TOS Enterprise Shuttle Storage?

[Auroratrek]

Does anybody know of a diagram/blueprint showing where the shuttles are stored on the TOS Enterprise? They're not all on the deck, are they?

Thanks--Tim

[Herkimer Jitty]

Yeah, they keep them in the hangar and stack all their extra shit on them in cardboard boxes.

[Mysterion]

Auroratrek wrote:

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Does anybody know of a diagram/blueprint showing where the shuttles are stored on the TOS Enterprise? They're not all on the deck, are they?

Thanks--Tim

Look here:

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars...m/03-17-01.jpg

[Captain Robert April]

Keep in mind that that diagram is based on the Jefferies drawing of the forced perspective miniature set, so the proportions are off by quite a bit. The general concept is pretty much there, though.

[scotpens]

Captain Robert April wrote:

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Keep in mind that that diagram is based on the Jefferies drawing of the forced perspective miniature set, so the proportions are off by quite a bit. The general concept is pretty much there, though.

Right, that's the diagram from Franz Joseph's Starfleet Technical Manual, which contains quite a bit of info now regarded as apocryphal (Main Engineering at the back of the saucer??) and some that's plainly facetious (the bowling alley mentioned by Lt. Kevin Riley in "The Naked Time." I mean, that WAS a joke, right?)

Of course, it makes sense that the shuttlecraft would be stored and repaired on the deck level below the shuttle launch bay (that's what the combination turntable/elevator is for). Strictly speaking, then, the so-called "hangar deck" is actually the FLIGHT deck, where the shuttles are launched and retrieved. The level below should be called the hangar deck. But . . . picky, picky, picky.

[Captain Robert April]

Well, the turntable/elevator is in the original drawing, and it's shown in action on the show (at least the turntable function), so we're stuck with that.

I've got an idea or two regarding how to get it to work as an elevator without having that giant spindle taking up valuable space.

[Timo]

On the issue of terminology, we know that the TOS ship had a hangar deck (sometimes mislabeled as hanger deck):

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...achine_424.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albu..._Babel_021.JPG

However, we could argue that this deck was the one below the flight deck or shuttlebay. After all, we never see any of the familiar flight deck/shuttlebay features in the same shot with the door signs that say "hangar bay" or "hanger bay". And if shuttles are prepared for launch on the hangar deck, and then raised to the flight deck for the actual launch, it makes perfect sense for those doorways to lead to this lower deck rather than to the upper...

The TOS-R versions of the episodes try to add some detail to the grey backgrounds of the "hangar decks" beyond the doorways, but this detail never really matches what is shown on the flight decks - especially since TOS-R adds a bit of detail to the flight decks as well, including windows on the floor level that should be quite visible through the doorway. At least before TOS-R, we could argue that the shuttle seen beyond the doorway was positioned so that it blocked the trapezoidal alcoves from being seen, since those might in theory have been the only floor-level detail "back then"!

Let's also remember that whenever we see the shuttle through the "hanger deck" doorway, it's rotated differently from what we just saw in an establishing "flight deck" scene, at least in TOS. All the more reason to assume that it was moved down to a different deck by the turntable...

For all we know, the turntable-elevator features some sort of an envelope that allows for the lower deck to be pressurized while the upper one is not. In any case, it doesn't seem as if Kirk's ship carries too many auxiliaries during TOS: at most two are ever seen at a time in TOS-R - and every time we see the full-size prop in TOS, its surroundings are distinctly devoid of other craft (doh!).

TAS of course shows the upper level or flight deck crammed full of auxiliaries - six in "Mudd's Passion". Then again, it wouldn't be impossible to see an aircraft carrier's flight deck jam-packed with fighters at times. Sometimes carriers do take aboard more planes than they can actually operate (they were very practical as "aircraft transports" back when aircraft couldn't be ferry-flown overseas), and sometimes they move all the planes up from the hangars to clutter up the flight deck, perhaps for parading or other PR reasons, perhaps because the hangars need a bit of cleaning... I don't have anything against Kirk's ship carrying six shuttles in TAS, as long as most of them would "normally" be stowed below decks.

...After all, it does seem as if launching a shuttle requires quite a lot of space. It's not like precisely floating this small spacecraft out of its berth on thrusters, with only centimeters to spare - in TOS-R, we see on several occasions that the shuttles wobble and drift when "taking off", especially during Decker's crazed flight in "Doomsday Machine" but also during the supposedly routine takeoff in "The Galileo Seven". Mudd must have been exceptionally careful when taking off in that TAS episode...

Timo Saloniemi

[Auroratrek]

Okay, thanks all--I apparently came to the right place! I feel a little less stupid about being confused, seeing that the answer(s) isn't 100% clear. This is very helpful.

--Tim

[Captain Robert April]

Sometimes, it seems like a day doesn't go by that we all learn something new about the old girl.

[Forbin]

I always imagined there were one or two (had the budget allowed) ready/alert shuttles parked on the flight deck at all times, with the rest of them stored one deck down, able to be prepped for flight in short order and lifted on the elevator.

Not unlike the way carriers operate outside a war zone.

[scotpens]

Forbin wrote:

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I always imagined there were one or two (had the budget allowed) ready/alert shuttles parked on the flight deck at all times, with the rest of them stored one deck down, able to be prepped for flight in short order and lifted on the elevator.

That's basically how I pictured it when Trek TOS was originally on NBC. I imagined shuttle maintenance bays on the deck below, with four or six technicians slapping those portable anti-grav units onto a shuttle and manhandling it into position on the elevator-turntable -- kind of like the old college prank of getting a dozen husky guys to lift and move some poor schmuck's Volkswagen Beetle.

[Captain Robert April]

It's also possible that only one or two shuttles are even operational at any given time, with the others disassembled and stored away, to save valuable deck space.

[Wingsley]

One thing about the TOS Enterprise's Hangar Deck always nagged at me: we're given the impression that space efficiency aboard a starship is paramount, that there's only room for one launch bay, and that there are a limited number of shuttlecraft (either total shuttles stored on-board or total shuttles actually in active operation; take your pick) and yet there's that launch bay, with all that overhead space. We're on board a space vessel that employs artificial gravity. Why can't shuttlecraft be stored up above?

And remember that cargo bay we saw in the lower vortex of the refit saucer in TMP? Why can't the saucer have room for at least one small launch bay? After all, the saucer is supposed to be able to separate, right? What good is the saucer if it separates and has no means of housing shuttelcraft, at least in a limited fashion?

[Mytran]

Well there are docking ports in the TMP saucer anyway, they sort of fit the bill!

As for the TOS saucer, there's really very little, not even an airlock! The closest we get are those 2 grey strips on the underside, both of which have the following label (from cloudster.com):



Is an "inspection door" even useable as an airlock?

[T'Girl]

Had a shuttlecraft model as a kid, it's possible that they literally stack them one on top of the other, against the forward bulkhead. From the perspective of the camera during shuttle bay scenes you wouldn't be able to see them.