I feel for you @Professor Moriarty ! There are also these alternatives https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xihd/trekxihd0984.jpg https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xihd/trekxihd0081.jpg
You guys do realize that if it really were the 23rd century, and that ship - with space bending warp drive and physics bending transporters - really existed, we couldn’t apply rules of engineering or even laws of physics that we know and understand, to anything we see. For all we know, those doors might bend as they move. Or collapse. Or dissolve. Or even not be there at all (be some form of gas infused with structural integrity). It’s cool to figure out how they might work, but it’s also kinda weird that those doors have to be all wind-up functional while whatever goes on in the transporter room or in the nacelles up above is hidden behind a curtain in a black box with a sign that says “MAGIC”.
I’m a failed architectural engineer (and a successful software engineer). Physical things have to make logical sense to me. Those freaking doors didn’t make sense to me.
If I’m not mistaken, Jefferies said somewhere that he was thinking of Moffett Hangar when he designed it. Interestingly, it wasn’t until TMP that it came to really look like that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_One_(Mountain_View,_California)
That's a great reference! Thanks @aridas sofia After studying more photos of those Hangar One doors it looks like it is one giant piece that overlaps some small side pieces. The shape was an inspiration but apparently the mechanism/operation is alot more trickier on the Enterprise models
Yeah I haven't found any of those. But you can search Youtube and there are images of it in the open position. You can look at the bottom of the doors and see that the windows on the doors stay in the same position in both open and closed. It's like two large curved clamshell doors that open and close. There isn't any overlapping except on the sides where it is more like flex to cover the gaps when the doors are closed.
Currently (as of this post), the aerial/satellite view of "hangar one moffett field, CA" from Google maps shows one end closed and one end open. And it is clear that there are only two doors per end.
And it even has a nice 3D view model of it to orbit around too. But that does beg the question, could the shuttlebay doors be thought of two external massive clamshell doors and the inner set of doors be the overlapped ones as seen from the interior? This would greatly simplify the external door mechanism that I (and perhaps @Professor Moriarty ) probably have plotted out...
I really like the idea of the more simple large doors with a set of interior ones. Even with it being solid, the blimp shell is still made of sections that are visible which could even just be reinforced on the inside with the doors still opening as two big clams
They appear to overlap and slide over each other. In the original FX version, it appears that the centerline doors slide first then the next set. I found on YT where the opening and closing sequence is presented from "The Galileo Seven": Start watching at 3:32
On the original TOS model, to my eye, the second set of doors doesn't look to be actively moving during the sequence, only the centerline doors move on-screen. We see only the centerline doors moving open (the doors are very thin and slide over the outside of the next set of doors), then cut-a-way to a static look at the "fully" opened doors where it does appear that the second set of doors needed to move a little to create the opening. The third and four set of doors do not move. On closing, we see only the centerline doors moving while the second set of doors are stationary. The scene cuts out before the doors are closed, but to fully close the doors, the second set would have to move but this is not seen on-screen. Apparently, the centerline doors were the only movable doors on the model, then with cut-a-way, the second set of doors were moved by hand off-screen. The third and four set of doors did not move at all, so, the opening size is limited to allow a shuttle to come and go. I guess in a pinch, the third set of doors could be moveable to give a greater opening for bigger landing craft. YMMV .
If you look closely the second set of doors start to move as the centerline doors reach them. (Also, you can put a piece of paper on your screen to mark the start of the second set of doors and you'll see the centerline doors open past them.) I do agree that for regular shuttle ops that only the centerline and second set of doors need to be opened.
- I love your take on this! I'd never considered that different versions of the Enterprise (and other starships) could be the same one just with certain features deployed or retracted. It's now in my headcanon - thank you! - Your video for the nacelle dome adjusting is brilliant and certainly explains the changing appearance of it in-universe. It would be more complicated, but I wonder if you'd considered having a irising diaphragm opening in the done for the spike to come out of (rather than the little circular cap that slides up and eclipses some of the dome)? As for the ongoing discussion about the shuttlebay doors - as with many examples of Treknology, I'm firmly in the "indistinguishable from magic" camp
Now maybe I have dreamed this,,,but I seem to remember a clamshell that would ride back abit...slide against its neighbor...those two slide back....and so on....so it could be flush. I also had this idea of a clear elevator shaft that was wrapped by a helix staircase...and the car would rotate as it rose so you could just step out if it jammed at any elevation.
Hmm.. maybe all the segments have an central axle at the bottom and top which ride on rails so the segments themselves can rotate and wiggle around a bit.