Why no Constitution class ships in the 24th century?

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I concur, the Excelsior & Miranda classes were doing what the Constitution couldn't do at it's ~size.

If they wanted more facilities and power, the Excelsior was designed as a better platform than the Constitution.

If they wanted compactness at less material usage, the Miranda Class was it.

 

[blssdwlf]

If you compare the Reliant to the movie Enterprise with both ships having the same saucer diameter the Reliant has 40,000m3 more volume than the Enterprise. Between the Excelsior, Miranda and Constitution classes, the Connie is the smallest by volume.

If you compare available cargo and shuttlebay volumes, the Miranda has 2.5x and Excelsior 7.4x more cargo capacity by volume than the Connie.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Do your numbers for the Constitution and Reliant saucers above include the volume of the secondary hull and the Reliant's "impulse block?" While it is hard for me to believe that the Reliant has more interior volume, what I can believe is that the Constitution is a "medium" size between the two ships and that Starfleet decided to focus on the bigger and smaller specialized sizes rather than a medium sized all-purpose ship. Although I disagree with Starfleet on this if it was their reasoning in universe. I think the Constitution is a great balanced ship

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Although I disagree with Starfleet on this if it was their reasoning in universe. I think the Constitution is a great balanced ship

I never cared for the original Constitution, but I loved the TMP movie refit version.

So you have my support of that version of the ship =D

 

[bigglesworth]

Obviously this is pure speculation, but perhaps the reason that Connies are so rare is political as opposed to technical. The Connie may be the victim of the project being over budget or even budget cuts (yeah, yeah... no money, but even in the 23rd century, there are finite resources). Perhaps SF brass as well as Federation politicians and leaders may have viewed the Constitution class as an obsolete vessel long before the first ship was even launched. Perhaps that is why we see in ST:III, Adm. Morrow adamant that Enterprise not be refitted. I realize this theory conflicts with the fact Enterprise was refitted before the events of TMP as opposed to being mothballed, but that may have been more of a PR thing.

 

[Unicron]

It's interesting that the 1979 Enterprise was modular and could be modified into a few alternate configurations.

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[Kamen Rider Blade]

Or maybe it was the survival percentages of all 12 original connies wasn't all that great and they decided that it wasn't worth it to continue investing in this line of vessels when other vessels had better survival ratios.
Out of the original 12/13 connies, how many survived?

 

[Ithekro]

Most of them seemed to be in service at the start of Kirk's Five Year Mission. Than a fair number of them were lost in a relatively short period of time. USS Constellation, USS Intrepid, and USS Defiant were all lost in the span of two years. USS Excalibur lost all its crew in a botched war game as well. USS Exeter lost nearly all hands to a virus, and was abandoned. USS Enterprise was nearly lost a number of times, but managed to make it home.

 

[Guy Gardener]

430 people are needed to maintain a Constitution Class Starship.

Kirk took the original into battle with a crew of 7, probably due to modernized computer automation.

Scotty (in a novel) took an old star ship (maybe it was in Crossover?) possibly constitution class, into battle, by himself using the Shuttle Picard gave him as an automation hub to regulate the entire vessel.

It takes too many people to run one of these ships without modern tech, or it takes too few people to run one of these ships with modern technology.

A crew of two?

That's not a battle ship.

Too much can go wrong.

 

[David cgc]

Just because a Constitution can be operated by one person with a 24th century computer doesn't mean it would be. Starships being able to run on automatic was nothing unusual in that era. The -D, Defiant, Voyager, and especially Prometheus could all be run by a single person, even though that wasn't the standard crew.

 

[Ithekro]

A 24th century modernized Constitution could probably be run by a crew of 40 - 70 people normally. Maybe several extra for extended science missions and the like. For all we know the 430 of Kirk's ship was mostly for the extended mission, with lots of extra science, social science, and security slots than is normal for the class in general service.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

But imagine how big your crew quarters can be if you only had a normal 40-70 people stationed on board a modernized 24th Century Constitution class with a few quarters for regular guest / temporary staff.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

I'm left with the impression that, in general and especially in TOS, Starfleet vessels are, intentionally far less automated than the could be. This is probably because that makes them less susceptible to computer takeover or something similar. Or maybe it is just because humans find it more meaningful to be on duty working engines, plotting courses, or really looking at things is space. Perhaps the secondary hull components of the Constitution Class, like the arboretum, cargo bays, lounges, were not considered important for most ships close to home. By TNG, there are about 12 new classes of ship bigger than the Constitution that could have those things, while the Miranda needed little to no improvement as a small ship for general use close to the Federation.

