Dedicated Star Trek fans know that the famous “Space, the final frontier…” opening narration was not the first version written. The intro went through a number of revisions, some of which were not great.

The iterations were penned by Gene Roddenberry, Bob Justman and John D.F. Black, with a big assist from Sam Peeples who had written the phrase “where no man has gone before” one year earlier. 

But even if you know that story, you probably have not heard William Shatner perform those alternate takes. That’s about to change, thanks to the Star Trek 25th Anniversary Audio Collection. The four CD set from 1981 presents three (abridged) Star Trek novels: Enterprise: the First Adventure, Strangers from the Sky, and Final Frontier. The books are read by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan and George Takei, and include an introduction by Shatner.

And it is that introduction that gives us the opening narrations that could have been, in Captain Kirk’s own voice. Here is that audio:

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The versions Shatner read, plus a few more, are detailed in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, by Herbert F. Solow and Robert H. Justman. Shatner’s performances above includes two versions by Black and then Roddenberry’s original take on the words.

The actual writing process kicked off on August 2, 1966, following an urgent memo from Justman.

At least five iterations were then written the next day by Roddenberry, Justman and Black. Here they are, as presented by Solow and Justman.

Another urgent memo, this one on August 10, prompted the recording that afternoon of the famous final version.

Justman wrote about that recording session.

On the afternoon of August 10, 1966, literally minutes after Gene finished his final version, I phoned Bill Shatner on stage, where he was working on “Dagger of the Mind,” our ninth episode to be filmed. I told him “drop everything,” and then I ran across the street to the dubbing stage. Bill raced to meet me and arrived a minute later, slightly out of breath. We rehearsed the dialogue several times and made a take. Due to Bill’s classical training, his delivery was excellent–but the narration sounded too contemporary. There was something lacking; it didn’t seem to “ring out.”

I asked the sound mixer to add reverberation to Shatner’s voice. We made another take and the results were perfect. Bill had become Captain Kirk, the adventurous commander of a spacecraft of the future…

Oddly, Marc Cushman in These are the Voyages, Season One, supplies different versions. Here is an excerpt from that book:

So, hit play on the above audio file again but close your eyes this time and imagine the Enterprise whooshing past to those words instead.