Fans who haven’t yet picked up their copy of Star Trek: Online, now’s the time to head to Amazon.com, where the MMORPG is the “deal of the day.”

Amazon is offering the standard game for $27.99, which is 46% less than the normal price. The Collector’s Edition is also on sale, for $47.99 instead of the usual $79.99.

The links for the sale can be found here and here.

Family and friends gathered together Saturday to celebrate the life of Andrew Koenig, son of Walter (Chekov) and Judy Koenig.

Approximately one hundred loved ones joined the Koenig family at the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga Canyon, California, for the private ceremony.

Walter Koenig’s representative David Moss described the ceremony. “It was a celebration of life,” he said. “All of the family was there and a lot of his actor friends and filmmakers flew down and joined in. It was not all happiness, I must say. There was a lot of sadness, but there were some very nice high points.”

Andrew Koenig took his own life last month after struggling for years with depression.

Koenig’s parents did not speak at the ceremony, but their daughter Danielle and her comedian husband Jimmy Pardo showed a ten-minute film they had created about Andrew’s life.

“It was tough for them (the parents) but there was some closure and I think that was important,” said Moss.

William Shatner is the spokesperson for a new Sci-Fi social network called MyOuterSpace.

MyOuterSpace seeks creative people with a passion for the arts, who are Sci-Fi, Horror or Fantasy fans, or who are looking for a career in those fields.

“Welcome to My Outer Space,” said Shatner in a video hosted on the site. “A brand-new community of sci-fi, horror and fantasy lovers. I’m William Shatner and I’d like to invite all of you who wish to act, perform, write, direct or compose music. From actor to animator, register now on the planet that hosts your specific talent. Join us today as we aim for the stars.”

There are twelve planets and starships on MyOuterSpace. The planets represent subcategories in the entertainment arts. The starships each represent a larger creative project.

One of the planets, Creatia, “hosts a creative environment for thinkers of all kinds like writers, directors and playwrights.” Fans are encouraged to “turn to Creatia’s Sci-Fi news section for the latest articles and videos; watch live interviews with legendary directors, peruse columns on the best writers in the business, and read the newest Sci-Fi book reviews.”

The Starship Aurora section explains that the “Captain and Crew aboard this Starship will be working on a hot major production together, and will be recruiting talent from the six United Planets. Submit your resume, if you can take the heat.”

John Eaves, concept designer and illustrator, designed all of the starships and all of the planets for the website.

For the first time ever, Star Trek has won an Academy Award.

In one of four categories for which it was nominated, Star Trek XI won an Academy Award.

In the Makeup category, Star Trek XI (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow) won, beating out Il Divo and The Young Victoria for the honor.

Burman, Hall and Harlow were on hand to accept the award, thanking J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot and their co-workers.

In the Sound Editing  and Sound Mixing categories though, Star Trek XI lost out to The Hurt Locker, and Avatar beat out Star Trek XI in the Visual Effects category.

Michael Giacchino (Star Trek XI) won his first Oscar in the Music (Original Score) category for his work in Up.

The three-person makeup crew for Star Trek XI were nominated for an Oscar for their work, but are quick to point out that it took more than just the three of them to create the species, old and new, which appeared in Star Trek XI.

During a Saturday afternoon symposium featuring the Oscar-nominated hair and makeup artists for 2010, one of the three Star Trek XI makeup artists, Mindy Hall, makeup department head, spoke for the group. “We’re thrilled there were forty-plus makeup artists, twelve of which are out here today, who stood beside us. They weren’t behind us. They were beside us, taking the designs and bringing them to life.”

“From the get go, all we wanted to do was work that was worthy of this,” said Barney Burman, special effects makeup artist. Burman also spoke about his work on Star Trek XI with TrekMovie.com, explaining how the duties were divvied up and sharing photos showing the work of the makeup artists. “I initially brought Joel [Harlow] on to be my key artist and to work as the supervisor on set for prosthetics, while I was designing and creating stuff back in the shop,” he said. “Once we started shooting I became so overwhelmed with stuff to do in the shop that I decided to have Joel take over the Romulans, close to where J.J. could see them every day, so we broke into two different camps. And Mindy [Hall] was always handling the straight makeup, so that were three different camps but we stayed in communication with each other and supported each other. We worked as close together as one unit, while being three units.”

