A cargo bay, cargo hold, or cargo deck was a general-purpose storage facility aboard shuttles, starships and starbases.
Starfleet[]
NX-class[]
Cargo Bay Two aboard Enterprise while affected by spatial anomalies in the Delphic Expanse
The NX-class had three cargo bays. (ENT: "The Xindi") Cargo Bay One was located aft center in the saucer section. (ENT: "Anomaly (ENT)")
Circa 2152, a web-like symbiotic lifeform infested Cargo Bay Two aboard the NX-class starship Enterprise. (ENT: "Vox Sola")
For "Vox Sola", the cargo bay was built as a set on Paramount Stage 18.
Enterprise's Cargo Bay Two became affected, in 2153, by spatial anomalies that were a characteristic of the Delphic Expanse, causing cargo to fly from one wall to another and cling to the walls. Meanwhile, Cargo Bays One and Three seemed unaffected. Though Archer at first thought Cargo Bay Two's gravity plating might be responsible, viewing the cargo bay confirmed for him that this wasn't the case. The room was thereafter sealed off. (ENT: "The Xindi")
In the final draft script of "The Xindi", Cargo Bay Two was described as having doors which slid open. In the final version of the episode, though, the cargo bay instead has a hatch which is manually opened.
Shortly thereafter, one of the cargo bays aboard Enterprise was invaded by a pair of Osaarian pirates, who firstly beamed into the cargo bay before one of them used his own particle weapon to knock out a crewman who had been working in the area. The cargo bay was then ransacked by the pair of Osaarians, using small transponder devices. The Osaarians completely emptied Cargo Bay Two and were in Cargo Bay One when they were detected by Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed from the vessel's armory, though the Osaarians soon left the ship. Cargo Bay Two was at least partly refilled with the previously stolen cargo once it was recovered from a Delphic Expanse sphere where the Osaarians had stashed it. (ENT: "Anomaly (ENT)")
In the final draft script of "Anomaly", the cargo bay which the Osaarian invaders are shown in, while they knock out a crew member there and ransack the place, was identified as Cargo Bay Two. The designation of this cargo bay is not, however, identified on screen.
Shortly after Captain Archer and T'Pol returned to Enterprise of 2153 following completion of a time-traveling mission to Detroit of 2004, Archer mentioned Cargo Bay Two to T'Pol; he wanted her to ensure that the room be used to store Xindi equipment that, as a result of the mission, was now in the command center on Enterprise. (ENT: "Carpenter Street")
A rare scripted reference to one of Enterprise's cargo bays being called a "cargo hold" was in the final draft script of "Doctor's Orders".
Somewhat worthy of note is a script error in s4e7: "The Forge" where the scene showing the just mentioned 31 Human coffins in the cargo bay instead shows 3 rows of 7 coffins totaling 33 Human deaths rather than the speech of Captain Archer just prior saying 31 likely a cosmetic choice not intended to be noticed as 31 cannot be easily spread out in an orderly fashion.
Crossfield-class[]
The Crossfield-class had five cargo bays. (DIS: "Lethe") These bays were located in the secondary hull. (DIS: "Context Is for Kings")
In 2256, it was announced on the public address system that all available offload teams were to report to Cargo Bay 5 of the USS Discovery. (DIS: "Lethe")
In 3189, there was a reference to Cargo Bay 3 in an announcement from the public address system. (DIS: "Unification III")
Constitution-class[]
Constitution-class starships, such as the USS Enterprise, had several cargo storage layouts depending on their design.
While cargo bay is the designation for goods to be delivered to another starship, a starbase, or colony, ship's stores is the designation for crew supplies storage.
The episodes TOS: "Charlie X", "A Private Little War", and "Assignment: Earth" mentioned ship's stores.
In 2259, Chief Engineer Hemmer beamed several crewmembers to cargo bay twelve. (SNW: "The Elysian Kingdom")
In 2266, the Enterprise beamed down cargo supplies to the Tantalus V penal colony. (TOS: "Dagger of the Mind")
In 2267, the USS Enterprise was en route to Makus III with a cargo of medical supplies. (TOS: "The Galileo Seven")
Constitution II-class[]
The refit Constitution-class cargo bay
After the USS Enterprise underwent a refit as a Constitution II-class in the 2270s, the ship had one large cavernous cargo bay, in the ship's secondary hull, that could be flown into directly from space by shuttlecraft and cargo management units carrying cargo containers. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
This cargo bay had three levels:
- top level – shuttlecraft flight deck, CMU stations;
- mid level – cargo bays, shuttlecraft elevator, shuttlecraft hangar deck, lifeboats;
- low level – cargo bays
Excelsior-class[]
The location of the cargo bays in the secondary hull of the Enterprise-B
The Excelsior-class had cargo bays located in the secondary hull. A cargo conveyor connected the forwardmost cargo bays to the aft cargo bay. The aft cargo bay was equipped with space doors.
