OG launch during Kirk's time, that is a solid 1/4 of the ships and crews that never made it back.

But those aren't even the ones that were partially destroyed with casualties, or all of the ships where 100% of the ship and crew did not return. There are more:

- The Excaliber was crippled and lost all hands in The Ultimate Computer, and severe damage was dealt to the Lexington, Potemkin, and Hood.

- The Exeter lost almost all hands in The Omega Glory.

So that's 8 of the 12 ships/crews that were launched circa Kirk's Enterprise 5 year mission that were either entirely destroyed, or severely damaged.

When you consider those odds and how so many extraordinarily capable and well trained crews never made it back, it makes the original series crew all the more remarkable.

Not only did they return with the flagship and crew relatively intact, but they literally became the standard on which Starfleet measured and trained others moving forward.

TLDR: They're kind of a big deal.

This is one of the greatest things ever. Walk around every single version of the U.S.S. Enterprise in photorealistic 3D in your browser, from the Roddenberry Archive. On a phone you just see wraparound 3D pics. On a PC or laptop you get the full 3D interactive experience. They NEED to make this VR compatible, it'll be beyond words.

There are more Enterprises here than Tumblr will allow me photos of, and more will likely be added.

Here's the TOS Enterprise, which appears in several incarnations ("The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and TOS proper as well as TAS with the second turbolift!), has the correct original graphics and is perfect.

This is the bridge from the unmade Star Trek: Phase II series (whose pilot episode "In Thy Image" was rewritten to become Star Trek: The Motion Picture), with it's legendary big comfy command sofa seat and tactical display bubble!

The Motion Picture, such an accurate recreation that there's even a very faint flicker on the rear-projection animated screens as seen in the movie.

Enterprise NX-01, looking exactly as it did in "Broken Bow"

Recognise this? It's the briefing room of Discovery season 2's version of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701. Although at the front of the saucer on the "real" ship, here it's off the second bridge door which may well be where the set was IRL.

I wasn't expecting modern Trek to be represented equally as the originals in this project, but it is. This is the Enterprise from Strange New Worlds, with Pike's Ready Room located just off the bridge.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. My favourite version of the classic bridge, as a kid I drew all these control panels and stuck them on my bedroom walls. And now I can look around and look at them all close-up! They've even replicated the noticable TVs stuffed into the panels for the more complex animated screens.

The Enterprise-C bridge from "Yesterday's Enterprise". This one has always fascinated me, being a low-budget TV set (formerly the Enterprise-D battle bridge, originally built from the rain-damaged TMP set's back wall and redressed endlessly though TNG) representing TNG's immediate predecessor. In the episode they mostly shoot the back wall and imply the consoles make a huge circle, but here you can see the set's real dimensions and the weirdness of the classic movie helm/nav console in front of the TNG con/ops panels. I love it.

You know how much I love the Kelvin movies, so seeing this was amazing. For some reason the consoles don't have their screens lit (hopefully this'll be fixed soon), but you can see the saucer under the window and it's shiny and amazing.

The last thing I expected was the U.S.S. Titan-A/Enterprise-G bridge, but it's here. And the lights are on.

Other bridges available to explore which I'm out of pictures to show: The Enterprise-D (of course), Enterprise XCV-330 (the ringship, based on concept art for the unmade non-Trek series "Starship"), the Planet of the Titans U.S.S. Enterprise (again, based on concept art for a cool multi-levelled set) and the "launch" U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (based on the very first piece of TOS bridge set concept art), the Enterprise-E, the Enterprise-F (seen on viewscreen for all of 2 minutes in Picard) and the U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656!

Take a bow lads, you've done good. Now just add VR support!

That link again.

The Enterprise, avoiding debris over Vulcan.