What would Burman like to see in Star Trek XII? “I would love to see the Klingons unmasked,” he said. “To me it is kind of like with Batman Begins, and they made it anew. And in the sequel the knew they had to bring the Joker into it, because he is the most iconic Batman villain. So to me it is the same thing, if you are going to do the second Star Trek, hopefully we get to see the Klingons in the sequel.”

Star Trek: Online, the new MMORPG released last month, has added a new Federation ship to its game.

The Trident, the latest science vessel, is well-equipped to chart distant star systems and to explore far from starbases.

According to Star Trek: Online, unlike other science vessels, the Trident has additional room for engineering facilities, allowing it to make its own repairs as needed, or to act as a support vessel for a fleet of ships.

The Trident will carry five hundred crewmembers and as far as Bridge officer stations is concerned, features room for one lieutenant at Tactical, an ensign and a lieutenant at the Engineering station and two commanders at the Science station.

To see the video showing the newest Star Trek: Online ship, head to the link located here.

Tomorrow, the 82nd Annual Academy Awards will be held and Star Trek fans wait to see if one of the four nominations for the J.J. Abrams film will strike Oscar gold.

While most Oscar fans will be waiting to see whether Avatar or The Hurt Locker will walk away with Best Picture honors, Trek fans are hoping that at the end of the night Star Trek will have laid claim to its first Oscar.

Four separate Star Trek movies have been nominated for ten Oscars, but all came away empty-handed. The nominations were for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (3), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (4), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (2) and Star Trek: First Contact (1).

This year, the nominations and competition are as follows:

Makeup:

• Il Divo. Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
• Star Trek. Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, Joel Harlow
• The Young Victoria. Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

Sound Editing:

• Avatar. Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
• The Hurt Locker. Paul N.J. Ottosson
• Inglourious Basterds. Wylie Stateman
• Star Trek. Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
• Up. Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Sound Mixing:

• Avatar. Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
• The Hurt Locker. Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
• Inglourious Basterds. Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
• Star Trek. Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson

Visual Effects:

• Avatar. Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
• District 9. Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
• Star Trek. Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

Hopefully tomorrow will break the losing streak.

Mission: Impossible IV will be a jet-setting movie, says J.J. Abrams.

Abrams and Tom Cruise plan to set the newest Mission: Impossible movie all over the world, Abrams revealed while speaking at the Oscar Wilde: Honoring the Irish In Film pre-Academy Awards party in Los Angeles last night.

“We’re working on Mission IV and we have a really cool idea that we’re playing with and I’m looking forward to that coming to pass,” said Abrams, “there’s definitely will be a European presence but there’s a whole crazy story, it’s definitely a jet setting movie.”

The non-Irish Abrams was honored at the party for his contribution to the film industry, receiving an award from Tom Cruise. Trina Y. Vargo, president of the U.S.-Ireland Alliance, explained the reasoning for making Abrams Irish. “Someone once said, ‘there are two groups of people, the Irish, and those who lack imagination,” she said. “So in our book, that makes J.J. Abrams more than Irish. Since J.J. graciously agreed to become an honorary Irishman, he has since visited Ireland with his family and he has optioned the rights to Colum McCann’s book Let the Great World Spin. So we’ve adopted him!”

The Oscars will be awarded Sunday night and although Star Trek XI is not up for best film, Abrams feels that a science fiction film might well walk away with the award. Speaking to the BBC, Abrams said, “I think there’s a real shot. I know everyone’s looking at Avatar, but I was a huge fan of District 9 as well.

“I’m just excited that they’re both up there, nominated for best picture.

“I’m a huge fan of sci-fi and fantasy, horror, so as long as the films keep getting made, whatever awards they win or don’t win is sort of beside the point.”

Rachel Nichols, Star Trek XI’s Orion Gaila, will be joining Marcus Nispel’s Conan.

Nichols, who played Scarlett in last year’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, joins fellow G.I. Joe actor Leo Howard, who played Young Snake Eyes. Howard has been cast as Young Conan.

Landing the role of Tamara, Nichols beat out several contenders for the part, such as Jessica Lucas (Cloverfield) and Sarah Shahi (The L Word).

According to the casting breakdown for the role, Tamara is “18 to 24 years old, Caucasian or Middle Eastern, open to all ethnicities; beautiful, studious, correct, a novitiate of a Greek influenced monastery.

