Warp Capsule

[Into Darkness]

Judging by how small warp coils can become and how close they can be to a person, why has the Federation never designed deep space taxi capsules?
Basically you build the smallest possible warp nacelle and attach a power generator to it, add a cloaking device to it and a cryogenic capsule to it and what happens is a person climbs into it and it put into suspended animation. The capsule then cloaks and warps none stop straight to your destination planet.
You could climb into a capsule at Earth and once you go to sleep in it, the next time you wake up months later you'll be at Deep Space Nine and it'll seem like it too mere minutes.

 

[trynda1701]

This has actually been shown, in the episode "The Emissary" from TNG, it's how the character of K'ehlery reaches the Enterprise-D in secret. It is a modified warp probe, size of a photon torpedo tube, and it's implied that it is is a highly unusual and dangerous mode of transport!

 

[SWHouston]

A fair idea, but probably very costly to the user. Also, given the hazards of space travel, you'd have no backup if something went wrong. Most probably used for nefarious reasons.

 

[Unicron]

There's something of this sort in Jackill's books, a warp capable transport module for the individual FJ style container pods. If you needed cargo moved quickly without diverting a transport/tug for it, you could send directly to where it's needed.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Judging by how small warp coils can become and how close they can be to a person, why has the Federation never designed deep space taxi capsules?

They did. They're called shuttlecraft.

Basically you build the smallest possible warp nacelle and attach a power generator to it, add a cloaking device to it and a cryogenic capsule to it and what happens is a person climbs into it and it put into suspended animation. The capsule then cloaks and warps none stop straight to your destination planet.

All of the bold is completely unnecessary.

You could climb into a capsule at Earth and once you go to sleep in it, the next time you wake up months later you'll be at Deep Space Nine and it'll seem like it too mere minutes.

Or you could just rent a shuttlecraft and spend a week flying there.

Or you could just book passage on the regularly scheduled transport and get there in five days.

Or you could hitchhike to Bajor and then hop a sublight shuttle from there.

All of which would be easier than FedExing yourself in a glorified cruise missile.

 

[Timo]

I'm pretty sure there are people who love to build or purchase warp coffins like that, and then attempt all sorts of harebrained crossings with them. And then people who tune their transporter to take them across fifty lightyears. Some may even succeed, and make local news, and then head off to new ways to get their adrenaline rush.

As for transportation, such methods are no doubt as practical and relevant as rowboats are to trans-Atlantic commerce.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

Minus the sus-an stuff, isn't this basically what Spock's warp "shuttle" in TMP was? Basically a travel pod with a warp drive bolted on?

 

[Timo]

The logistics of "resource with resource bolted on" are always a bit dubious. What good is Spock's pod without the warp drive? What good is the warp drive without Spock's pod? Did the warp sled leave Spock's craft docked to the Enterprise and then hurriedly depart to another assignment, without any useful load? What happened to the pod afterwards, since it's no longer docked in the next exterior scene we see? Is it now stranded inside Kirk's shuttlebay, taking up valuable space? Or can Kirk make use of it somehow?

Not to mention the whole docking scene looks unappealing to begin with. What happened to transporters? You know, those things that perfectly safely brought McCoy aboard just a few hours earlier? Why did technology suddenly degrade to 1960s level? And why did Spock's craft have to split in two when it could have docked in one piece just as well (upside down, but then that's how its interiors should have been built in the first place)?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The logistics of "resource with resource bolted on" are always a bit dubious. What good is Spock's pod without the warp drive? What good is the warp drive without Spock's pod? Did the warp sled leave Spock's craft docked to the Enterprise and then hurriedly depart to another assignment, without any useful load? What happened to the pod afterwards, since it's no longer docked in the next exterior scene we see? Is it now stranded inside Kirk's shuttlebay, taking up valuable space? Or can Kirk make use of it somehow?

I'm reminded of the hyperspace rings from the Star Wars universe. The sled probably "belongs" to that shuttle as an add-on and normally loiters in a standby position when not in use. It's not the kind of thing a starship would have, but a diplomatic shuttle acting as a courier would probably leave the sled in orbit, fly down to the surface, then take off again and rendezvous with it.

