Rick Sternbach Richard " Rick " Michael Sternbach was the ( senior ) production illustrator / designer for , , the first two seasons of , and . He was also the scenic artist for , providing designs for everything from the Argo shuttle to a Romulan sculpture . Sternbach ' s most recognized work by far has been the designs of the PADD , Deep Space 9 and . Rick Sternbach was offered his ( otherwise uncredited ) illustrator position in the art department on " Star Trek : The Motion Picture " in April 1978 . Working alongside such colleagues as Lee Cole and Mike Minor , he designed control panel layouts and signage for the starship sets , and co - authored the updated internal document " " Enterprise " Flight Manual " . He also helped create the animated asteroid wormhole sequence and helped to obtain source material from NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL ) that was used in the design of " V ' ger " . Sternbach was slated for an Illustrator credit , but for reasons unknown this did not come to fruition . ( " " , p . 218 ) Recalling how he was hired for the television franchise , Rick Sternbach has reminisced , " " The story I usually tell is that late in 1986 , when Paramount announced TNG , I heard it over the radio while driving on the freeway , pulled off to a pay phone , and talked to Susan Sackett , Gene ' s assistant , all within about 25 seconds . I had a few meetings with Bob Justman , Gene , Dorothy Fontana , and David Gerrold , left my portfolio , and was officially hired on in January 1987 . Andy Probert and I were the first two artists brought in , even before an art director , and for the first few months we worked up a foamcore model of the bridge and hundreds of sketches of all the things a good Star Trek production should have . We initially worked up generic items , but eventually we got into story - specific sets and props for . " " When Probert left the franchise upon the conclusion of " The Next Generation " s first season , Sternbach succeeded him as senior illustrator or the television shows . He has designed a multitude of starship s and space station s , and was responsible for the design of hundreds of props and set pieces , including the mural painting of the " Enterprise " - D in Picard ' s ready room , which was painted by Probert . He also developed weaponry , PADDs , tricorder s and communicator s for Starfleet , Klingon , Romulan , Cardassian , Bajoran , Kazon , Ferengi , and other races . As a big fan of Japanese animation , he secretly placed anime references in many of his designs , notably " the Egg " , a design borrowed from the " Dirty Pair " . Together with Michael Okuda , he served as a technical consultant to the script staff , maintaining technical and chronological continuity and inventing scientific terms and technobabble , resulting in internal documents as " " and " " . In 1980 he created several illustrations for the " Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology " by Stanley and Fred Goldstein . He also co - authored the " " , " " , and the " , " as well as the " Starfleet Technical Database " articles for . Sternbach started out making his designs the traditional way , with paper and pencil , but acquired skills in computer generated imagery ( CGI ) modeling as well ( skills he picked up while working in 1983 on the science fiction movie " The Last Starfighter " ) , turning in design concepts at a later stage both in paper and pencil and rudimentary CGI models . ( ) Sternbach constructed his CGI model concepts in the Macromedia Extreme 3D software initially , before switching over to , unlike the visual effects houses who ultimately used the exclusively for the live - action production CGI models . As a result , Sternbach ' s CGI builds were intended to serve as concepts only , though he " " ( . . . ) found that putting together a model with this basic level of detail , minus the textures , got all the main design elements across , and I could even email the files to the CG facilities so they could do their magic . " " When Sternach embarked on his work for " Nemesis " he came full circle in more than one sense : " The Motion Picture " was his first " Star Trek " work , while " Nemesis " was his last ( as well as the last in the prime universe movie series ) . He has been critical of the production design of the 2009 alternate universe film , specifically that of the design of the . He criticized the apparent lack of line of sight for the nacelles to open space , proportions of various sections , and an overall lack of knowledge of Star Trek technology . " Perhaps the designers didn ' t know exactly how the different hardware bits worked " . While no longer working on " Star Trek " , Sternbach continues