“A master of martial arts, she has been trained to be the Queen’s servant, bodyguard and best friend. She and many other female bodyguards to the queen have been in hiding most of their lives because of the curse of Acheron, which would take the queen’s life to bring almost immortal power to its king.

“When Khalar Singh, a powerful warlord with ambitions to become the king of Acheron, storms the monastery and captures all of the novitiates, she is separated from Ilira, the one she must protect.

“With all of her strength and will, Tamara is determined to find and rescue her. She finds herself in league with Conan because of a mutual need to find Khalar Singh. She is not in the least intimidated by Conan’s size or grim demeanor and their alliance eventually blossoms into something that surprises them both.”

Jeri Ryan, best known to Star Trek fans as Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine, has been cast in ABC’s Body of Evidence.

Body of Evidence features a “brilliant, tenacious” medical examiner, whose background as a neurosurgeon gives her a “unique and refreshing” crime-solving perspective, but puts her at odds with most of her colleagues. The main role has not been cast yet, but talks with Dana Delany (China Beach, Desperate Housewives) are ongoing.

Ryan, who has a recurring role on TNT’s Leverage, will play the city’s chief medical examiner, who is the boss of the main character of the show.

A ten minute behind-the-scenes “making of” documentary featurette reel for Star Trek: The Motion Picture has been posted to YouTube.

“Space, the final frontier. Gene Roddenberry invites you to go where few have gone before, behind the scenes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” says the narrator of featurette, before taking fans on a trip to the movie-making world of 1979.

Fans are treated to behind-the-scenes details about the movie, including the construction of several Enterprise models to be used in the movie; the space station Epsilon 9, destroyed in the beginning of the film; Klingon battlecruisers which met the same fate as the space station; the probe; Vulcan, including the matte backgrounds and an explanation of what the model was for Vulcan backgrounds; and the large V’ger set.

Persis Khambatta, who appears as the bald Deltan Lt. Ilia in the movie, is shown getting her hair cut and shaved to attain the alien look. A few tears welled up in her eyes as her locks fell to the floor.

Other aliens are shown donning their masks and makeup; both new aliens and familiar ones such as the blue-skinned, antennaed Andorians.

Three hundred extras, including over one hundred Star Trek fans invited by Gene Roddenberry and Susan Sackett, are shown getting ready for their part in the movie. The massive set upon which they would stand (used only for the one day of shooting, and then dismantled) took hundreds of hours to assemble.

A scientist develops potentially sentient machines with which Data feels kinship.

Plot Summary: LaForge is called away from a card game with crewmembers to assist at a new mining station. He arrives just before Dr. Farallon solves a dangerous power issue using an exocomp, a small robotic device she created to assist with engineering problems in the station’s core. He beams aboard the Enterprise with her so Farallon can report on the station’s progress, showing LaForge and Data that the exocomps were designed to create new pathways in their own memory – in essence, to learn. When one of the devices refuses to obey commands and burns out its own circuits to avoid being sent into a plasma conduit just before the plasma explodes, Data concludes that the exocomp has developed an instinct for self-preservation, which leads him to conclude that the exocomps are alive. This announcement is ridiculed by Farallon and apparently disproven by a subsequent test putting an exocomp in simulated danger from which it fails to extricate itself. But Data and Crusher realize that the device has determined that there is no real threat, which further suggests to data that the exocomps have developed reasoning. Picard and LaForge visit the station core, then become trapped due to a radiation leak. After Riker orders Farallon to transport the exocomps to the station to save the captain and engineer, Data takes the transporters offline, insisting that he will not sacrifice the exocomps to save his crewmates. Riker threatens to relieve him of duty but agrees see whether the exocomps will remain active after being reprogrammed, which Data believes would mean that they choose to accept the dangerous mission. The exocomps allow themselves to be transported, and repair the station in a way that none of the crew had known was possible. One of the exocomps sacrifices itself to allow the other two to be recovered. Later, Picard tells Data that he understands why the android felt it necessary to risk two human lives in order to protect the exocomps.

Analysis: Until I rewatched it for this review, “The Quality of Life” was one of very few episodes of Next Gen that I had only seen once. That’s because it’s one of very few episodes that I find not only poorly written but offensive. On a few occasions, Star Trek’s writers have achieved philosophical insights into the nature and meaning of life – one of the installments referenced by this one, “The Measure of a Man,” is an example of such a superlative episode, as is “The Offspring,” both reflections on what it means to be a living being with a soul. Both these stories focus on Data and teach by example; they ask more questions than they answer, and let viewers wrestle with their own beliefs about how spirituality and morality factor in. “The Quality of Life,” on the other hand, feels like a polemical lecture wrapped in an unbelievable, out-of-character storyline.

