Project Iceberg

Project Iceberg was a 14-panel Star Trek: The Original Series comic strip, the first of two stories released by Kenner in 1974. The story was told on slides projected onto a wall using Kenner's Give-A-Show Projector toy. In this story, the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) assisted struggling aliens on an arid planet.

Summary
The Enterprise picked up a distress call from a humanoid species who desperately needed water. To help them, the starship used a grappler to tow a large body of ice close enough to the surface of the alien planet so that heat from its sun melted it. The resulting precipitation saved the day.

Characters

 * James T. Kirk • Leonard McCoy • Spock

Starships and vehicles

 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) ( heavy cruiser) • spacecraft

Locations

 * Unnamed star system

Earth

Races and cultures

 * Human • Vulcan • unnamed races and cultures

States and organizations

 * Starfleet (command division • operations division • sciences division)

Science and technology

 * grappler • harpoon • viewscreen

Ranks and titles

 * Federation Starfleet ranks (2260s) • Starfleet ranks

Other references

 * assignment patch • asteroid • distress call • ice • planet • space • star • Starfleet uniform • Starfleet uniform (2265-2270) • volcano • water

Production history

 * 1974 : Included in the Give-A-Show Projector, Red Box, slides 611-01 and 611-02 (Kenner)
 * September 2017 : Reprinted in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 3 (IDW Publishing)

Background

 * If the ice asteroid was fragile, the use of a grappler or harpoon would make sense. A tractor beam might fracture or crush the ice as it did Captain John Christopher's F-104 Starfighter.
 * Heating a large block of ice in the upper atmosphere of a planet would not actually create rain. In a low-pressure environment, the ice would boil into space.

Related stories

 * – Philippa Georgiou and Michael Burnham repaired a dry well on an arid planet to save the Crepusculan species.
 * – The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) towed the star remnant Doona with magnetic force rather than a tractor beam.
 * – In 2370, the shields from three Runabouts were used to deflect the course of a deadly comet called The Messenger.