This is TMP we're talking about; later series indicate otherwise, but at first glance, bringing a fully fueled warp drive into a planetary atmosphere seems like a really bad idea when you think about it.

Not to mention the whole docking scene looks unappealing to begin with. What happened to transporters? You know, those things that perfectly safely brought McCoy aboard just a few hours earlier? Why did technology suddenly degrade to 1960s level?

Actually the question is, when did transporter technology start being used for things other than people?

Because in the 1960s and in TMP, the only transporters we ever heard of were the 6-pad devices that can beam exactly six people at a time. Cargo transporters weren't even a thing yet, so the idea would have been that the transporter is the QUICKEST way to send six human beings from the ship to the surface and back again.

But if you need to move a crate of food, or a huge trunk full of somebody's clothing, or five boxes of computer equipment that some obsessive compulsive Vulcan scientist insisted on bringing with him, probably none of those things are skinny enough to fit on a transporter pad. You might be able to get them through an airlock door, though.

Just be thankful Spock didn't bring his piano with him, then they'd have to park the shuttle in the cargo bay.

And why did Spock's craft have to split in two when it could have docked in one piece just as well (upside down, but then that's how its interiors should have been built in the first place)?

YOU try performing a docking maneuver with that big heavy-ass sled attached to your ship. The courier pilot is probably frustrated enough with all of Spock's luggage in the back seat (lord knows he had to talk him out of bringing the piano...)

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The logistics of "resource with resource bolted on" are always a bit dubious. What good is Spock's pod without the warp drive? What good is the warp drive without Spock's pod? Did the warp sled leave Spock's craft docked to the Enterprise and then hurriedly depart to another assignment, without any useful load? What happened to the pod afterwards, since it's no longer docked in the next exterior scene we see? Is it now stranded inside Kirk's shuttlebay, taking up valuable space? Or can Kirk make use of it somehow?

I'm reminded of the hyperspace rings from the Star Wars universe. The sled probably "belongs" to that shuttle as an add-on and normally loiters in a standby position when not in use. It's not the kind of thing a starship would have, but a diplomatic shuttle acting as a courier would probably leave the sled in orbit, fly down to the surface, then take off again and rendezvous with it.

This is TMP we're talking about; later series indicate otherwise, but at first glance, bringing a fully fueled warp drive into a planetary atmosphere seems like a really bad idea when you think about it.

Not to mention the whole docking scene looks unappealing to begin with. What happened to transporters? You know, those things that perfectly safely brought McCoy aboard just a few hours earlier? Why did technology suddenly degrade to 1960s level?

Actually the question is, when did transporter technology start being used for things other than people?

Because in the 1960s and in TMP, the only transporters we ever heard of were the 6-pad devices that can beam a maximum of six people (or six human-shaped things) at a time. Cargo transporters weren't even a thing yet, so the idea would have been that the transporter is the QUICKEST way to send six human beings from the ship to the surface and back again.

But if you need to move a crate of food, or a huge trunk full of somebody's clothing, or five boxes of computer equipment that some obsessive compulsive Vulcan scientist insisted on bringing with him, probably none of those things are skinny enough to fit on a transporter pad. You might be able to get them through an airlock door, though.

Just be thankful Spock didn't bring his piano with him, then they'd have to park the shuttle in the cargo bay.

And why did Spock's craft have to split in two when it could have docked in one piece just as well (upside down, but then that's how its interiors should have been built in the first place)?

YOU try performing a docking maneuver with that big heavy-ass sled attached to your ship. The courier pilot is probably frustrated enough with all of Spock's luggage in the back seat (lord knows he had to talk him out of bringing the piano...)

 

[Timo]

This is TMP we're talking about; later series indicate otherwise, but at first glance, bringing a fully fueled warp drive into a planetary atmosphere seems like a really bad idea when you think about it.

Kirk's TOS shuttles had those fancy "ion power" things that allowed the shuttles to move at warp. Would they really have been safer?

We can postulate till the cows freeze, of course. If anything, ion power sounds riskier than antimatter in both "Spock's Brain" and "Time and Again"! But in "The Sound of Her Voice", a supposedly warp-capable shuttle is the safe choice because there's no "warp core" aboard. Etc.