Unlike its writers, I don’t presume to know better than another when life begins or how sentience is determined. Star Trek is pretty vague to begin with on exactly what the responsibilities of higher life forms should be toward lower ones – we learned from The Voyage Home that we must save the whales not for their own sake but for the good of Earth, yet the majority of human Starfleet officers apparently still eat meat in the 24th century, so there are still distinctions being drawn between sentient and non-sentient beings and how the former are permitted to treat the latter. We’ve witnessed double standards in this franchise about the ethical treatment of helpful, harmless life forms as opposed to scary hive minds or menacing intelligences. Tribbles certainly qualify as life forms and seem about as intelligent as many fuzzy human pets, yet no one talks about protecting their rights as living beings when Scotty decides to dump them on the Klingons. If the exocomps count as sentient life because they will fight to protect themselves, shouldn’t Daystrom’s M-5 computer have counted as well, and Kirk et al have been charged with murder for driving this unique individual to suicide? Couldn’t the exocomps’ decision to sacrifice one individual to save two others reflect not nascent altruism, but the same sort of brutal disregard for individuality exhibited by the Borg?

As theoretical discussions, these are wonderful topics, but this episode isn’t much interested in theory. Data talks to Crusher for all of two minutes before becoming certain that he can define life, an issue with which scientists, philosophers and theologians have struggled for millennia. For all his wanting to be human, Data puts his own moral sense above that of his crewmates, having concluded that his is superior. Structurally, it has a lot in common with horror stories in which the manufactured individual (a la Frankenstein’s monster) inevitably becomes the villain. We see Data make the decision to throw away two fully realized human lives to protect a life form that can probably be rebuilt, since Farallon clearly has the technology – not that anyone seems interested in how she created these things. Certainly I’d understand if Data refused to let the exocomps be destroyed without anything at stake. But the implication is that all potentially sentient beings should be treated as equal at all times. How, then, does Data justify the use of weapons against Romulan battleships or trying to shoot Borg drones before they can shoot him? Since he concludes that new, unknown life must be nurtured even at the expense of existing life, I must assume that if Data were forced to choose between the life of a mother or the life of a fetus, he’d choose the fetus. There’s the additional implication that if Data were forced to choose between machine life and human life – oh, say, Lore – he’d stick with his own.

And he gets praised for this – for sticking with his convictions, which Picard finds very human. Picard doesn’t point out that sticking with one’s own personal convictions, putting one’s own values above those of others, doesn’t always mean a virtuous act like standing up for minorities against bigoted government laws or fighting to protect heretics being attacked by a religious mob. Sometimes, sticking with one’s convictions leads to things like scapegoating homosexuals or shooting gynecologists, in the name of protecting family values or saving the unborn. I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to discuss my visceral loathing of “The Quality of Life” without noting the ways it touches upon the abortion debate, always a dangerous subject for television – so dangerous, in fact, that it tends to get presented in science fiction buried in metaphors and parallel situations. The words “life” and “choice” get thrown around a lot in this episode, in absolute terms where the “pro-life” position must be protected at all costs and “choice” is ultimately given not to the adults facing death but to the embryonic life forms.

Gender stereotypes get thrown around, too. I don’t think it can possibly be an accident that this particular story follows an extended opening sequence in which four crewmembers talk about how only men grow beards and only women wear makeup. (Really? There’s not one 24th century human male who wears eyeliner or nail polish?) The female scientist who developed the exocomps repeatedly apologizes for being so “touchy” – Data and LaForge make it clear that she’s barely mature enough to handle criticism, let alone to make decisions about the fate of the potential life forms she has conceived. When Daystrom and Soong created life from lifelessness, they celebrated themselves as near-gods, yet Farallon is written not as a would-be goddess nor even a mother, but a petty technician who doesn’t have the imagination to appreciate what she’s made. When she isn’t scoffing at the ridiculousness of the idea that something she built could have taken on a life of its own, she’s sulking that her particle fountain isn’t working (and its failure is epic – it kills one on her own team and nearly kills Picard and LaForge). She appears to have all the drawbacks of male super-geniuses we’ve seen on the show – arrogant, prideful, not a good team player, given to fits of despair over setbacks – without any of the breathtaking insights.

