What inspired the design of Star Trek’s Galileo shuttlecraft?
Anyone know what the influences or inspiration for AMT’s design were?
The early 1960’s era Alvis Stalwart?
Or is that just my imagination 
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H.P.
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A search for, “Galileo shuttlecraft origin”, yields what Matt Jeffries had to say on the matter.
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A box was cheaper and easier to build given the shows budget and time restraints. And it’s also easier to film the interior shots.
The curved bottom is reminiscent of some of reusable re-entry vehicles under study at the time.
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Unfortunately the VW in the photo didn’t hit production until 1972 at the earliest.
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Maybe a kitbash of an M113 on pontoons! 
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Talking about style and design cues and not the specific model of “hippy van” for an intergalactic trip to the Federation’s equivalent to Woodstock…
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Matt Jefferies’ original design looked like a passenger jet fuselage with the wings and tail replaced by a pair of warp engines. It resembles a Romulan Warbird from The Balance of Terror. The people at AMT decided Jefferies’ design was too expensive to produce. They brought in custom car creator Gene Winfield. Winfield passed the design work to Thomas Kellogg at Raymond Loewy Associates. Kellogg based the Galileo shuttlecraft on another Jefferies design, intended as a utility craft. The entire reason for changing the design was cost. A slab sided design with simple features was cheaper and easier to produce, as opposed to something with complex curves.
Given the purpose of a shuttle is to transport people, and that cost effective designs for moving people look like cylinders or long, rectangular boxes, it should be no surprise that Galileo ended up as a long, rectangular box. Just like real vehicles need to fit garages and roads, Galileo needed to fit inside a hanger with a bunch of additional small craft. Most of the vehicles linked above were designed under the exact same cost and design limitations.
Therefore, I conclude Galileo was not directly inspired by another vehicle. It was a compromise solution intended to fulfill a function under constraints that limited the design.
Sheesh. I wasted 30 minutes writing this. No wonder I cannot finish anything.
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@Damraska Thank you, Doug for the outstanding explanation and background 
I suspect that’s the best and the correct answer to my question.
Kudos
Sorry about the 30 minutes. I same issue yesterday compiling a Wade’s World Review. 
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Yes, I agree cost was the major factor in the design. My questions concerning the design are why are the front windows mounted too high for the pilots to look out of when seated at the controls? I can’t imagine being able to see out of the windows would affect the cost that much. Also, since the shuttles flew and landed similar to a helicopter, why not add a few windows looking down from the nose? Just some thoughts from someone with too much time.
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@Armor_Buff Haha! I am mostly kidding about the 30 minutes stuff. I must have spent hundreds or even thousands of hours doing research because of topics that come up in these forums.
Here is another article on the Galileo worth reading:
A Brief History of the Shuttlecraft Galileo Pt. 1
A Brief History of the Shuttlecraft Galileo Pt.2
@yellowhammer It probably has something to do with the relative sizes of the full size prop and the studio set. The full size Galileo prop for external shots is roughly 75% of intended size. The interior set is probably over scale in the vertical dimension to allow actors and actresses to stand upright during filming. If one takes the full size prop and scales it up to fit the interior set, the front windows end up way too high. I suspect the designer of the interior set was trying to make things realistic, trying to reconcile exterior to interior, and in doing so achieved an unrealistic result.
Props and sets are expensive. Corners get cut. Inconsistencies result. It is almost always that simple.
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Chanses are It was about what the Desilu Studios couls buiild Fast and Cheap.
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