Bonaventure (C1-21)

The Bonaventure

The Bonaventure (C1-21) was a mid-21st century spacecraft, originally built as an interplanetary scout, before being converted into Earth's second warp-capable ship, the successor to Zefram Cochrane's prototype Phoenix. (Star Trek Chronology)

With secret funding from Micah Brack, Zefram Cochrane equipped the Bonaventure with his superimpellor engine and converted the ship for faster-than-light travel. In 2064, Cochrane piloted Bonaventure on Earth's first interstellar flight to Alpha Centauri. Cochrane became the first human to set foot on an extrasolar planet and breathe a life-sustaining alien atmosphere. The round-trip journey took two hundred and forty-three days (roughly eight months), and Bonaventure returned to Sol system on 19 March, 2065, docking at Christopher's Landing, Titan.

Mere hours later, Bonaventure left the system again, Brack having convinced Cochrane to flee Colonel Adrik Thorsen of the Optimum Movement who wanted to suppress his research or turn it into a weapon of mass destruction. By the time Thorsen arrived at Brack's compound on Titan, Cochrane was gone, and Brack had broadcast all the designs, logs and specifications of Bonaventure and the superimpellor engine back to the inner planets, giving his patents away and thereby "letting the genie out of the bottle."

Within months, other companies were retrofitting existing sublight vessels with superimpellors, and by the next year, new ships like the SS Valiant had been constructed and launched. Thanks to Cochrane and Brack, Earth's first great space boom began, and Bonaventure's legacy would be honored for centuries to come. (ST novel: Federation)

External links

• Bonaventure (C1-21) article at Memory Alpha, the canon Star Trek wiki.
• Bonaventure (C1-21) article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.