Then again, maybe that’s a good thing. Data’s actions here don’t seem heroic to me but childishly misguided at best, terrifying at worst. Beverly compares his questions to the ones Wesley asked as a child, but we never saw Wesley place his own childish values above the lives of other crewmembers. We’ve often seen Data value his own life less than that of humans, to offer to go into dangerous situations and have to be talked out of it by Picard and the others. This is an opposite extreme that’s hard to swallow. Data doesn’t want to feel unique and alone, so he concludes that the exocomps are like himself, then he concludes that exocomp life is as valuable as if not more valuable than humanoid life. And uses his abilities as the android science officer of the Enterprise to condemn Picard and LaForge to death accordingly. Only later, after his completely out of character speech about the need to protect all life equally, he offers to beam down in place of the exocomps, a solution he knows Riker can’t and won’t permit.

In a better-written episode, we’d have been spared the lecture and Data would simply have beamed himself into the deadly radiation to save Picard and LaForge while sparing the exocomps. Then the exocomps would have demonstrated their sentience by rescuing him, or better yet, the crew would have rescued Data and we’d have been left with unsettling uncertainty about whether or not the exocomps qualify as intelligent beings. We’d have had to come to our own conclusions, and make our own decisions about what sort of ethical behavior should follow from there. But as I said before, this episode isn’t interested in theory. It isn’t interested in asking us to think long and hard about the importance of our own lives versus other lives and about how we make ethical choices. It’s feeding us a message about potential life having absolute value, even more so than the lives of already-living people, and suggesting that there is always one appropriate course of action in a situation where such a conflict arises. That’s a moral that I just can’t swallow, and I really resent having Star Trek – a series created with traditional religion deliberately left out – trying to force it down my throat.

Sir Patrick Stewart has been made president of the Huddlesfield Town Terriers youth academy.

Stewart, a die-hard Terriers fan, will help the club raise the profile of its youth system.

“It’s fantastic news that someone with the profile of Sir Patrick Stewart is getting officially involved with the Huddersfield Town Academy,” said Terrier’s commercial director Sean Jarvis. “Patrick has terrific passion for the football club and will act as a figurehead for the academy as it builds for a bigger future.

“Everyone at the club is honored that Sir Patrick has accepted the role and we’re looking forward to working with him.”

Michael Giacchino had a productive 2009 and is reaping the rewards of having composed music for Star Trek XI, UP and Lost, while looking ahead to future projects.

Giacchino has already won two Grammys, as well as a Golden Globe for his work in Up. He has been nominated for an Oscar as well for Music Original Score for his work in the animated Pixar film, going up against another composer known for his work on Star Trek, James Horner.

But what does the future hold for the talented composer? Once Lost concludes, he hopes to focus more on film work, which will probably include the sequel to J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek XI.

This time, will Giacchino be able to include some musical themes from the original series? When asked, he said, “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I guess it would depend on the story, and if the story allowed even for a wink to something like that, sure. There’s so much great music that came out of the original series that would be fun for me to play with.”

In the meanwhile, Giacchino is getting ready for this weekend’s Oscar Awards ceremony. While looking forward to the event, he is not worried about winning or losing, but will just focus on enjoying the experience. “I’ve never been one to really kind of worry about the outcome of a situation,” he said. “But I am excited to go just to have fun.”

Two new Star Trek XI tie-in books aimed at young adults are scheduled for release on November 16, 2010.

The trade paperback-sized books, to cost $7.99, are the initial offerings in what promises to be a series of books, set in Starfleet Academy.

As reported by TrekMovie, One of the authors of the books has been named, Rudy Josephs, who wrote The Sacred Chalice (a mirror Picard and Troi story) for Shards and Shadows which was released last January. His Starfleet Academy book is available for pre-order at Amazon.

Both stories are set during the time frame of Star Trek XI, unlike the four recently postponed books written by Christopher L. Bennett, Greg Cox, Alan Dean Foster and David Mack, which were set after the events of Star Trek XI.

Star Trek XI tie-in books for adults may be in the future, but no details have been worked out yet.

Chris Pine has been announced as one of the presenters at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.

The 82nd Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, March 7 at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles at 8 P.M. and Pine will be on hand with other stars to help present the awards.

