A question of the Enterprise D's life

[BlackFire3]

Throughout the series up until it's unfortunate demise in the movie "Generations", the big D has been through a lot of heavy scrapes. If the Enterprise-D had survived Generations (or never happened) , just how much longer would the ship have lasted?

I'm talking about the ships space life. How much longer would the ship have remained in service before it would have had to be decommissioned for structural failure or just not being space-worthy anymore.

 

[SqueakyG]

Quick answer: Galaxy class was built with an operational lifespan of 100 years, with major refits needed every 25 years.

 

[Dukhat]

If the Enterprise-D had survived Generations (or never happened) , just how much longer would the ship have lasted?

At least up through the events of "All Good Things.." where it acquired an extra nacelle and a BFG of death.

 

[Timo]

Alternate viewpoint: the E-A was retired pretty soon after launch... Battle damage might be decisive, with even "major refits" unable to compensate.

Yet another viewpoint: the E-A was an insignificant vessel in comparison with other Starfleet gear of the day, not worthy of repairing (except for her curiosity value, and politically it was more convenient to bury all memory of that value). The E-D might not be quite as insignificant, not for the first fifty years anyway. Nor would she be quite as notorious and in need of erasing from history, not unless something comparable to the Khitomer Treaty came along.

Most of Starfleet's "leading" types for any given era survive well and deep into the subsequent eras: Constitution into the movie era, Excelsior all the way into DS9. Even the little-seen Ambassador persists until DS9. The E-D certainly represents a "leading" type for her era of introduction, and we never see anything bigger or better come along; the E-E is just different (and a tad smaller except for her length).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

Quick answer: Galaxy class was built with an operational lifespan of 100 years, with major refits needed every 25 years.

I think that was the expected lifetime of the overall Galaxy-class design, but individual ships within the design could have significantly shorter lifespans depending on how much wear and tear they experience.

Personally, I think the Enterprise-D may have lasted about 25-30 years before decommissioning because she would have endured more punishment than most Galaxy-class ships (some of which may last two or three times longer).

 

[Forbin]

No, the ships were built to last 100 years each.
I can't recall now if that was the series bible or the official tech manual, but that's what it said. Considering the expense of such a monstrous vehicle, and the supposed durability of future materials, that sounds quite reasonable.

 

[Lance]

^ Bare in mind, however, that they burned through three of them (the Yamoto, the Odyssey, and the Enterprise) in less than seven years. So while the ships might have had an expected sustainability of 100 years, that's probably assuming the vessels are kept out of harms way. And in their line of work, that's a pipe dream.

 

[Mage]

^ Bare in mind, however, that they burned through three of them (the Yamoto, the Odyssey, and the Enterprise) in less than seven years. So while the ships might have had an expected sustainability of 100 years, that's probably assuming the vessels are kept out of harms way. And in their line of work, that's a pipe dream.

That's how I see it.
Sure, under perfect conditions, a ship could last decades. But extreme conditions that could buckle and warp the space-frame would shorten its life considerably already. And even though money isn't an issue in the Federation, resources always will be. So, if it would turn out that time and material involved in restoring a spaceframe, hull, computers and such outweigh the time and material needed to build a new ship, no one is going to restore the ship, not even the holy Enterprise.

 

[MacLeod]

WHich was highlighted in TSFS, when Starfleet decided to decommission the NCC-1701 rather than repair her, sure with another refit she might have hada another 10-20 years of life left in her.

 

[Timo]

Also, given the exotic range of duties Starfleet has, an individual starship might well log 100 service years in just seven! Better have that buffer capacity, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Trek ship lifespans are completely contradictory. Enterprise NX-01 was retired after a decade, despite the episode "E2" showing that it could manage a century, easy. The Hathaway was 80 years old and spaceworthy. The Enterprise-1701 was supposed to be retired after 20 years.

The 100+ year lifespans make more sense to me. These aren't cars, they're massive superstrong starships.

 

[Timo]

Retiring the NX-01 ASAP makes good sense. She was the first of her kind, so no doubt fundamentally faulty. Why keep throwing good money after bad when Starfleet could finally build a proper starship with the lessons learned?

The Hathaway in turn seems to represent twilight technology: warp and impulse engines and structural elements familiar from designs predating her by a couple of decades, but applied in duplicate, as if trying to compensate for their obsolescence against modern technology counterparts. But it's working twilight tech at least. We don't know when she was retired, but might be she only worked for a decade or two and was then mothballed. Possibly, a starship might survive in mothballs for millions of years, to then expend her remaining four decades of structural life or whatnot.

