Created by writer Gene L. Coon, the character first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek episode "Metamorphosis", in which he was played by Glenn Corbett.

[4] In 2119, Cochrane was present at the dedication of Earth's first Warp 5 Complex, as seen in a video viewed by the characters in the 2001 pilot episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

On that occasion, Cochrane stated, "This engine will let us go boldly where no man has gone before", making him the earliest known person in the fictional timeline of Trek to say that phrase.

[1] In the 1994 novel Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, whose publication predated the release of Star Trek: First Contact by two years, Cochrane had been portrayed as a human of Earth origin.

[11] This follows a suggestion made in the Star Trek Chronology, on the assumption humans could not have settled the Alpha Centauri system prior to the warp drive's invention.

His life's story beyond his encounter with Kirk at Gamma Canaris in "Metamorphosis" is depicted up to his death during the events of the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Lacking a common language and before the invention of the universal translator, he used mathematics alone to communicate his ideas for a faster-than-light drive system and its prototype, the WD-1.