How many shuttlecraft did the Enterprise have?

[Phantom]

^In most abandon ship scenarios, it won't matter because the ship isn't likely to be there much longer.

But transporters are only useful if you have somewhere to beam to. What if you're in deep space? That happened to Picard and the survivors of the Stargazer, as well as those of the Kelvin.

Every extra bit of evacuation capacity helps.

 

[Timo]

Transporters seem rather energy intensive, and I'd imagine energy would be an issue in most abandon ship scenarios.

Actually, we have seen transporter evacuation is viable exactly in situations where the ship is in power problems: "The Doomsday Machine", "Penumbra", even "11001001" where main power troubles were the very cause of the evacuation. And we have seen transporters otherwise function till the very last, such as in ST4:TVH. They probably aren't all that energy-hungry after all.

Evacuation capacity might be lacking in general in the TOS era, though, or else Commodore Decker wouldn't have sent his men down to their doom via transporter but dispersed them to safety in evacuation spacecraft. For all we know, survival in deep space is deemed impossible, or at the very least death is considered greatly preferable, and no real attempt is made to provide 23rd century vessels with evacuation craft.

...But then there is the Kelvin whose 800 people were evacuated using about twenty shuttles. 40 people (or more, given Winona Kirk's had far less) per shuttle doesn't really sound plausible, unless Robau had a large percentage of midgets in his crew, or there were unseen larger evacuation craft involved. But if we choose to take the statement at face value (rather than e.g. assuming that the no doubt slightly drunk Pike is saying "a hundred" instead of "eight hundred"!), then Kirk's 430 could well be evacuated by a dozen TOS shuttles, and stowing those aboard would be worth the effort.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

Crew vs lifeboats in TOS is at the heart of why the saucer separates at all: In the event of the severe ship damage, simply load the crew into whichever module is still functioning (either saucer or engineering hull) and off ya go! It's always going to be far safer in a larger craft than a smaller one; why risk your life in a shuttle when a massive saucer is available?

 

[Timo]

It's quite problematic to only have two modules available for survival. Or one, really, as the things likely to go wrong are generally found in the engineering hull.

OTOH, if the lower limit of survivable escape craft size is "half a heavy cruiser", then most ships probably can't provide survivability that way.

Carrying of lifepods or some intermediate-size escape means might still be worth the trouble, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

1-man lifeboats (ala TMP) or 7-man shuttles might be of use in getting out of the blast zone of an exploding Engineering Hull, but would be of limited long term help in an extended deep space voyage back to port.
Space, after all, is B_I_G.
Under those circumstances a detachable part of the main ship (with full life support and high speed drive facilities) would be extremely desirable! After all, it may be months or even years before rescue arrives.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

...To evacuate a mere 84 of the crew?

Well, hey, there are only six pads on the transporter. That shit takes time.

If you believe TMoST page 192, there are five 22-pad emergency transporters for abandoning ship.

I've always had a bit of trouble buying that notion, frankly. It makes perfect sense for the ship to have larger transporters for cargo and evacuation purposes, but it kind of flies in the face of references to "THE transporter room" in every episode.

I have no problem believing that the Enterprise has emergency escape pods throughout, however.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I think this was simply an understandable oversight on the part of the writers. They only had one Transporter Rrom set built so they just naturally referred to it as the one. No one might have read and remembered the technical description of the ship that closely enough to think of referring to the facility as Transporter Room 1 or 2 or whatever. They also weren't going to build an expensive (but rarely used) cargo transporter or 22-person evacuation transporter.

 

[T'Girl]

...To evacuate a mere 84 of the crew?

Yes. Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Doctor McCoy and the 81 best looking female crew-members.

If you believe TMoST page 192, there are five 22-pad emergency transporters for abandoning ship.

If you believe TMoST the flight deck is large enough to hold a fleet of modern airliners.

^In most abandon ship scenarios, it won't matter because the ship isn't likely to be there much longer

Depends on why you're evacuating in the first place.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If you believe TMoST page 192, there are five 22-pad emergency transporters for abandoning ship.

If you believe TMoST the flight deck is large enough to hold a fleet of modern airliners.

Where does it say that (I mean on what page)?

By the way, if you believe TMoST page 191, there are six shuttlecraft.

 

[Albertese]

...but it kind of flies in the face of references to "THE transporter room" in every episode.
...

I feel this is easily justified by saying the there are numerous transporters facilities on board, but only one that is on active standby at any given moment. Everyone on duty would know or be able to easily find out which one was THE one at any given moment.

This is made all the easier when you notice that the set is sometimes differently decorated and equipped. Sometimes it has food slots, other times not so much. So I feel it's pretty well established that there are at least two or three different transporter rooms, even just from what we see on screen.

