El-Baz

The El-Baz was a Federation Type 15 shuttlepod that was in service with Starfleet in the mid-24th century, attached to the USS Enterprise-D. It was shuttlepod 05, and was equipped with impulse drive only.

In 2365, a duplicate of the El-Baz was found adrift in deep space by the Enterprise-D, with a duplicate Captain Jean-Luc Picard at the controls. Examination of the shuttle determined it came from several hours into the future and that it escaped the destruction of the Enterprise at the hands of a space-borne entity. The pod's circuitry had been moved out of phase relative to its time, requiring a special procedure to power it up taking this into account. The pod also contained the duplicate Picard's final log entry. The duplicates disappeared after the "present" Picard discovered a way to avert the ship's destruction. (TNG: "Time Squared")

Early in the next year, the El-Baz was listed on the shuttlebay operations display as being overhauled in Hangar 4. (TNG: "Evolution")

Late in 2366, the El-Baz was parked in the Enterprise's shuttlebay and under maintenance supervised by chief engineer Geordi La Forge. John Doe tried to escape the Enterprise by initiating the launch of the shuttlepod, but gave up his attempt after inadvertently killing then reviving Lieutenant Worf. (TNG: "Transfigurations")

In 2369, the El-Baz was stolen by Lieutenant Commander Data and a Borg drone named Crosis. Crosis reconfigured the shuttle to open a transwarp conduit, and the shuttle was taken to a planet containing a compound of Lore's Borg. The abandoned El-Baz was discovered by an Enterprise away team, and used as a command post for search teams attempting to locate Data. (TNG: "Descent", "Descent, Part II")

El-Baz was the first Type 15 shuttlepod seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 231 stated the shuttlepod "was named for former NASA planetary geoscientist Farouk El-Baz, currently on the faculty at Brown University."
It Rick Sternbach recalled on the naming, "And in a supreme example of coincidence, I had suggested that one of the the little boxy shuttlepods in TNG be named El-Baz, after Farouk El-Baz, one of the Apollo lunar geology experts (one of my faves along with Hal Masursky). We had no idea that Rick Berman actually did some filming with El-Baz ages before Trek. The name was approved. The other part of the story goes that his kids were watching TNG the night the pod was featured and yelled out that the shuttle had the same name. Neat." [1](X)

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