CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Matt Jeffries, the man who designed the fictional Starship Enterprise for the original television series "Star Trek", passed away Monday at the age of 82.

With its saucer-shaped primary hull, separate engineering section and twin warp nacelles, the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701, has become one of the most recognizable icons of the space age.

Jeffries came up with the ship design for "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry during the mid 1960s. The design evolved as the original show gave way to a string of movies and four new television series.

"Matt was a gentle soul. He has put his stamp on everything we have done since his brilliant, classic Enterprise," Herman Zimmerman, production designer for the current series "Enterprise," said in a statement posted on the official Star Trek web site.

References to Jeffries' contribution continues in almost every episode and movie as the engineering tunnels that run inside each starship are called "Jeffries Tubes" by the characters.

Often considered the true star of the show, the original Starship Enterprise and the series it represented was so popular that following a mail and phone campaign by fans NASA named the prototype shuttle Enterprise after the ship Jeffries designed.