--Alex

 

[J.T.B.]

If you believe TMoST page 192, there are five 22-pad emergency transporters for abandoning ship.

If you believe TMoST the flight deck is large enough to hold a fleet of modern airliners.

Where does it say that (I mean on what page)?

I don't think it says it in TMoST. But, one of the the writer's guides did say that the Engineering Section "contains at the rear a hangar deck large enough to hangar a whole fleet of today's jet liners." It also says Enterprise is "somewhat larger than a present-day naval cruiser," which we can reasonably peg at around 700 feet long. Even the smallest jetliners of the day, the DC-9 or 737, were about 100 feet long with a wingspan of about 90 feet, so clearly someone's sense of scale was off.

P. 7 of this document:
http://www.bu.edu/clarion/guides/Star_Trek_Writers_Guide.pdf

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If you believe TMoST the flight deck is large enough to hold a fleet of modern airliners.

Where does it say that (I mean on what page)?

I don't think it says it in TMoST. But, one of the the writer's guides did say that the Engineering Section "contains at the rear a hangar deck large enough to hangar a whole fleet of today's jet liners." It also says Enterprise is "somewhat larger than a present-day naval cruiser," which we can reasonably peg at around 700 feet long. Even the smallest jetliners of the day, the DC-9 or 737, were about 100 feet long with a wingspan of about 90 feet, so clearly someone's sense of scale was off.

P. 7 of this document:
http://www.bu.edu/clarion/guides/Star_Trek_Writers_Guide.pdf

Ah, thanks.

The remark certainly doesn't jibe with the size of the ship established in TMoST by the figure on page 177 comparing it with the aircraft carrier, and elsewhere. Yeah, either the sense of scale was off, or possibly the remark was not corrected as the scale of the ship was revised.

 

[Mytran]

That quip about the Hangar being large enough to hold a fleet first showed up in the earliest show bible, when the Saucer was described as being 22 decks thick and would routinely detach for inter-system exploration. The comment was just never updated, that's all

 

[Phantom]

Continuing the aside, it's interesting to note how many of the "thou shalt nots" they had already violated at that point or would before they were done.

 

[Timo]

I feel this is easily justified by saying the there are numerous transporters facilities on board, but only one that is on active standby at any given moment. Everyone on duty would know or be able to easily find out which one was THE one at any given moment.

Most plots don't even require us to believe in this admittedly helpful setup. The dialogue in those simply has our heroes assemble for a beam-down, or receive a beam-up - and of course they would know where to head, having discussed this detail off camera (there are bound to be mission briefings of some sort even when we normally see none, even if they are just brief discussions in the turbolift or something).

It is extremely rarely that a random crew member would have to know exactly which transporter room to pick when a main character mentions "the" room, without any other cues available. Even when Security is summoned, we can assume they know much more than is contained in the "Security to the transporter room on the double!" we actually get to hear. They are bound to have been alerted by various sensors and guided to the response by various aids, and the summons is but a formality.

Almost invariably, one can take the bits of dialogue where heroes say "the transporter room", replace that with "the broom closet", and still have the plot logically move so that everybody involved really knows which broom closet it is...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

I think the broom closet is actually just to the left of the main viewscreen where a panel slides open to reveal it. I think there's a bucket and mop in there as well as a faucet and hose.

 

[Phantom]

...But then there is the Kelvin whose 800 people were evacuated using about twenty shuttles. 40 people (or more, given Winona Kirk's had far less) per shuttle doesn't really sound plausible, unless Robau had a large percentage of midgets in his crew, or there were unseen larger evacuation craft involved.

Some of those shuttles are pretty damn big. Witness the one that took Kirk to the Academy and the one that took him and Bones up to Enterprise.

 

[Warped9]

...But then there is the Kelvin whose 800 people were evacuated using about twenty shuttles. 40 people (or more, given Winona Kirk's had far less) per shuttle doesn't really sound plausible, unless Robau had a large percentage of midgets in his crew, or there were unseen larger evacuation craft involved.

Some of those shuttles are pretty damn big. Witness the one that took Kirk to the Academy and the one that took him and Bones up to Enterprise.

All of which I discount in entirety since they don't have one damned thing to do with TOS as it was conceived.

 

[Phantom]

True, but Timo was directly referencing the JJ verse in his post (which I responded to).

 

[Kemaiku]

True, but Timo was directly referencing the JJ verse in his post (which I responded to).

Ignore him, he's just out to be bitchy about that subject if it even comes up. For six years now, but yes starships obviously have several mechanisms for evacuation, shuttles included as the Kelvin shows, and the ending of Generations where we see a small fleet on them on the saucer piling people in.