I just wrote the above, but it STILL does not convince me that there is any good onscreen reason to stop building Constitutions in favor of continuing to build Mirandas, other than the dramatic reasons that are clear in ST:III.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Does somebody own royalties or a design license for the Original Constitution / Constitution Refit design?

 

[blssdwlf]

Do your numbers for the Constitution and Reliant saucers above include the volume of the secondary hull and the Reliant's "impulse block?" While it is hard for me to believe that the Reliant has more interior volume

Yes, those were accounted for. If the two ships were scaled to have the same diameter saucer then the Reliant will have more volume. The Enterprise's neck and secondary hull takes up way less volume than the blocky back of the Reliant. If the Enterprise had a blocky secondary hull and a thick neck like the Excelsior then it could gain more volume.

But thinking about the Enterprise, since she was a 1701 number and the Constellation a 1017 number perhaps the reason why the Constitutions were not seen anymore in-universe was because hundreds had already been in service for decades (or even a century) and as they were lost or retired new roomier ships like the Reliant and Excelsior supplanted them?

 

[Albertese]

I favor the idea that the Connies that remained by the 2290s were mothballed as a concession in the Khitomer Accords. The Constitution-class starships may have been seen as a symbol of Federation military power by the Klingons (they did classify it as a battle cruiser in ST3 after all) and Spock does mention in his briefing speech in ST6 that scrapping elements of Starfleet is on the table as part of his negotiations with Gorkon. Having other ships at least as capable being built and flown already, Starfleet could easily have seen the Connies as a convenient sacrificial lamb to make the Klingons happy.

--Alex

 

[Sgt_G]

Does somebody own royalties or a design license for the Original Constitution / Constitution Refit design?

Yes. I know for a fact that ADB pays royalties to Paramount and to Franz Joseph to be able to use the original Connie in Star Fleet Battles / Federation Commander.

 

[Timo]

430 people are needed to maintain a Constitution Class Starship.

I'd rather argue that Kirk's ship can accommodate 400 passengers in addition to the 30 people that keep the ship moving. Or something close enough to that ballpark that you can hear the kids shouting.

After all, we generally hear of suspiciously low crew counts for a given volume, if we use TOS as a yardstick. And OTOH the time-traveling Dax remarked on how packed with crew "these old ships" were - we can now interpret that as being specific to the exceptional Constitutions rather than applying to contemporaries like Crossfield that move around just fine with a crew of less than 200 (a good portion of which are mad scientists) rattling inside.

(Furthermore, we can decide Dax considered the Constitution "old" even for the day, helping explain why the class takes the bow soon thereafter.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Dax isn't that old.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

A 24th century modernized Constitution could probably be run by a crew of 40 - 70 people normally. Maybe several extra for extended science missions and the like. For all we know the 430 of Kirk's ship was mostly for the extended mission, with lots of extra science, social science, and security slots than is normal for the class in general service.

I think that 40-70 would be a 'skeleton crew' for 'A-B transit' only, I think a more probably number for any mission where they actually have to do anything would be the est 200 of Pike's Enterprise. However I also agree with your implication that the engineering and services crew numbers are probably the same regardless (200 v 400) and it's mostly science, medical and security that are added (Spock may have been the Science Officer during The Cage).

Dax isn't that old.

Sisko suggested that the symbiont was "three hundred and twenty-eight maybe" when we first met Jadzia ("Emissary"). However, it was already 150 years old when it took it's first host, (DS9: "You Are Cordially Invited") (DS9: "Equilibrium"), and was therefore around 350 as of Sisko's statement, and may hit 400 within Ezri's lifetime (and passed 500 during the "Children of Time" timeline).