Perhaps it's the sheer mass of the warp coils that makes warp sleds attractive on landing craft applications?

Actually the question is, when did transporter technology start being used for things other than people?

In "Dagger of the Mind", explicitly. Implicitly, they were going to resupply Crater via transporter in "Man Trap" already.

..probably none of those things are skinny enough to fit on a transporter pad. You might be able to get them through an airlock door, though.

Fitting onto a pad isn't a requirement, it seems - just fitting on the stage suffices. Say, the box that held van Gelder was markedly larger than the pad on which it materialized.

Sure, individual items were still carefully placed atop specific pads on that occasion. It could even be argued that the tall cylindrar containers were deliberately designed to match the size and shape of a human transportee, i.e. the pad dimensions. But we're not talking about hard limits, but at most about optimization.

Cargo shuttles are the one thing oddly missing from the Trek equation. Nothing we saw before ST:NEM (or STXI, take your pick) qualified, really - the only things you could (and would) load on the props or otherwise faked shuttles before the Argo were man-sized ones.

YOU try performing a docking maneuver with that big heavy-ass sled attached to your ship. The courier pilot is probably frustrated enough with all of Spock's luggage in the back seat (lord knows he had to talk him out of bringing the piano...)

A logical Vulcan engineer would just install the docking port in the middle of the bow, then...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

In "Dagger of the Mind", explicitly. Implicitly, they were going to resupply Crater via transporter in "Man Trap" already.

Yeah, and in both cases they're moving small crates approximately man-sized and exactly large enough to fit on a transporter pad. Basically, one on each pad.

If there isn't a simple way to split up all of his items into six distinct clusters in such a way that the transporter can put each of them on a separate pad, it might simply be less annoying to bring them through the door.

A logical Vulcan engineer would just install the docking port in the middle of the bow, then...

Considering the design of all the shuttles that came after, it's lucky they even HAD a docking port.

 

[Timo]

Yeah, and in both cases they're moving small crates approximately man-sized and exactly large enough to fit on a transporter pad

The point being that we see it's not necessary - van Gelder's condo is the size of three pads or so. Yet there's no effort to bring it aboard using some sort of a tightly spaced cloverleaf of pads, or a special square cargo platform, or whatnot.

I doubt the choice of crate size is for reasons of transporter technology. An obvious alternate rationale is that these objects are manhandled at one end of the process at least, and thus cannot exceed certain maximum size. Indeed, van Gelder's box is left lying on the platform apparently because it's too large to be immediately moved to where it belongs - the other transporter operator presumably departs to fetch help or an antigrav in addition to getting that "vault assignment".

...I sort of suspect the cargo manifest stated that a box of research results was to be beamed aboard, and the operator expected a briefcase - but van Gelder, despite his distress, managed to substitute a bigger box at the other end. Which just goes to show that size isn't an issue for the technology, and needn't really be prepared for.

Considering the design of all the shuttles that came after, it's lucky they even HAD a docking port.

It's not all that convenient a port; it limits item size just like the transporter pads... don't.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

...I sort of suspect the cargo manifest stated that a box of research results was to be beamed aboard, and the operator expected a briefcase - but van Gelder, despite his distress, managed to substitute a bigger box at the other end. Which just goes to show that size isn't an issue for the technology, and needn't really be prepared for.

I like this - record keeping in the 23rd Century consists of stacks of those square "tapes" and would hardly take up a boxload of space. The box is also completely empty (except for Van Gelder). A quick label swap does make a lot of sense.

With regard to the Transporter's ability to handle large objects - in Day Of The Dove Scotty beamed up nearly a dozen people, even though he only had 6 pads to rematerialise them on. This would suggest a significant axillary storage capacity (or pattern buffer, if we want to get all TNG)

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The point being that we see it's not necessary - van Gelder's condo is the size of three pads or so.

