The TOS Enterprise seems a bit small so I propose doubling the ship's size in height, length and width. That would give you four saucer rim decks instead of two and allow all this expanse that the movie would show and still be smaller than Enterprise D. It works out to an 800 foot diameter saucer rim a 680 foot plus secondary hull and an overall length of about 1900-2000 feet. In view of the huge size of the hangar deck, scaling up seems to make sense to me.
The original NCC-1701 was correctly sized for its intended mission, as two (some say three) seasons of TOS made perfectly evident. TGT
It's kinda too late to resize something that's already existed in its current state for 30 years, ain't it? What are you gonna do, go back and redo the effects in six movies just for the hell of it? Besides, she was already plenty big enough.
No, I had been thinking along these lines for many years and an exact doubling of dimensions would not be apparent except, I think, in a closeup shot of the saucer rim or other features due to the greater number of windows making a greater number of decks. As for onscreen years ago, their were few closeups and no dialogue to indicate ship sizing.
So we will vastly increase the ship's volume, causing it to dwarf later ships, confusing the heck out of the bridge scale and the TMP hull-walking scene on the refit and lots of other things, ignoring the onscreen sizing in feet from "The Enterprise Incident," but it mostly won't be apparent. Well, I think everyone will immediately see how sensible this is. ------> ------>
So that it can separate into ten gazillion little independent ships! (You know this is where it's going...)
The TOS ship was dimensioned correctly for its main mission. Why rescaling it, since, at least, it causes problems with the sizes of the rest of the future Enterprises.
The entire fleet would have to be resized. As for the Enterprise, the ST XI saucer is 800 feet in diameter on a vessel capable of galatic exploration. A Galaxy class is 1500 feet by 1000 foot saucer model and around 2100 feet long so it remains much bigger in volume and in saucer with then an upscaled Enterprise. I took one look at that shuttlebay's enormous size and figured the whole ship must be upscaled to account for that scene and the impression JJ Abrams wants to create of a vast ship.The upscaled Enterprise is bigger than the biggest supertanker but so what? It is a big ship.
That was a big mistake on the Final Frontier as you pointed out. Ent-E had some deck numbering problems. Doubling the size of everything leads to an eightfold increase in volume and perhaps weight also but the sizing is not beyond even today's technology in building supersized sea going cities that were proposed. By that standard, Ent is small. It needs to be bigger without changing the proportions of the vessel.
But we're not talking about a CITY. It's the size it is because it is. It's like saying "Well, if I increased the size of my Hummmer H2 by a factor of 2, I'd have more room."
Tell that to the crew of an aircraft carrier. They are floating and self propelling craft with 5000 plus crew in what can only be a floating city and larger structures are also possible such as my favourite, the Mobile Offshore Base that by having several 1000 by 300 foot modules joined together can operate conventional and not just carrier capable aircraft. A Hummer that was scaled up by a factor of two would be a very large vehicle also with over 12 foot length and perhaps 50 feet long and sitting some 3-4 people above the ground clearance. It would be mine resistant if the skin was double thickness also. Does a larger Ent matter? Yes it does for Star Trek was built upon science fiction and such facts that were known in the 1960s when industry could build a 1092 foot long carrier with a flight deck 256 feet wide on the sponnsonns and a hull beam of 134 feet. I know it's a big jump to an 800 foot saucer with 24 decks or 48 plus decks overall but it is not that big of a jump when skyscraper volumes are also counted.
Aircraft carriers are as big as they need to be and not the slightest bit larger, the military would be happier if you told them that the damn thing could be smaller if it wouldn't impair operations on board.
Aircraft carriers also pay attention to quality of life isssues as well the launch/landing cycles. Russian carriers are designed to fight for themselves with air defense systems and a dozen economy size surface to surface missiles suitable for sinking an American carrier. On long missions, the Typhon had a swimming pool, a suana and a small pet zoo to make a six month mission bearable. So how is the Enterprise different? I'm not changing vessel proportions, just the dimensions to accomodate crews on long missions and JJ's desire for a vast ship.
I do believe the question to ask is why? What gives the impression that the Enterprise, at well over a quarter of a kilometer long, is not large enough to house every sort of facility that the crew would need to perform their mission with a reasonable quality of life? I mean, if they've got a bloody bowling alley in there somewhere, I have trouble imagining them having any sort of shortage in space...
That shuttlebay trailer scene started this. The doors to the shuttlebay were 60 feet wide and 30 feet high but to accomodate two rows of shuttles with a taxiway (?) in between you need more space and that reminded me of all that time spent on a larger ship. Double the dimensions increases hull skin area by factor of four and interior volume by factor of eight. Now we have room for bowling alleys, Olympic standard swimming pools and all matter of creature comforts as well as more power generating and using important machinery for the long missions, which call for creature comforts ala typhoon ballistic missle subs and Kursts giant cruise missiles carriers for USN aircraft carrier killing. A note about the deflector dish, use it as a weapon for space to ground bombardment since the aperture is so much larger than a phaser. Ship to ship, I don't know.
We don't even KNOW that that's the shuttlebay. In fact, the light coming from the top and sides seems more visually consistent with sunlight than with artificial lighting IMO.
That is what it seems to be and the sunlight could be an artifical lighting method that reproduces sunlight accurately for crew health.