The tour, Cawley said, "is emotional for a lot of people." He pointed to the sliding doors that the thousands of fans who've made the pilgrimage here since last year—some from as far away as Ethiopia—pass through to begin the guided hour-long tour. "When they go in there, I've had people cry. I've had people say, 'I never thought I'd actually see this,'" Cawley said, noting that nearly all of the original sets, except for a few pieces that are now in private collections or museums, were destroyed shortly after Star Trek was cancelled in 1969. "This is wish-fulfillment for a lot of people."

The set tour is the culmination of two decades' worth of work during which Cawley established himself as the O.G. of the modern Star Trek fan film. Cawley created and starred as Captain Kirk in his popular (and mostly self-funded) original web series Star Trek: New Voyages from 2003 until just a few years ago, along the way attracting such Trek luminaries as George "Sulu" Takei and Walter "Chekov" Koenig to reprise their iconic roles in his productions. The hour-long ST:NV episodes were filmed in and around Ticonderoga using Enterprise sets Cawley started constructing in his grandfather's barn in 1996 purely as hobby, with the idea that he and his local Trekkie pals could use them to film their own little Star Trek vignettes for kicks.