But not large enough to COVER three pads, which is my point (it was precisely centered on the one pad it covered and overfilled). At the risk of turning this into a "Yo momma so fat" thread, it's basically a correspondence between one transporter pad and one discrete object or cluster of objects that will be deposited on top of it. You can slide one large box or a bundled/oddly-shaped stack of small boxes across a conveyor belt, but you probably can't slide a kitchen table covered with live clucking chickens.

Basically: any object big enough to require two transporter pads (e.g. Spock's piano or Yo momma) is probably better off going through the door, unless of course you don't mind it possibly arriving in two pieces.

It's not all that convenient a port; it limits item size just like the transporter pads... don't.

Not entirely... you're forgetting that the transporter room is only accessible by a friendly rectangular door. Even if we COULD beam yo momma onto the Enterprise, she'd be stuck there all day until Scotty cut a wider door into the wall. (I would guess the more versatile transporter pads on the Enterprise-D might actually explain why the transporter room door is so much wider than that of its predecessors.)

But the airlock doors are big and around; she'd probably be able to squeeze through. Might have trouble getting onto the turbolift, but a "freight elevator" near the airlock complex hasn't been ruled out yet.

Yo momma's so fat Starfleet invented a whole new transporter system just to beam her aboard.

 

[Timo]

But not large enough to COVER three pads..

I see your point - let's just say I can't see the point of the point...

1) Cargo does move by (standard) transporter in TOS (and already in ENT). It never moves by shuttle in TOS (or in ENT). So that sorta answers the question already.

2) The largest-ever TOS prop intended to portray an object that would be moved around inside a starship (or moved to or from a starship for that matter) is van Gelder's box, and it moves by transporter. The only things larger are the shuttlecraft themselves, and they are pure tare.

3) If the need did arise to move something bigger, it obviously wouldn't clear any doors - external or internal. So making the entry method capable of handling greater bulk would change nothing. There's that badass cargo hatch at the bottom of the ship, but things squeezing in through that would get no deeper into the ship. No need for them to, no fault in them not being able to. Stuff coming in through the shuttle hangar doors would also either have to go directly to the holds and stay there forever, or then consist of such small elements that those could move along the interior corridors. With transporters, the latter is easier than ever - no need for a clumsy container or other packaging when the stuff can move directly from the shelf to the ship, item by item!

4) For fine tuning, we could always take a closer look at the transporter room, and notice that the back wall is to be found in different angles in different episodes portraying it. Perhaps it can be moved aside (and the individual panels on the outer, corridor side likewise slid away) to push dear mommy from the pad to the corridor, hand in hand with movie era Scotty even? It's just that this wouldn't do much good, because where could they go?

Also, while we didn't see it happen in TOS, unconscious or hurt people would probably be transported horizontally often enough. (It happens a lot in TNG, but there we unfortunately have site-to-site technology so it's fairly seldom that the regular pads would be involved.) In "A Private Little War", Kirk does yank the bleeding Spock upright, but mainly out of tactical concerns...And McCoy holds his hand all the time, making this explicitly a load spanning two disks. Plus a tad more, because the Kirk-Spock embrace spills over the one disk while McCoy's little black bag (this time orange) adds to the other.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

1) Cargo does move by (standard) transporter in TOS (and already in ENT). It never moves by shuttle in TOS (or in ENT). So that sorta answers the question already.

All four of NX-01's cargo bays have those big huge loading doors on the upper and lower portion of the saucer section. The transporter -- which features a single very large pad -- is probably a glorified luggage conveyor.

All things being equal, it should also have been seriously dangerous to beam living beings aboard or beam them more than one at a time, but that's Enterprise for you.

The largest-ever TOS prop intended to portray an object that would be moved around inside a starship (or moved to or from a starship for that matter) is van Gelder's box

No, it's actually the Valiant's recorder marker, which Kelso makes a point of mentioning that it's small enough to beam aboard. If it had been something the size of a lifepod, they would have had to tractor it aboard and put it in the shuttlebay.

3) If the need did arise to move something bigger, it obviously wouldn't clear any doors - external or internal.

Other than, obviously, the shuttle bay doors and the moveable bulkheads between the shuttlebay and the cargo bay.

