Don Loos Donald " Don " Loos was a model builder who worked on " " television project . Under the supervision of Brick Price , Loos was the lead model maker on the build of the " Enterprise " " Phase II " studio model while in employ of Brick Price Movie Miniatures , a company sub - contracted by Magicam . This work , done at Loos ' own workshop in Van Nuys , was based on the design sketches provided by Matt Jefferies for the project . Loos ' " Enterprise " studio model was three quarters complete , and he " " ( . . . ) had the engine pods finished , and was working on the strut s ( . . . ) " " as Jefferies recalled ( ) , adding that Loos and Price " did a beautiful job " , but was pulled from the project in early December 1977 when a new , larger model was deemed necessary to meet movie requirements when " Phase II " became . ( " " , p . 27 ; " " , pp . 27 , 72 ) Model Shop Supervisor Jim Dow of Magicam , to which the build of the new " Enterprise " model reverted , considered Loos ' work somewhat sub - par , " " Don Loos is a very fine model maker , but his techniques were a bit antiquated and his model was made for television . " " ( " " , issue 27 , p . 27 ) This however , solicited a somewhat irked response from Loos ' employer , Brick Price , who felt that his employee was being short - changed by Dow , " " Loos is doing a lot of work with us now on various models for NASA and I have the greatest respect for his ability . He does not use " antiquated " techniques as Dow says unless it is for the best . " " ( " Starlog " , issue 30 , p . 8 ) However , Dow ' s off - the - cuff remark for " Starlog " magazine was not meant as nearly as derogative as Price made it to be as he had explained in an , at the time , unpublished interview where he delved in far more detail into the production reasons for having stated so , " Bob Abel took a look at the rest of the models we ' d been working on – the Klingon s , V ' ger and the space office complex – and at the " Enterprise " , which Don Loos had been working on . It was decided to shelve all of the models , because they were definitively built for television , and to bring the " Enterprise " into our shop . This was because Don Loos unfortunately wasn ' t equipped , as we were , to build a model for , which requires many things designed into the model in the way of stability and inter - changeability and interfacing to the computer - controlled rig . He was still doing things in fiberglass and wood and other materials that we don ' t use because they ' re much too heavy . Our basic armatures have to be designed in a very solid way in aluminum , and our body skins are designed to cope with a variety of things , thermal changes and so on , so that they don ' t flex or expand . Also , Bob Abel wanted to work with models that were scaled for one inch equaling 10 feet , and Don ' s " Enterprise " was a little under that . And he wasn ' t constructing models the way they necessarily have to be constructed for the motion - control camera . Models today are a great deal more exotic than they used to be . " For instance , the " Enterprise " , being a cantilevered object very spindly in nature , must not flex between camera passes . The propulsion pods are suspended on struts away from the main body , and the primary consideration is : from how many points do you armature the model for shooting ? And once we ' d decided on five for the " Enterprise " , how do you power the lighting systems from each of those five armaturing positions ? How do you keep the model from flexing , or dropping the nose of the saucer , when you turn it on its side ? Which lighting systems do you select , based on the kinds of exposures with which you ' re going to be able to afford to photograph the model ? And how many times do you have to expose the model in repeat passes of motion - control photography in order to build up the single image of the model ? And so on and so forth . There really are a great deal of things that mist be considered in the basic model design that are never even thought of by people who aren ' t familiar with motion - control shooting . Well , we were familiar with it , and Bob Abel was planning to build a motion - control camera , so we began the design / construction phase of the models for the Robert Abel version . " ( " " , pp . 62 - 63 ) For almost two decades , Don Loos had , unwittingly , been the subject of one of the most persistent myths in " Star Trek " lore for being attributed the build of the original eleven - foot " Enterprise " studio model . The misconception originated from an off - hand remark Jim Dow had made in the interview for the above - referenced 1979 " Starlog " magazine issue , specifically mentioning Loos as the one " who made the original one for TV " ( p . 27 ) Unthinkingly , Dow ' s remark , misinterpreted as being the " Original Series " one , was propagated by authors ever since for the next two decades in every subsequent reference work , such as " Cinefantastique " magazine ( Vol 17 # 2 , 1987 ) , " Starlog " magazine itself , " The Special Effects of Trek " ( 1993 ) , and even officially licensed books like " The Art of Star Trek " ( 1995 ) . However , what each and every single author of these works had failed to grasp was that Dow was not referring to the " Original Series " , but to the abandoned " Phase II " television project . Only in 1996 was the mistake rectified by author Daniel Fiebiger in an article for " Cinefantastique " ( Vol 27 # 11 ) , identifying the real builders of the " Original Series " filming models . Career outside " Star Trek " . While still in the employ of Price , Don Loos , has only one other recorded motion picture " model construction " credit to his name , for the movie " Lifepod " ( 1981 ) . The reason for this was quite simple as Loos had been a technician at NASA in daily life , building models for wind tunnel tests , relating that he had received a lot of " strange looks " from his colleagues when they became aware of his side project . ( " The Special Effects of Trek " , p . 14 ) As indicated by Price , Loos reciprocally brought in Price ' s company to work for NASA , when he returned to work for his regular employer .