THE CONCEPT The Deep Space Exploration Group is the exploratory organization of the United Galactic Federation. In the portion of the UGF populated by Humans, four sentient species operate sizable numbers of ships serving in the DSEG fleet: Humanity, T’lar, Cybernethi, and Ventasians. In the late 27th century Common Era, the Human component of the Deep Space Exploration Group consists of about 1600 starships. Of this fleet, 15% are Deep Space Explorers, 50% are Deep Space Scouts, 20% are Deep Space Freighters and 15% are Deep Space Tugs. These vessels are stationed at about twenty Deep Space Bases located throughout Human-explored space. Deep Space Explorers are the core of the fleet and perform medium to long-term exploration missions. Larger Deep Space Explorers carry their own Deep Space Scouts along with many shuttlecraft of various types. Deep Space Explorers are not capable of landing on planetary surfaces. Deep Space Scouts form the bulk of the fleet and serve on survey or short-term exploration missions. They usually carry a few shuttlecraft and are capable of landing on planetary surfaces. Deep Space Freighters are the supply chain of the fleet and haul cargo packaged in standardized freight modules of various sizes. They usually rely upon specialized shuttles to take the modules from orbit to planetary surfaces. Deep Space Freighters are the slowest starship type. Deep Space Tugs are the workhorses of the fleet. They serve on a variety of missions depending upon the type of specialized modules they tow. Some examples of missions include priority cargo transport, luxury personnel transport, traveling repair facilities, and traveling medical facilities. THE PROJECT These Human starships of the Deep Space Exploration Group are inspired by the Federation starship designs of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” While these ships are not meant to be part of the “Star Trek” universe, they do have a star-faring technology level roughly equivalent to that of the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” era. The larger speculative spaceship designs in this family are based on the spaceship types presented by Franz Joseph in the Star Trek Technical Manual from the mid-1970’s. This project is dedicated to his memory. I consider the Deep Space Exploration Group vessels to be my most romantic speculative spaceship designs. I do not expect any starships Humanity ends up building to resemble these designs in any significant way. Instead, I offer them as inspirational images meant to convey my hope for a positive future in space. The “Inspiration” Class Deep Space Explorer was the first ship modeled and parts from it were to used to create most of the other designs in the this project. Initial work on the project began years ago using TrueSpace 6.6 but has been significantly reworked and expanded using Rhino 4. Rendering was done using Flamingo 2. I created a custom hull texture for the DSEG ships using graphic elements purchased from Renderosity artist designfera.