This is Pine’s first time as a presenter and he joins other presenters such as:

• Sam Worthington (Avatar, Terminator Salvation)
• Gerald Butler (300)
• Ryan Reynolds (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
• Bradley Cooper (The Hangover)
• Tom Ford
• Jake Gyllenhaal (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time)
• Keanu Reeves (Speed, The Matrix series)

William Shatner, the original Captain Kirk, will receive a Banff Lifetime Achievement Award.

According to The Examiner, Shatner will receive the award at the 2010 Banff World Television Festival, to be held at Banff, Canada from June 13-16.

“Best known as Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek, William Shatner will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Banff World Television Festival,” said a Banff press release. “With a career spanning more than five decades, Shatner has leveraged his fame to build enduring properties as a director, producer, author, recording artist, screenwriter and spokesperson.

“A brand unto himself, Shatner’s next project is the recently announced Sh*t My Dad Says, based on the popular Twitter account that’s infamous for quotes like “A parent’s only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed.”

Composer Michael Giacchino, nominated for seven International Film Music Critics Association Awards, walks away with multiple awards for his work on Star Trek XI and Up.

The IFMCA announced a list of winners of its 2009 awards, and Giacchino won four of the seven awards for which he was nominated.

Giacchino’s nominations were:

• Film Score of the Year - Star Trek
• Film Composer of the Year
• Best Original Score For a Fantasy/Science Fiction Film – Star Trek
• Best Original Score For an Animated Feature – Up
• Best Original Score For a Documentary Feature – Earth Days
• Film Music Composition of the Year – Star Trek (Enterprising Young Men)
• Best Original Score for Television – Lost (Season 5)

Giacchino won his awards for:

• Film Score of the Year – Star Trek
• Film Composer of the Year
• Best Original Score For a Fantasy/Science Fiction Film – Star Trek
• Best Original Score For an Animated Feature- Up

The winners for the other three categories in which Giacchino had been nominated but lost are:

• Best Original Score For a Documentary Feature – Armand Amar for Home
• Film Music Composition of the Year – Christopher Young – Drag Me To Hell – “Concerto To Hell”
• Best Original Score for Television – Bear McCreary – Battlestar Galactica (Season 4.5)

Fans of Doug Drexler look forward to his monthly blog postings and they will not be disappointed with this month’s offerings.

Items of interest to Star Trek fans include a found shuttlepod, a Ships of the Line flashback, original series set studies and the NCC-1701-D.

“Making for Deep Water” features a beautiful image of the USS Enterprise 1701-D and another ship above a planet, with a moon behind them and a spacedock slightly below the two ships.

Next up is a photo of Drexler and Hollywood makeup artist John Caglione, shortly after winning the Academy Award for the makeup in Dick Tracy. The two were in attendance at Dick Tracy Days in Woodstock, Illinois.

Drexler posted the results of his experimentation with Adobe Dimension. “This was one of my earliest experiments in 3D,” he said. “It was a real thrill!”

Trek fans will enjoy the Ships of the Line 2008 flashback, featuring the Enterprise D and the USS Stargazer.

Other entries of note concern one of the two shuttlepods made for Star Trek: Enterprise, one of which went to a collector in Germany, the other to the Hollywood Studio Collection which hopes to restore it, and an alien transport ship from Star Trek: Enterprise: The Breach.

Robert McCall, best known to Star Trek fans for his work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, passed away Friday, February 26 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

McCall was also well-known for his space paintings that have appeared on U.S. postage stamps, for NASA mission patches and for his 2001: A Space Odyssey posters.

Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1919, McCall won a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Art School following his high school graduation. He served in the Army Air Corps during the Second World War, then worked as an advertising artist before becoming a magazine illustrator. McCall worked as an illustrator for Life, Popular Science and the Saturday Evening Post.

McCall also created art for the Air Force, creating nearly fifty paintings which now hang in the Pentagon and the Air Force Academy. Some of the paintings are part of a traveling exhibition open to the general public.

A six-story high wall at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. is filled with one of McCall’s space murals.

Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said that “[McCall is] the nearest thing we have to an artist-in-residence in outer space.”

McCall is survived by his wife Louise, two daughters and four grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in McCall’s honor to the Challenger Space Center of Arizona, 21170 North 83rd Ave, Peoria, AZ 85382, www/AZChallenger.org.