to create futuristic designs for sci - fi productions . He also actively maintains contact with the " Star Trek " fan base through Internet blogs like Trekbbs and more recently the by answering questions and explaining his thought processes on his work for " Star Trek " . Currently , Sternbach has opted to maintain contact with the fan base through his . In November 2014 , Sternbach returned to the " Star Trek " franchise when he was invited to join a team of experts – including a host of former " Star Trek " alumni – to oversee a new restoration of the original eleven - foot " Enterprise " studio model , residing at the Smithsonian ' s ( NASM ) , for its 50th anniversary . Having accepted the prestigious assignment , Sternbach was flown in for the team ' s first work meeting on 13 May 2015 . Career outside " Star Trek " . A Connecticut native , Rick Sternbach enrolled in that state ' s university in 1972 with an art major , but switching after a couple of years to marine biology . Nevertheless , he became a book and magazine illustrator upon graduation , among others for the " Galaxy Science Fiction " and " Analog " magazines , having for example provided the cover and interior art for Starlog Press ' " Future Life " issue 17 of 1980 . During this time he helped found the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists ( ASFA ) , an organization which aim it was to tender legal advice to science fiction and fantasy artists on contracts and copyrights . Inspired by artist Ralph McQuarrie ' s example , who left the aerospace industry to work for George Lucas on " Star Wars " , Sternbach made the decision as well to move to California in order to seek illustration work in the motion picture industry . After some work for Disney and PBS , the latter of which he did preliminary work for on Carl Sagan ' s television series " Cosmos " , he was offered the position in the art department for " The Motion Picture " . Around the same time he had worked for JPL , where he collaborated with Charley Kohlhase and Jim Blinn on the real world Voyager 1 Jupiter flyby movie , creating textures for the Galilean satellites . That flyby movie became the primary inspiration source for Alvy Ray Smith ( at the time a co - worker of Sternbach at JPL ) and Loren Carpenter at the Graphics Group , when they designed the very first fully textured CGI effect seen by the general public , the " Genesis Demo " , for . After his tenure on " The Motion Picture " he returned to PBS to resume work on " Cosmos " , which he continued to do for the entire run of the series . Despite Sternbach ' s noticeable visual contributions to the " Star Trek " universe , his work has never been acknowledged with an Emmy Award nomination , yet he did receive , and won , one in 1981 for his work on the " Cosmos " episode , " The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean " . Other motion picture projects he has worked on , predominantly as illustrator / graphic artist were , " Rich and Famous " ( 1981 , uncredited ) , the documentary " Future Flight " ( 1987 ) , " The Last Starfighter " ( 1983 , for which he also story - boarded visual effects sequences and developed texture maps for CGI space scenes ) , and the remake of the science movie " Solaris " ( 2002 ) . Outside his Emmy Award , Rick Sternbach ' s illustration work in the 1970s has garnered him two consecutive Hugo Award s for " " in 1977 and 1978 . Considered by the usenet newsgroup sci . space . history as a leading expert on the various paint schemes used on the Saturn V booster , Sternbach has until recently , through his official website , " Space Model Systems " , sold accurate decals for model kits of the Saturn V , as well as the Apollo Command Module . Starship and Space Station designs for " Star Trek " . Rick Sternbach ' s designs for several new studio model s , including : Because of his work , a number of references were made to him during the course of his time with the " Star Trek " franchise , including the artist , Dr . , Captain , Ensign , Officer , the Sternbachium element , the astronomical object Beta Sternbach , and Rick Sternbach Raymond . Commercial availability . In May 2000 , Rick Sternbach established on internet retail and auction site eBay his own webstore , appropriately called " intrep74656 " – a contraction of USS " Voyager " s class , and registry designations . Through his webstore , Sternbach intermittently sells commercialized reproduction editions of his ( design ) work as on - order - only publications , and which are not distributed to the general public through other channels . Most of his original design , and artwork , Sternbach has sold in various prior Profiles in History and Propworx " Star Trek " auctions .