In 1974, Paramount Television donated the eleven-foot filming miniature of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum ("NASM"). It arrived at the NASM's Suitland, Maryland, restoration facility (now called the Garber Facility) on February 28, 1974. NASM assigned minor restoration work to an outside contractor, Rogay, Inc., on April 30, 1974, and three months later, it was completed. The restoration work at this time included the fabrication of the engine nacelle glass hemispheres (the originals were lost) and the secondary hull main sensor dish (also lost). Unfortunately, the renovators got these totally wrong, with a mis-sized and -shaped sensor dish and bright red engine nacelle glass hemisphere tips (instead of the original frosted glass tips). The replaced spike protruding out of the main sensor dish was also shaped incorrectly. The miniature was also cleaned and touched-up with paint at this time.

Other renovations during the 1974 refit were the replacing of missing plexiglass rectangular and cylindrical windows on the model, and re-attaching the bridge dome on the top of the main saucer section of the miniature. The black decal lettering on the top of the saucer section was touched-up with paint, and two cracks on the upper main hull were puttied and retouched with matching paint. The renovators then took the protruding wiring and cables that made the ship light-up, stuffed them inside the model's unadorned left side (never seen on television), and taped them down with three-inch silver-colored pressure-sensitive cloth tape.

The overall length of the miniature is 134" (or eleven-feet and two-inches). (Trivia: The re-creation of the 1701 miniature built by Gregory B. Jein for DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations" episode was exactly one-half scale to the original miniature.) The saucer section is made of Royalite vacuuformed plastic, held together with a series of wooden ribs, and is 60" in diameter and approximately 3" thick at the outer rim. The bridge dome on the top of the saucer section is made of wood. The engine nacelles, forward of the support pylons, are made of wood. The rear portion of the engine nacelles are rolled, thin sheet metal over wooden ribs. Detail parts of the nacelles (i.e., intercoolers) are made of wood. The engine nacelles are 72.25" inches long, and the diameter of the front domes is approximatetly 7". The secondary hull is made of built-up sections of sugar pine wood and is 49" in length--exclusive of the sensor dish--and 53.5" including the sensor dish. The distance from centerline to centerline of the engine nacelles is approximately 40" (Note: this measurement is difficult to take accurately). The support pylons, which connect the engine nacelles to the secondary hull, were made of a hardwood like oak or walnut. The small numbers painted on the right side of the secondary hull are "102," "705," "1300," "1384," and "1837." The miniature weighs in at approximately 220 pounds.

The Enterprise studio model was originally painted with non-gloss lacquers, so that there would be no shiny surfaces which might interfere with the filming of the model. In 1964, the model cost approximately $3,000 to build, and another $3,000 was spent in August-September 1965 to add internal lights to the model. During the spring of 1966, the spinning lighting effect inside the nacelle hemispheres was added.

Following the 1974 renovation, most of the internal lights on the ship were functional, although the lighting behind the red engine nacelle hemispheres was made to merely "blink" on and off. Gone forever were the spectacular original lighting effects of the matter/anti-matter engine nacelle pods.

The Enterprise was put on display for the first time at the NASM--the most visited museum in the world--during the summer of 1974 in the Gallery 107 "Life in the Universe" exhibition. At the end of the summer of 1979, this exhibit closed and the miniature was moved to Gallery 113, "Rocketry and Spaceflight." Below are some pictures of the miniature as it looked on display at the NASM following the 1974 renovation (the ship remained in this same condition until the 1984 renovation).