The first airing of Star Trek: The Original Series debuted on September 8, 1966. Last week marked the 50th anniversary of the Starship Enterprise embarking on its first voyage and boldly going where no one has gone before.

Fittingly, this imgur post has been making the rounds. ModelChili (Sam Lockton), an experienced model builder based in New Zealand, posted side-by-sides of his impressive builds. It compares two 1:350 scale kits, the Polar Lights Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 and the Tamiya model of the U.S.S. Enterprise (CVN-65). Coincidentally, both ships set sail in the 1960s as the CVN-65 began its service in 1962. The aircraft carrier was retired in 2012, it’s 50th anniversary.

It’s mighty cool to see an iconic ship of science fiction and fantasy next to the real world ship. You begin to genuinely get a sense of proportion and scale, the sheer enormity of both vessels, with his simple snapshots. This radical blip might start to make up for the perceived lackluster celebration of the Star Trek brand (CBS and Paramount) so far.

Well done, ModelChili! Check out the videos of the builds after the jump. A couple progress stills of the 7-week Starship build can be found here.

Some fun facts via ModelChili:

1. The carrier Enterprise is 342m long, so at this scale it comes to 1005mm. The starship Enterprise is noted as being 289m long.

2. The carrier Enterprise had a crew of about 5,500, whereas the starship Enterprise only had a crew compliment of 430.

3. The carrier Enterprise was commissioned in 1961, the starship Enterprise studio model was built in 1965.

4. The carrier Enterprise took about 5 months work, and included buying extra parts such as aircraft, photoetch details, aftermarket decals, photoetch figures, resin Phalanx guns.

5. The starship Enterprise took about 3 months work and the only extras were some 1/350 scale figures for the bridge and shuttlebay.

-@Teemunny

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