Lee Kelso was a Starfleet officer who served as navigator aboard the USS Enterprise in 2265. Among his friends aboard ship was helmsman Gary Mitchell, whom Kelso referred to as "Mitch".
Kelso was on duty when the Enterprise encountered the barrier at the edge of the galaxy, during its mission to probe out of the Milky Way. Upon encountering the barrier, the Enterprise sustained serious damage to her warp engines, and Mitchell was affected in such a way that he began to develop extraordinary psychic abilities. Kelso visited Mitchell in sickbay, who informed Kelso that the ship's starboard impulse pack was burned out. As there was seemingly no way Mitchell could have known this, Kelso initially assumed that Mitchell was joking. Mitchell insisted, however, prompting Kelso to double-check the impulse pack, confirming that Mitchell's report was accurate.
In an attempt to repair their warp engines, the Enterprise traveled to Delta Vega, in the hopes that they could adapt some of the power packs from the automated lithium cracking station on the surface. Kelso was put in charge of the operation, and was able to successfully repair the engines. During the repair process, Captain Kirk ordered Kelso to rig a self-destruct switch that would destroy the entire station, should Mitchell, whom Kirk was planning to strand on the surface due to his increasing instability, escape his captivity from the station's brig. In order to stop him, Mitchell telekinetically strangled Kelso to death with a cable. (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before")
Background
Lee Kelso was portrayed by actor Paul Carr. Chief Kelso, from TNG: "The Quality of Life", was named by writer Naren Shankar as a homage to this character. (Star Trek Encyclopedia)
It is popular belief that Kelso was the helmsman of the Enterprise while Mitchell was the ship's navigator, as suggested by their positions at the conn. However, on-screen evidence suggests otherwise. Firstly, Mitchell's responsibilities aboard the Enterprise – neutralizing warp speed and piloting the ship, for example – are those of a helm officer. Secondly, when Mitchell is knocked out of his chair after being "zapped" by the energy barrier, Kirk yells out "helmsman!", an exclamation aimed at Mitchell. Third, Kelso himself was credited as "Navigator" in early cuts of the episode. In this early episode, the stations are reversed: Mitchell's post is the navigator's station and Kelso's the helm station. It is never explained – either on-screen or from behind the scenes – why their positions at the conn were reversed. Kelso wore an operations division beige Starfleet uniform, even though helmsmen and navigators usually ended up wearing the gold uniform of the command division in the rest of TOS. The division insignia on his assignment patch was the stylized globe symbol that would later be exclusively for sciences division personnel.
Apocrypha
DC Comics' non-canon biography of Kelso in Who's Who in Star Trek 1 states he was born in San Francisco, California, and studied at the Palo Alto Technical Institute and at Starfleet Academy, where he was a classmate of James Kirk.
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