I'm curious as to the possible size of the remastered S.S. Aurora that was seen in the episode 'The Way to Eden'. Any ideas? Thanks! --Saginaw
I think Okuda or someone once stated that the design was meant to invoke the '60's hippy VW bus, so it's probably not larger than that. The round windows seem to be a dead giveaway as to size, if those windows are meant to have one seat for each window.
I found one at the Ex Astris Scientia website. It's in the very first entry: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/other_ships.htm Wow! That's a LOT smaller than what I thought! I figured that it would be at least 100'/30m long to accomodate a small but adequate engineering section. Interesting. --Saginaw
OK, forgive me, I was bored and I wanted to try my hand at this, since I hadn't really done something like this before. I could really see this ship as being the 'runabout' of the 23rd century. That said, if we were to scale the main body of this ship to the Danube class (23 m long, according to Ex Astris Scientia... and I hope it's right, because I didn't verify it anywhere else! ) then the J class comes out at about 32 m long, which is right around Saginaw's minimum expectation. At this scale, it looks like there's probably enough room for two decks in the front part of the ship (justifying the two rows of windows), and it would narrow down to a single deck in the aft section. I think the comparisons to the VW bus can only be taken figuratively, since if we scale the body of the ship to match the bus, the ship comes in right around 6 m, and it looks way too small to accommodate Sevrin's group. (Granted, you could probably try to scale it such that the largest part of the main body, say from just aft of the front of the ship to about where the front of the nacelles are, matched the size of the bus, and you might have better results, but I'll leave that to someone else to try! ) So, yeah, I guess I'm more in the 30-ish metre camp, but I assume someone will point out why this doesn't make sense at all! Image credits: The Danube and the J Class are from Ex Astris Scientia. The VW bus was found from a Google image search and is from a site called behance.net. The person icon was also found from an image search, and is from calacademy.org, but has been recoloured. (It is scaled to represent a 183 cm (6 ft) tall person.) I believe based on what I have used them for here, they should be covered under fair use, but if anyone disagrees, let me know, and I can take the image down. And my apologies if I have made any calculation errors!
I'd imagine its interior space is about the size of a 6-10 passenger private jet, but with more headroom. It's referred to as a cruiser, so it might have sleeping cabins.
On the contrary, I find the 2-window row argument rather convincing, BUT... When I read the thread title I hoped we'd be discussing the "real" S.S. Aurora. Bob
The original (none of it's real!) Aurora was blueprinted by Todd Gunther in the early 80's. He worked out a length of 21.10m. Not totally sure, but I think they're online at www.cygnus-x1.net. It would have been cool to see either of the Auroras among the sky traffic on Earth in ID.
I know, that's why I put these " " I do have these conjectural plans myself, but the warp nacelles are obviously inaccurate (which might be attributed to a lack of better reference materials available to Todd Guenther, then). The available HD screencap reveals the warp nacelles to have sensor dishes (AMT Enterprise model kit) at the front of the nacelles, instead of just two "intercoolers" there seem to be six of those attached to the Aurora's warp nacelles while the stern of the nacelles is somewhat "flat". I wonder if the proportions between the main body (reuse of Tholian vessel) and the nacelles could suggest a different conjectural size for the original Aurora. The way it looks to me the vessel could land using its nacelle pylons as landing pads, depending which side view drawing is the more accurate. Bob
No doubt, but the scale of the human figure relative to the VW bus is off in your drawing. The "hippie van" (Volkswagen Type 2) is 2.040 meters tall according to Wiki whether T1 or T2, which should be noticeably taller than your 1.83 meters person.
I probably misspoke when I equated the homage to the VW bus with the size of the VW bus. The 30 meter ship definitely seems more accurate, especially if the two rows of windows are meant to be two decks on the ship.
Mant thanks to Avro Arrow for posting this comparison image. Probably the most plausible conjecture I've seen. The Memory Alpha article on the "remastered" Aurora states some interesting notions as well… FWIW, I see a "space cruiser" (or "yacht") as being large enough to accommodate a crew of at least six for a limited deep-space voyage. A voyage would mean the crew would be away from its home planet (or space station, or mothership) for days at a time. The ship is obviously larger and more capable than a Starfleet Class F shuttlecraft, and is probably capable of more extended durations in space. Since Space Cruiser Aurora gave chase to a Class I Heavy Star Cruiser, we can assume she has (at least some) smoke. Faster than a typically-outfitted Class F Shuttlecraft? Probably. (At least, Aurora must've been to make Enterprise sweat) One interesting thing to note is that she might fit into the main Constitution-class landing bay, but would probably not fit through the turntable to the storage hangar below. So if a Connie carried a "kit" to make one of these ships, it would most likely have to be assembled in that main landing bay, not the below-deck hangar. (It could be suspended above the landing bay floor to avoid impeding launching and recovery of other craft; imagine a kind of drydock arrangement hanging from the bay's ceiling.) So, in theory, a Federation starship might be able to "hangar" such a vessel, but would not typically house or deploy one of more of these craft. So, that would be a major difference between starships and "Runabouts" of the 23rd vs. 24th centuries. In order to be the kind of craft I'm describing, a 32-meter Aurora would have to house the following facilities within her hull: crew living area cockpit/"bridge" airlocks for EVA/disembarkation on planet surfaces food/supplies storage computer(s) engine room? subspace transmitters, scanner/sensors restroom/lavatory sleeping facilities equipment & space suit storage possible planetfall gear, in the event of engine failure (vehicular parachutes, etc.) I'd say the Runabout analogy would be about right for a TNG frame of mind. A closer TOS-era analogy might be the Jupiter II (or SPACE:1999's Eagles). In a TMP-era frame of mind, she might be more like a primitive scout, like a crude first attempt at a Klingon Bird of Prey. Note the seam running down the length of the main hull. I wonder if it would be possible for a ship of that size to have separation capability, with the lower half able to "drop away" from orbit and land while the upper half remains in orbit to goes on to other tasks, Apollo moon mission style. (Or perhaps the front section of the hull is the "mission module" that separates, leaving the aft section (engineering?) in orbit with the nacelles. If so, the aft separation line would probably be just behind the aft-most windows.
