Description of the teaser trailer...SPOILERS, Dude

Well, you can't build a ship in the water because, well, it just wouldn't work.

However, large-scale construction in space is already a feasible concept in this day and age. Blast up the components and go for it.

The only way constructing the ENTIRE ship on the ground would make sense is if there were some anti-gravity device on the ship that compensates for its mass and especially it's lack of an aerodynamic shape. (Kinda like how some non-aerodynamic combat planes today are kept in the air by computers.)
Perhaps that's what shuttlecraft have, or Klingon birds of prey, or it's how Voyager was able to land, and it's why the saucer of Enterprise-D didn't drop like a rock. Maybe that's even what the mothership had in "Close Encounters".

There'd have to be some sort of technology to prevent the ship from experiencing the loads placed on it by gravity, even while being constructed. Loads it won't experience in space.
Are we to believe the neck on the Enterprise is strong enough to support the saucer's weight in 1 g, and the struts can support the engines? If so, since it's going to spend its life in space, that would be overengineering it in my book.

Not building in space can be explained away. But building in space needs far less rationalization, and in-universe it seems a far more efficient method of assembly in the long run.

 

Re: Description of the teaser trailer...

Sorry if this gives me a double post.

I don't really have a problem with the whole SF Ship Yards thing.
-- Could be the builders are based in SF and only work in outer space.
-- Could be the Yard pre-fabs work on the ground then sends it up to its space facility in orbit for final assembly.
-- Most planes and ships today are built in multiple factories that may be 100s or 1000s of miles away from each other. Could be the SF Yard coordinated the whole thing. Or was the place to which the components were sent before final assembly.
-- It could be the term "ship yard" is a hold-over from the naval years and now refers to any place where starships are built, in space or otherwise. In the same way that we still "dial" phones.

 

Re: Description of the teaser trailer...

Guys, guys, guys. It's a trailer. What we see in a trailer doesn't necessarily have any bearing on the final film. Example:



Now was Voyager or any Intrepid-class starship in the final cut of First Contact? Heck no.

 

On the flip side, one could argue that if the design couldn't withstand the simple force of gravity, it wouldn't handle the multitude of OTHER stresses in space much better.

Hell, if the neck was really THAT weak, every enemy ship they encountered would be focusing their firepower on just that one area. The reason they don't is probably because they realize those supports aren't as weak as they look.

 

Re: Description of the teaser trailer...

Keep in mind that we will likely be seeing the "guts" of the nacelle, not the finished outer shell, so it may look entirely different when we see the final product.

If anything, I'm sure they went out of their way as much as possible to NOT show us the finished product, both in order to tease us and because they probably hadn't finalized the look of the Enterprise exterior at that point.

 

You are partially correct. That's why the Structural Integrity Field exists; otherwise, Warp would tear a ship to shreds.

 

I was just talking about the weights of materials and distribution of the mass and weights for a 100% space vehicle versus one which would experience atmospheric flight.
I'm not an engineer, but the forces encountered in zero-g would be different than the forces faced in gravity. The neck may be very good at maintaining its structural integrity and fulfilling its purpose in space, but it may not be able to withstand the loads and forces the primary hull exerts on it because of gravity. Same with the ability of the engine struts to hold up the nacelles.

I don't know. Someone who knows the jargon better than I do might be able to clarify what I'm trying to say and point out where I may be wrong.

All I know is building something to be strong in space is different than building something to be strong when there's gravity.

 

Actually, you could build a ship in the water. You could build the structural framework, cover it with hull plates, then pump the water out and do the finishing work. Of course, you have to put most of your workers in diving suits and use welding techniques that work under water and materials that won’t rust or corrode and so forth. It’s theoretically possible but it wouldn’t be worth the extra effort.

The description of the trailer referred to “scaffolding,” which could explain how a ship like the Enterprise could be built on the ground without collapsing under its own weight. I imagine the primary scaffolding supports would remain in place until the ship was powered up and able to generate its own anti-gravity and/or structural integrity fields, at which point the supports would be removed and the ship would lift itself into orbit.

Absolutely we are to believe that. In order to cross interplanetary distances in minutes as we have often seen Trek ships do, they would have to withstand millions of gravities worth of acceleration. Once you postulate technology capable of neutralizing that kind of force, Earth’s gravity becomes trivial.

The only rationalization it requires is the anti-gravity and inertial compensation technology Trek already gives us. As for efficiency, building something the size of a starship is a far more difficult proposition in microgravity and hard vacuum, not to mention solar and cosmic radiation, orbital debris and other complications that don’t apply if you build it on the ground. The only reasons not to do it that way are the structural integrity problems and enormous cost involved in lifting massive objects out of Earth’s gravity, which are absolute deal-breakers for us, but would be inconsequential using 23rd century Trek technology.