Hmm... Cars seldom go through wormholes, intense battles and unscheduled dips into stars. OTOH, a car might be perfectly operable after fifty years of moderate service - and, if receiving "refits" like the starships so often seem to, perhaps serving for several centuries, Ship of Theseus style.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

The Enterprise-1701 was supposed to be retired after 20 years.

If you're going by that admiral's wise crack in ST:III that she was 20 years old, he was off a little. The ship was 20 years old when kirk got her from Pike in TOS! And she was about 40 years old at the point of the admiral's comment, and had had a major refit just a decade or so before.

Built: 2245; Kirk takes command: 2265; refit: 2270 or 73; Star Trek II/III: 2285.

 

[HIjol]

Enterprise, being the Flagship, would expect to see action and operations at the far end of her design specs and tolerances, but Star Fleet Engineers and the Shipyards would be turning out and fitting the very best in design and fabrication. Perhaps She would have an expectancy less than others of her class, but I would submit the difference would be measured in years, not decades.

 

[Ghrakh]

I'm talking about the ships space life. How much longer would the ship have remained in service before it would have had to be decommissioned for structural failure or just not being space-worthy anymore.

Well, not once do I recall the ship showing signs of natural aging. It might become dated, but the systems always seemed to work just as well as they did before; there didn't seem to be more visits to a spacedock for maintenance; whatever hazards it was subject too didn't appear to affect it more than they would have before; even the carpet and upholstery still looked new. So I say, barring some disaster it would last forever.

 

[Timo]

Enterprise, being the Flagship, would expect to see action and operations at the far end of her design specs and tolerances

Or then she would be very quickly bumped down to the status of "regular" ship when Starfleet came up with something more representative for use as the Flagship.

Then again, we never learn what sort of a ship got the Federation Flagship honorific after the E-D was lost. The E-E didn't seem to be it, as there is no mention of such a status relating to the adventures of that ship. Was it another Galaxy class vessel - say, the Venture - because Starfleet had specifically designed that class to be the ideal Federation Flagship, perhaps at the expense of some other qualities? Was it a new special flagship class? Or was it merely a ship from the most modern class of suitably impressive size? The biggest ship around? The fastest ship around? The prettiest?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

Let's remember that the real Enterprise, CVN-65, was in service for 50 years, and I bet a giant ocean-going vessel takes a lot more wear and tear and physical punishment than a starship.

Also our B-52 fleet, the youngest of which is 53 years old. Much smaller and more fragile than any ship. All that time bouncing around in the air, wings flexing up and down, fuselage skin wrinkling and unwrinkling (look at any photo of one on the ground - the skin actually does wrinkle when the wings sag after landing!), and 8 turbojets trying to tear themselves apart...

 

[MacLeod]

The Enterprise-1701 was supposed to be retired after 20 years.

If you're going by that admiral's wise crack in ST:III that she was 20 years old, he was off a little. The ship was 20 years old when kirk got her from Pike in TOS! And she was about 40 years old at the point of the admiral's comment, and had had a major refit just a decade or so before.

Built: 2245; Kirk takes command: 2265; refit: 2270 or 73; Star Trek II/III: 2285.

It also looks like there was a refit at some point between "The Cage" and WNMHGB. How extensive it was and when it took place we don't know.

 

[Timo]

The rebuilding from ST:TMP would basically have to amount to "zero-houring" the vessel. Nothing of the original remains: the saucer is of a different size and shape, the secondary hull is of a different size and shape, the neck is of a different size and shape, the engine pylons... You get the picture. Every individual bit of structural frame and skin must have been replaced by an all-new counterpart.

By that token, the ship would indeed be about 20 years old in ST3:TSfS. Or fifteen, but the admiral can be excused a bit of hyperbole. The refit probably started soon after the 2270 end of TOS, with the third movie taking place in 2285 or a bit later.

Being twenty years old might be no sin in the "fatigued and likely to fail" category. But this was a time of cold war with the Klingons, and of constant escalation (see the Excelsior); "outdated in design and thus likely to fail in battle" would be the problem.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Richard Baker]

The age excuse for the Refit was more relateable to the audience but lame. The fact there were massive trenches burned through by the Reliant in both the secondary hull and connecting dorsal, crossing multiple framing structures is more likely.
The Galaxy class was intended to last 100 years by design, but it really depended on what happened to each individual starship during its service. The Enterprise had a lot happen to it during the series and we saw it had a number of refits by the time it was destroyed. I doubt if it had not been for Generations it would have lasted 100 years, but it still had a lot of time left.