It's entirely possible I've messed something up there. I got the bus measurements from bustopia.com. I will freely admit that I don't know enough about VW buses to be able to differentiate the models, but in looking over their chart, the heights seem to range from about 192 cm to 195 cm. I'm not sure why they are different than the height Wikipedia provides? But at any rate, at that scale the van should either be 1 or 2 pixels taller than the person, but in the image they are the same.
The Space Hippie vessel not only has two rows of windows, but also a suggestion of people behind those windows: the bow porthole seems to feature two people standing up, one in red clothing, and the upper side portholes appear to have a railing running along the lower edge. The lower side portholes also have this railing, which appears to kink down towards the stern, perhaps suggesting there's an entry ramp there. That'd probably double the size of the vessel to at least 60 meters, leaving plenty of room for machinery... Timo Saloniemi
While I'm not prepared to nail down an exact size (I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of this), it would seem to me that, in order for this vessel to make any sense, it would have to have volume to contain a crew habitat and supplies-storage and equipment-storage facilities to accommodate at least six people for at least a limited voyage (a few days? weeks?) in deep space. Think of it as part Jaques Cousteau's Calypso, part space yacht, part private jet. See my earlier post as I try to flesh out the logistic structure of what a ship like that would be like. So, we're saying 30 to 60 meters, eh? Maybe there are various classes of space vessel, some Starfleet, some civilian, of specific sizes, functions and capabilities. Did the remastered Denevan "I'm free!" spacecraft share in this design? And Harry Mudd's "Mudd's Women" ship as well? Does anyone have contact with Rick Sternbach or Doug Drexler on this? Maybe they could shed some light on the subject. This little ship, sized with a proper crew, would make for an excellent TOS-era spin-off fan film (think Space Cruiser C57D) or TOS-derived novel a la Vanguard.
I think it's clear the same CGI model was used, although perhaps with much less detail. But I tend to think like you that such yachts would exist in many different sizes even if sharing a shape (just like yachts today - virtually every manufacturer offers a range of sizes), and the Denevan vessel might be smaller while Mudd's ship might quite possibly have to be larger to qualify as a "cargo ship", even if the heroes' definer for it is "small". +1. Although I wonder whether (NC)C-57D herself could somehow be worked into the continuity as well... Sure, in the movie she looks like government, but the uniforms and stuff could be for a private contractor as well, perhaps making the shoehorning easier. Timo Saloniemi
Out of curiosity, anyone know what was the money situation on the TOS-R at the point this ep was done? Because, IMO, this CG model reads cheap and amateurish and counts for me as one of TOS-R's fails.
I have no idea what the Paramount/CBS budget was for "remastering", but the design for the "Mudd's Women" ship, the Denevan "I'm free!" ship, and the Space Cruiser Aurora looks to be the same in the TrekCore HD screencaps that I've looked at. The only thing I don't like about the ship is the nacelle pylons. This ship needs simpler wings, like the Aeries in the Axanar fan-film. Recycling the Klingon wings looks silly. The hull color looks a little too original-BATTLESTAR GALACTICA-shuttle-esque for me. Other than that, it's a neat little design that could be the focus of a story. Maybe a mixed crew; Starfleet pilots and engineers, civilian scientists go on missions out of a small K-like space station or a starship. A little bit like "The Galileo Seven" mixed in with the PT109 and C57D.
In retrospect, now that TNG-R is almost done and any VFX changes they did there were almost 100% matched to the original footage, I think that TOS-R should have done the same thing. I.e., they should have made the Aurora a Tholian vessel with Federation nacelles, just like the original model. That's what we originally saw, and that's what should have been recreated as closely as possible to the original footage. I think that at the time of TOS-R, the remastering team had more of a "Star Wars Special Edition" thing going on, but by TNG they realized that fans preferred what was originally there. Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself; I don't know. I know I've flip-flopped about this before, like wanting to see new CGI ship designs replacing all that Excelsior stock footage in TNG. But TNG is what it is, and changing stuff just for the sake of changing it (like the Aurora) doesn't sit well with me anymore.