 

^^^^^^^^^
I guess now there are plausible in-universe technological explanations that allow us to gravitate (no pun intended) away from Roddenberry's 1960s notion that the Enterprise should never be thought of as a ship capable of atmospheric flight.

Interesting.

 

^
^^But in 'Tomorrow is Yesterday', they were low enough to be seen by Captain Christopher in his fighter jet. If they were that low, then they WERE in the atmosphere. There's no way they could have been seen otherwise.

Did they ever say how high there were in 'TiY'?

 

I'm not sure how high they were - but I do recall the Enterprise sure looked like she was "flying" in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" which always struck me as odd but I also assumed there was some anti-gravity stuff going on there.

Sharr

 

Repeating what I said on another forum:

Sounds interesting, but doesn't really give us to much about the movie.

Remember, 'Trek teasers can be completely wrong about the movie (ie the First Contact Trailer with Voyager and the 1701-D in it). ?So we still don't know for 100% that the 1701 is being built on Earth. ?They might just be using that as a cute little wink-and-nod to the fans about the franchise being rebuilt, as well as giving the common (ie not 'Trek fan) movie-goer something they can relate to, rather than a space shot of a bunch of scaffolding and a half-completed ship in orbit and them going "WTF?! is going on"

And remember, this is Abrams the man plays it close to the vest and isn't above a little msidirection.

 

Given that's the usual point of a "teaser"... its doing its job.

This is also true... can't wait for the viral marketing campaign to kick in myself.

Sharr

 

Probably should have cut that part, when I copy and pasted. That was actually a response to someone hoping around popping a vein and frothing like a rabid dog over the trailer.

That is what's going to be fun, if nothing else. A game of "find the real insider info, and the planted info by the studio marketing dept."

 

There does seem to be a great many who are otherwise media savvy and familiar with how Hollyood releases films unable to grasp the notion of a "teaser trailer" LOL. I really don't understand why.

Actually this does seem like they placed a bit of extra effort into the teaser compared to most films.

Sharr

 

It's much more than the teaser for TUC.

 

Hi Seer -- I read this post 'on that other board'. I agreed with you there, and I agree with you here (I'm nothing if not consistent .)

A teaser is just a teaser. There are many teasers that have nothing to do with the plot of the film for which they are teasing. This is simply a way of announcing "We're making a Star Trek Movie". That's all; nothing else.

I agreed with you on that board that this teaser is just a metaphor for this film being "under construction" (albeit a very cool way to reveal this metaphor). It is NOT the purpose of this teaser to show exactly how the Enterprise was built. Once the film comes out, this teaser will be irrelevant -- and it's definitely NOT supposed to be part of canon.

By the way, I said this same thing on that board, and one of the two resident stubborn fans who constantly look for negative things to say about EVERY single piece of news coming out of this project (they do - I'm not exaggerating) replied "the idea [of an 'under construction' metaphor] would be lost to the same general public they are hoping to lure with this thing."

...after I read that, I had to come here to regain my sanity.

 

How much actual misinformation was "planted" about "Cloverfield?" About "The Dark Knight?"

People talk about studio misdirection, but we don't really see much. The actually common approach to keeping the lid on films continues to be to try to keep information from leaking, period, rather than filling the air with chaff.

 

After the mishap with the black star, Kirk is told that Mr. Scott was holding the ship in orbit on impulse power.
Kirk recognizes they are too low to maintain the orbit, and is told Mr. Scott has sufficient impulse power to "achieve escape velocity." But no real altitude is mentioned.

The space shuttle typically orbits at around 200 miles, which is considered a low orbit. The uppermost layers of the atmosphere actually extend as far from Earth as 600 miles.
The service ceiling of Captain Christopher's F-104 was about 75,000 feet, or only 14 miles. The Enterprise could've been a few miles above that. Maybe the lower stratosphere.
The atmosphere and gravitational pull at that low altitude was apparently not enough to fatally cripple the ship. Though Sulu did keep reporting that the ship was sluggish to the helm. That is, it didn't like being so low in the atmosphere.

 

Agreed. Putting the scene in space, I think it would be too easy for the casual moviegoer to get confused over what they're looking at. They might think the ship was just getting "refitted" again, like in TMP. Or that Starfleet decided to construct ANOTHER Enterprise for some reason.

Putting the construction of the Enterprise on Earth makes it MUCH clearer what's going on-- that this is indeed the very first Enterprise being built.

(Well, not counting the NX-01, which I really hope Abrams is going to ignore completely.)