In 2293, the location of these cargo bays were labeled in the USS Enterprise-B master systems display on the ship's bridge. (Star Trek Generations)
Galaxy-class[]
A cargo bay aboard a Galaxy-class starship
Cargo bays were often equipped with large transporters to assist in the moving of cargo containers. However, aboard Galaxy-class starships, cargo bays located in the stardrive section did not have transporters. In that situation, cargo was directed into the bay by a transporter chief operating in a transporter room. (TNG: "11001001", "The Child")
Cargo bays were used in a variety of ways other than typical storage, including triage centers, brigs, and stasis unit facilities.
Cargo Bay 4 aboard the USS Enterprise-D was located close to the outside of the ship and could be decompressed easily by blowing the cargo bay hatch. (TNG: "Power Play")
A single set was used for the multiple Galaxy-class cargo bays (as well as for shuttlebays, holodecks, and gymnasium of the Galaxy-class Enterprise) and was one of the last standing sets to be built for Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, 3rd ed., p. 10) The cargo bay set originally had two main walls. The "back" wall featured a balcony on the upper floor (accessible via off-screen stairs) and an entrance door below. The wall to the right featured a large exterior bay door. The wall to the left of the "back" wall (at an obtuse angle) featured the main entrance. While both entrance doors were the octagonal shape of the familiar interlocking holodeck doors, the entrance on the "back" wall was a plain grey sliding door. The wall outside this door is dull silver with horizontal dark grey stripes, possibly attempting to simulate the metal wall panels of the main corridor sets. A portion of the wall to the left of the main entrance was built, but most of the "front" wall was not. Shots were angled to avoid this direction.
In its first appearance in "Code of Honor", only the "back" wall entrance is seen and used. It is possible that the section of the set with the main entrance had not yet been built. For the cargo bay's next appearances in "Datalore" and "Symbiosis", a cargo transporter was placed in front of the plain grey door. By "Up The Long Ladder", the remainder of the bay including the "front" wall had been completed. A section of "plain" wall was also built to block the wall with the exterior bay door. This new wall was only one floor high, and created a shelf top it where cargo could be stored ("Hollow Pursuits").
Between the second and third seasons, the angle of the wall with the holodeck door was changed to be perpendicular to the "back" wall and parallel to the exterior bay door.Intrepid-class[]
A cargo bay aboard the USS Voyager.
The USS Voyager had several bays with the designation "Cargo Bay 2". One had variable environmental controls and was designed for organic storage. It was converted to a hydroponics bay/airponics bay by Kes in 2371 in order to allow for the growth of foods for consumption. Another was located on Deck 4 and suffered a massive hull breach when a Kazon shuttle intentionally collided into it in 2372. In 2374, the Borg assimilated a third "Cargo Bay 2" during an alliance with Voyager. After the alliance, four Borg alcoves remained in the bay and it went back to normal cargo storage. This "Cargo Bay 2", however, was located on Deck 8. (VOY: "Parallax", "Maneuvers", "Scorpion, Part II", "Equinox", "The Gift")
Yet another "Cargo Bay 2" was referenced in VOY: "Night" by Neelix, who proposed the installation of holoemitters to convert the room into a third holodeck; this is assumed to be a different cargo bay than Seven of Nine's, as she would likely object to the conversion of what is essentially her quarters into a public recreation area. The shifting location of Cargo Bay 2 was never explained in dialogue and has never been directly addressed by any member of the production staff. It is presumably simply a mistake made by the writers of those individual scripts, who did not keep up with the location of that particular cargo bay. Alternatively, Voyager was stated several times in the early seasons to have three cargo bays, three transporter rooms, and three holodecks; early drafts of the scripts in question may have referenced the supposed third cargo bay, only to have the reference number corrected in later drafts without also making the location consistent. In any case, the location is most definitively established in VOY: "Scorpion, Part II", which depicts from outside the ship the decompression of cargo bay 2, whose external door is located on what appears to be Deck 7 or Deck 8, on the edge of the saucer section.
Indeed, the confusion of exactly how many cargo bays the USS Voyager has is only complicated by comparing the physical filming model with examples from dialogue. In VOY: "Macrocosm", Janeway clearly says to The Doctor that he has a clear path to "both" cargo bays. Yet, close analysis of the filming model clearly shows a total of three hatches like the one seen in VOY: "Scorpion, Part II" – one on each side of the saucer rim, and a third at the forward tip just below the auxiliary deflector.
According to the VOY Season 2 DVD trivia text version of "The 37's", the Voyager had two cargo bays located on the decks 4 and 10.
