Why does the NX-01 Enterprise closely resemble an Akira-class starship?
The Akira-class was designed by Alex Jaeger of Industrial Light & Magic in 1996, with the resulting design appearing as a CGI model in the movie First Contact. It was named after the Japanese animated film Akira. This design is most notable as an inspiration for Doug Drexler’s design of the Enterprise (NX-01), the central ship of the fifth Star Trek series, of the same name. A design sketch of the USS Akira shows the vessel bearing the registry NCC-2497. In an unpublished interview with author Larry Nemecek, designer Jaeger said he simply used the four-digit number of his then-phone extension for that registry; to conform to Starfleet practice, the number “6” was added by Mike Okuda and the film’s art department to make “62497,” a number then approved by producer Rick Berman. At the same time, Jaeger said, two other ship names and registries were approved as back-ups, if needed, to the USS Thunderchild actually seen on film as NCC-65549: the USS Rabin (named after former Israeli Prime
