How a Star Trek Shuttlecraft Found a Home in the Adirondacks
The Galileo found a home in Ticonderoga. Photos courtesy Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.
Ticonderoga has always been unusually comfortable with time travel. The Adirondack community built its reputation around an 18th-century fort, but downtown visitors can also step onto a remarkably faithful recreation of a 23rd-century starship.
This September, those worlds get another intriguing addition. Trekonderoga Presents the Galileo, September 18–20, 2026, brings a three-day Star Trek fan event to the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour — and unveils the restored Galileo shuttlecraft in its new permanent home.
The celebrity roster alone would get the attention of Star Trek fans: George Takei, Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner are scheduled to appear. But the more interesting Adirondack story may be what is happening beyond the guest list. Ticonderoga is becoming the permanent home of another significant piece of American pop-culture history.
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Ticonderoga has built something no convention center can replicate.
Trekonderoga works because it isn't simply a fan convention transplanted to the Adirondacks.
The Star Trek Original Series Set Tour occupies a former supermarket on Montcalm Street, where creator James Cawley and his team recreated sets from Star Trek: The Original Series using original blueprints and extensive research. Visitors don't merely look at memorabilia behind glass. They walk through the Enterprise's familiar spaces, from its bridge and corridors to engineering and sickbay.
A precise recreation of The Bridge from the original Star Trek series.
That changes the character of a celebrity appearance. During Trekonderoga, fans can book special tours, photos and autograph experiences with performers who actually inhabited the Star Trek universe.
George Takei originated the role of Hikaru Sulu in the original series. Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner followed a generation later as Commander William Riker and Lieutenant Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Put those actors inside an immersive Star Trek environment and the weekend feels considerably different from meeting them across a table in a hotel ballroom.
The Galileo gives Trekonderoga 2026 a bigger story.
The most consequential arrival this year, however, isn't a celebrity.
The Galileo shuttlecraft, one of the recognizable vessels associated with Star Trek: The Original Series, has undergone years of restoration. It will now reside permanently in a newly constructed shuttle bay at the Ticonderoga attraction.
The Star Trek Original Series Set Tour and Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce will mark its arrival with a ribbon-cutting Friday, September 18, at 5:30 pm at 112 Montcalm Street. Food trucks will be part of the community celebration.
There is something appealingly Adirondack about its scale. A piece of television history isn't being installed at a sprawling entertainment complex in Los Angeles or Orlando. It is landing on Montcalm Street in a town of a few thousand people between Lake George and Lake Champlain.
That juxtaposition is part of the appeal.
Watch the Galileo's next chapter begin.
The story of the restored Galileo helps explain why its arrival in Ticonderoga is more than another addition to Trekonderoga Weekend. The shuttlecraft becomes part of the permanent experience at the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.
The restored Galileo shuttlecraft begins its next chapter at the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, New York.
Its permanent home gives Star Trek fans another reason to seek out this unlikely pop-culture destination in the eastern Adirondacks.
In Ticonderoga, centuries of history sit a few blocks apart.
The location makes the story even stranger — in the best possible way.
Ticonderoga already draws travelers because of Fort Ticonderoga, Lake Champlain, Mount Defiance and the community's outsized role in early American history. The Star Trek attraction has added an entirely different audience to that tourism mix.
A visitor can spend the morning contemplating artillery and the strategic importance of the Lake Champlain corridor, then head downtown and stand on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
Few Adirondack towns can offer an itinerary that jumps nearly five centuries before dinner.
That kind of niche travel also matters to the region. Adirondack tourism is often associated with hiking, paddling, foliage and the Great Camps. Attractions such as the Set Tour demonstrate that the Park's communities can draw visitors for experiences that have almost nothing to do with mountains — while those visitors still eat in local restaurants, browse downtown businesses and explore the surrounding region.
Historic Fort Ticonderoga overlooking Lake Champlain. Photo courtesy ROOSTadk.com.
Trekonderoga is for more than committed Trekkies.
Dedicated fans will naturally get the most from the celebrity appearances, special tours, autograph sessions and photo opportunities. Some premium experiences have already sold out, a useful indication of how far people will travel for access that feels genuinely distinctive.
But Trekonderoga also works for the Star Trek-curious traveler. The sets themselves offer an intriguing look at television production and design, while the Galileo adds a tangible artifact to an attraction built largely around recreated environments.
General admission costs $80 for adults and $40 for children ages 5–13 and covers all three days, September 18–20. Celebrity tours, autographs, photos and other experiences are separate add-ons and require general admission.
ADK Taste recommendations.
Anyone traveling specifically for a celebrity experience should buy admission and desired add-ons before arriving; limited experiences can sell out. Creating an account when you buy tickets also lets visitors return and add experiences as they become available.
For travelers coming from Lake George or Schroon Lake, this is also an event worth turning into a Ticonderoga day rather than a quick appointment with Starfleet. Leave time for downtown, Fort Ticonderoga or the Lake Champlain waterfront — and don't miss Friday's 5:30 pm Galileo ribbon cutting if the schedule allows.
Check the official Star Trek Original Series Set Tour website before traveling for updated schedules, ticket availability and guest information.
The Transporter Room.
ADK Taste perspective.
The Adirondacks are full of places that make sense only after someone tells their story. Trekonderoga belongs in that category.
A restored Star Trek shuttlecraft finding its permanent home in Ticonderoga sounds, initially, like an eccentric footnote. Look closer, and it says something larger about Adirondack communities finding imaginative ways to give travelers reasons to visit beyond the familiar seasonal attractions.
Ticonderoga can preserve the 18th century without being trapped in it. This September, a town famous for one historic fort gets to celebrate the arrival of a very different kind of vessel.
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