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Description
The shuttlepod was designed by Rick Sternbach but almost did not get made. It was slated for introduction in the second season episode " Time Squared" to alleviate the costs associated with building exteriors and mock-ups of the larger, more elaborate types of warp-capable passenger shuttles. These ships were also designated to carry fewer people, and had slower speeds. However, the art department had a bad experience in building the full scale mock-up of the first shuttle, the type 7 shuttlecraft , built for TNG: " Unnatural Selection". The complicated curves of that design caused significant troubles in constructing the mock-up with regard to bending the wood enough. Some of the curves had to be built up with putty. All this resulted in a full scale exterior that was not entirely convincing and could only be shot from limited angles, since only one side was constructed. The art department was less than enthusiastic with the prospect of building yet another complicated shuttle design. Sternbach remembered "Everybody was kind of scratching their heads, and thinking that maybe we'd have to write the shuttlepod out. I cautiously went up to the front of the room with this very rough but fairly clear sketch. I said, "What if we made it fairly simple? just planar construction; no compound curves. We can make it look Starfleet; that isn't the issue. If we do something like this we can make the construction simple, but also make it interesting." They all looked at me, looked at the sketch, and said, "Ahh, OK." Then they approved it." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 3, Issue 2 , page 112)

Description
The shuttlepod was designed by Rick Sternbach but almost did not get made. It was slated for introduction in the second season episode " Time Squared" to alleviate the costs associated with building exteriors and mock-ups of the larger, more elaborate types of warp-capable passenger shuttles. These ships were also designated to carry fewer people, and had slower speeds. However, the art department had a bad experience in building the full scale mock-up of the first shuttle, the type 7 shuttlecraft , built for TNG: " Unnatural Selection". The complicated curves of that design caused significant troubles in constructing the mock-up with regard to bending the wood enough. Some of the curves had to be built up with putty. All this resulted in a full scale exterior that was not entirely convincing and could only be shot from limited angles, since only one side was constructed. The art department was less than enthusiastic with the prospect of building yet another complicated shuttle design. Sternbach remembered "Everybody was kind of scratching their heads, and thinking that maybe we'd have to write the shuttlepod out. I cautiously went up to the front of the room with this very rough but fairly clear sketch. I said, "What if we made it fairly simple? just planar construction; no compound curves. We can make it look Starfleet; that isn't the issue. If we do something like this we can make the construction simple, but also make it interesting." They all looked at me, looked at the sketch, and said, "Ahh, OK." Then they approved it." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 3, Issue 2 , page 112)