Interview with Rick Sternbach: Senior Illustrator & Designer of Star Trek

From Star Trek: The Motion Picture to Star Trek: Voyager, Rick Sternbach Fired Our Imaginations

Space illustrator, astronomical artist, science fiction artist, starship model designer, and NASA consultant are only some of the professional artistic triumphs which define Rick Sternbach. For over three decades now, Mr. Sternbach has excelled at the forefront of designing the look of the future in such iconic science fiction movies and television as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager.

I was delighted to find Mr. Sternbach generous with his time and his passionate enthusiasm was infectious as we discussed his respected career. Here he provides a fascinating glimpse into his historic contribution to the mesmerizing worlds of science fiction, to a right up to the minute reaction to J.J. Abram's new summer blockbuster reboot of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. For me, as a child fan and later writer for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, it was a truly gratifying conversation. Rick Sternbach influenced many a sci-fi fan and writer, and his work most certainly had a big impact on my life and my own professional contribution to the Star Trek universe.

Who influenced you as a young artist - who are the people who formed your artistic perspective?

Well it was the beginning of the Space Age... I was growing up in that time and it was certainly enough of an incentive to get involved in some way... I had these lofty goals of becoming an aerospace engineer. As I was going through college, Apollo came to a grinding halt. So I was like, "Oh Crap! Now what?"

So you really wanted to become an engineer?

Oh yeah! My Dad was an architect, so I got a grounding in all the mechanical and structure guy stuff in say airplanes and military hardware and the like. G Harry Stine, who was the rocket engineer, got me and a few million other kids involved in model rocketry.. So in the mid to late 1960's, I was building and flying rockets,while NASA was building the real thing and getting us to the moon. It was heady stuff, it was exciting times.

What do you think of NASA's next space platform plans?