What Happens To Star Trek's Starships After They've Been Decommissioned?

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Welcome to Trekspertise, a series where we break down the technology, history, details, and decisions that make the Star Trek universe so complex — and so fun.

At the end of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," after the crew of the USS Enterprise-A has foiled an assassination and assured that peace talks with the Klingons can proceed as intended, they all return to their bridge stations and give a great sigh of relief. It's right at that moment, sadly, that Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) receives a communique informing them that the Enterprise is to return to spacedock ... to be decommissioned. Everyone deflates. This is truly the end of the road. The Enterprise will be no more. Of course Spock (Leonard Nimoy) suggests that they should respond with a brief "Go to hell," and Kirk (William Shatner) essentially steals the Enterprise and soars away into the heavens. 

One might assume that Kirk and Co. eventually gathered their wits about them, changed their minds, and actually returned to spacedock. The Enterprise would then be decommissioned, and each of the crew would either retire or be given new assignments. 

And Trekkies might wonder: What happened to the Enterprise-A? What happens to starships after they're decommissioned? There have only been passing references to retired starships throughout "Star Trek," usually to mention that they're being put "in mothballs." That is to say, they are stored in a surplus depot. They are essentially stored in vast space junkyards, and occasionally, one might assume, salvaged for parts. There is also a notable scene in "Star Trek: Picard" that shows that some decommissioned starships end up in museums. 

Why "Star Trek" doesn't fully recycle their ships, however, is beyond me. 

Fans of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" might recall a scene in the two-part episode "Unification" wherein we see the Qualor II Surplus Depot Z15, which stored the hulls of both starships and entire decommissioned space stations. Sharp-eyed Trekkies will note that the USS Tripoli was one of the ships stored there. 

It also seems that these decommissioned starships are often left abandoned with a lot of their engine parts and computer systems still intact. This leads to a healthy black market in "Star Trek" wherein alien species can pick abandoned ships for parts. On the "Next Generation" episode "Rascals," the Ferengi were flying two Klingon vessels that had been salvaged from a scrapyard. There are also scenes in "Star Trek: Lower Decks," "Star Trek: Picard," and even "Star Trek: Prodigy" wherein Starfleet vessels visit junkyards to salvage dated starship parts for use in repair. 

As seen in the "Star Trek: Picard" episode "The Bounty," however, many starships of historical significance are kept preserved in fleet museums. The USS Voyager from "Star Trek: Voyager" is on display, for instance. The decommissioning and transport of the Voyager were also dramatized in an episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks." One might assume that museum visitors can take walking tours of these starships, as their life support systems are kept running, their computers are kept unwiped, and their weapons and transporters are kept fully operational. 

On "Picard," Geordi (LeVar Burton), the head honcho of the fleet museum, was revealed to have been reassembling the destroyed USS Enterprise-D in his spare time. Somehow, he was able to get his hands on a working warp core and a full complement of weapons. This strikes me as dangerous; decommissioned airplanes at the Smithsonian aren't rebuilt with fully loaded machine guns.

The above examples, though, are the only canonical fates of starships. It seems that decommissioned ships are merely cast aside in "Star Trek," left intact but powered down in starship graveyards. Although this may seem environmentally unfriendly to us modern Earthlings, space is vast enough (it is, after all, very, very, very big; that's likely why "Star Trek" rarely leaves the Milky Way) that there can be thousands of junkyards in the cosmos without causing any environmental harm or taking up significant real estate.

Starships are only preserved and kept powered up if they prove to be historically significant in some way. In real life, any naval vessel put into a museum is heavily re-engineered to be non-lethal, and if they're to remain seaworthy, then they are also rebuilt to be more environmentally conscious. Museum boats are not battle-ready. On "Star Trek," it's more common to keep notable starships powered up, fully armed, and ready to go. Of course, if that's the case, one might wonder why they bothered with decommissioning in the first place. 

Many Trekkies might have postulated, like I did, that all Starfleet vessels were 100% recycled. Starfleet is a model of efficiency, and leaving starships intact in junkyards seems like a waste. I had long assumed that, eventually, all starships were completely disassembled, and their parts reused in the construction of new starships. This was backed up by Diane Carey's tie-in novel "Ship of the Line," which pointed out that the Enterprise-E was constructed using salvaged parts of the Enterprise-D, complete with commemorative plaques. But my assumptions and tie-in novels are not considered canonical. The only on-screen fates that Trekkies have seen for starships have been junkyards or museums. Perhaps some ships are given to civilians or retired officers. But those things linger on.