Still, the TMP Enterprise now HAS those big circular docking ports everywhere and so does its shuttlecraft. If transporters are the preferred method of moving people, then those hatches must be normally for small cargo/package deliveries, which would explain why Spock arrived on a courier ship and not a standard TFF-style shuttlecraft. No need to monkey around with the shuttlebay, tractor beams, forcefield curtains, etc. You don't even need to get the transporter chief off his lunch break (and of course he's gonna be extra slow to get to the controls because you interrupted his corned-beef sandwich hour). Just pull up to the airlock, drop off your package and then fly away to your next delivery.

There's that badass cargo hatch at the bottom of the ship, but things squeezing in through that would get no deeper into the ship.

How much "deeper" does it need to get than the cargo bay? Isn't that, like, the whole POINT of a cargo bay?

Also, while we didn't see it happen in TOS, unconscious or hurt people would probably be transported horizontally often enough. (It happens a lot in TNG, but there we unfortunately have site-to-site technology so it's fairly seldom that the regular pads would be involved.) In "A Private Little War", Kirk does yank the bleeding Spock upright, but mainly out of tactical concerns...And McCoy holds his hand all the time, making this explicitly a load spanning two disks. Plus a tad more, because the Kirk-Spock embrace spills over the one disk while McCoy's little black bag (this time orange) adds to the other.

Sure, but I suspect that beaming back with Spock on a stretcher between them would have had potentially hilarious results if the transporter system, for whatever reason, didn't materialize them on adjacent pads. Supposedly the transporter chief is paying attention and can select what pads he's going to put them on... but if he's NOT paying attention, then the lunch special today is Vulcan-flavored jam.

 

[Nebusj]

Also, while we didn't see it happen in TOS, unconscious or hurt people would probably be transported horizontally often enough.

We do see horizontal beaming out: Drugged-up dead Hengist in 'Wolf In The Fold'.

 

[Mytran]

And Mitchell in WNMHGB - seemingly held in place with a forcefield or something.

 

[Timo]

If transporters are the preferred method of moving people, then those hatches must be normally for small cargo/package deliveries

But transporters really are the preferred method of moving everything. Perhaps the hatches normally aren't for anything much, just standing by, but Starfleet decided to leave their usual vanity covers ashore in the refit to save weight and expenses and thus gave us a false impression of the importance of those things.

Just pull up to the airlock, drop off your package and then fly away to your next delivery.

Too bad that the logistics behind a typical docking hatch are even more pitiful than next to a transporter pad! We see awkward flights of stairs, cramped corners, narrow catwalks... The Transporter Chief may grunt a thanks from behind his sandwich whenever FedEx leaves the package behind a docking hatch, but the rest of the Quartermaster's team will make grunts of other sorts.

How much "deeper" does it need to get than the cargo bay? Isn't that, like, the whole POINT of a cargo bay?

Stuff in Cargo Bays only helps paralyze Klingon security officers. It must get to the end user somehow. Two parallel routes to that, apparently: beam aboard the stuff you actually need, in manageable packages delivered close to the end user, or bring aboard container upon container of the stuff for later use and keep it in a hold. It must be a chore to stock the hold piecemeal via transporter, unless they have dedicated cargo transporters (that is, those standard six-pad sets, but right next to the holds, with plenty of antigravs waiting on wall racks) - and conversely a chore to distribute from the hold unless via transporter.

I guess the logical thing would be to let FedEx deliver via transporter, avoiding all the docking and hold-shuffling hassle, because the frontier transfers involve small packages for immediate use or special storage - and for Logistics Command at starbases to stevedore major supplies for the next six months physically into holds, avoiding the bottlenecks of the transporter rooms and the onboard delivery chains. But the role of cargo shuttles seems a narrow one: they are too big for frontier logistics, and too small for starbase replenishment.

We do see horizontal beaming out: Drugged-up dead Hengist in 'Wolf In The Fold'.

There, the sort of hilarity Crazy Eddie suggests would probably be very welcome!

And Mitchell in WNMHGB - seemingly held in place with a forcefield or something.

Now that was weird.

Perhaps just two guys simultaneously thinking "I'm done touching this freak, let the other one do the holding" and letting go?

Timo Saloniemi