The USS Voyager had two cargo bays, one on Deck 4 (Cargo Bay 1) and one on Deck 8. Cargo Bay 2 was in section four, and was used for the storage of spare components and surplus materials. (VOY: "Drone")
At one point in 2377, two deuterium tanks were beamed out of Cargo Bay 2. (VOY: "The Void")
Dauntless-class[]
The USS Dauntless had two cargo bays. The location of these cargo bays were labeled on a master situation display. The forward cargo bay was located on Deck F. The aft cargo bay was located on Deck G. This bay was identified as a "warehouse" on some of the MSDs and on a conn panel in the ship's main bridge. (PRO: "Mindwalk")
A clear view of the MSD was provided by Dominique Rossier of Wardenlight Studio. [1]
Deep Space 9[]
The interior of Cargo Bay 4
The interior of Cargo Bay 12
In 2369 Jake Sisko was late for dinner with his father. The computer located him in Cargo Bay 14 where he was tutoring Nog in reading. (DS9: "The Nagus")
Nog and Jake Sisko met a Lissepian captain in Cargo Bay 9 in 2369 to barter some Cardassian yamok sauce for self-sealing stem bolts. (DS9: "Progress")
Constable Odo told Commander Sisko and Chief O'Brien to take crossover bridge 1 which would lead them into the cargo bay and docking port 4. (DS9: "Dramatis Personae")
After Keiko O'Brien's school was destroyed by a bomb, Commander Sisko granted her permission to resume teaching her students in a cargo bay. (DS9: "In the Hands of the Prophets")
When Nog requested a recommendation from Commander Sisko to enter Starfleet Academy, Sisko decided to test Nog's seriousness by asking him to inventory the contents of Cargo Bay 12. Nog completed the task in a mere five hours, and found items that had been overlooked in the previous inventory. (DS9: "Heart of Stone")
Miles O'Brien used one of Deep Space 9's cargo bays to install a dart board in 2371. (DS9: "Prophet Motive")
Klingon Imperial Fleet[]
Bird-of-Prey[]
Small Klingon Bird-of-Preys, like the HMS Bounty, had their cargo bay located in the secondary hull. This bay had top loading cargo doors that could be opened explosively with an explosive override. This bay was located on the same deck as the transporter room and engine room. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
Other ships[]
In 2152, the cargo hold of a Retellian freighter temporarily held a stasis pod containing Kriosian princess Kaitaama, as she had been kidnapped by the vessel's Retellian crew. Commander Charles Tucker III, who released Kaitaama from the room, referred to it as a "grimy little cargo hold." (ENT: "Precious Cargo")
In the final draft script of "Precious Cargo", the Retellian cargo hold was described thus; "Cramped and grungy, dimly-lit. Dented, oily cargo containers fill every available space, and jury-rigged conduits dangle from the bulkheads, where they've been tied into open panels."
The next year, Captain Jonathan Archer covertly accessed the cargo bay aboard Degra's ship, in order to sabotage a shipment of kemocite intended for use in the creation of the Xindi weapon. (ENT: "The Shipment")
An Andorian battle cruiser had three cargo holds. In December 2153, Cargo Hold Three aboard the Andorian battle cruiser Kumari temporarily held the Xindi test weapon. (ENT: "Proving Ground")
In 2369, someone broke into the cargo bay of the Kobliad transport Reyab when it docked at Deep Space 9, to steal a computer chip with a map of the Humanoid brain. (DS9: "The Passenger")
Under the influence of the Saltah'na, Major Kira Nerys asked Constable Odo to slip through the security system of a Valerian transport and into their cargo bay to check if their shipment included dolamide. (DS9: "Dramatis Personae")
In 3188, during her journey to Sanctuary Four, the trance worm Molly had a temporary home in one of the cargo holds of Cleveland Booker's ship. (DIS: "That Hope Is You, Part 1")
Appendices[]
Background information[]
The live-action portion of the cargo deck in The Motion Picture was built on Paramount Stage 18 and cost US$52,000. (The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p. 95) The set was made by using elements that art director Joe Jennings had designed and constructed for the office of Japanese admiral Nogura, during pre-production on the ultimately abandoned series Star Trek: Phase II. "I don't know exactly what he was going to do with them, but he'd built these sections they'd ended up storing," commented The Motion Picture's production designer, Harold Michelson. "I can't stand to waste, so I used them in the cargo hold, and that's why the cargo hold is sort of Japanese-y." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 8, p. 99) This set was later added to via the use of matte paintings, making it seem even larger than the set had been. (The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, interior color photographs)
According to the VOY Season 2 DVD trivia text version of "The 37's", the Enterprise-D had three cargo bays located on Decks 2, 38, and 39
External link[]
- Cargo bay at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works