Based on the concept art for an NX-Alpha -Beta -Delta, which I mistook for an NX-01 concept I decided to make an actual NX-01 concept. In this version of Starfleet Earth is much more primitive when it developes the warp five engine, so it lacks robust antigravity, stand alone impulse engines, and transporters. The 3.5 meter lasers are the most advanced weapon system the ship carries, other than its caltrops (sneaky antimatter triggered thermonuclear weapons dropped behind the ship if chased at warp). Landing involves separating the command section from the propulsion section. While the command section lands, the engine section stays in orbit to monitor the command section and deploy recoverable satellites. The command section is a SSTO VTOL morphing flying wing with hybrid air breathing antimatter fusion rocket engines capable of landing at sea or land. Once landed it deploys a smaller vessel to complete the last leg of the journey. The engine section houses a fusion reactor and hybrid antimatter fusion engine which can be used for propulsion and power generation. A low power warp field generated by the warp engines is used to augment the fusion torch propulsion. The warp engines are self contained hot swappable power/propulsion units. When underway the Bussard collectors' magnetic field arrays open to capture interplanetary deep space hydrogen which is funneled directly into the matter-antimatter reactors within the warp nacelles. As speed increases the field arrays narrow as hydrogen drag increases. Excess hydrogen is diverted to storage. At warp the field arrays will dilate to maximum size once in interstellar deep space and contract as drag increases.
I very much like this idea, but I would suggest narrowing the wingspan while docked. Right now the ship has a lot of possibilities to get damaged. Maybe let the larger part of the wings revolve aft so that they're flush the engineering section? If you find that hard to picture, think about a U-Wing which moves its foils in landing position.
I like this perhaps using a lifting body rater than the flying wing as the solution to BorgMan's comment.
Guy's, not to worry, I have you covered! The wings morph as needed. So for atmospheric entry and supersonic flight it goes into a lifting body configuration. For lift off, cruising, and subsonic flight it uses the flying wing configuration. For loitering and unusual situations it has the glide configuration which I based on an albatros wing. My thinking is this predates the saucer and knowledge of warp dynamics, so they didn't know how to optimize the hull form. The morphing wing is the start of that understanding, because at some point someone mistakenly messed with the unsecured wing controls. The wings went from space ready lifting body mode to flying wing mode just before entering warp. The ship almost had its wings ripped off, but the warp engine operator compensated just in time. To everyone's surprise, the ship entered warp with less power, and had other benefits during warp travel.
Here’s a paper on the concept. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20080009777.pdf My thinking is a combination of the three methods presented allowing the wing to sweep, fold vertical, and change its thickness, cord, and length through various means of internal folding and hinging and a flexible skin. The internal structure is made of compliant mechanisms and powered by shape memory materials. I figure a hundred years from now is a decent time frame for the various technologies to mature enough for a better than bio mimicking wing. Compliant mechanisms. The 8 min mark is interesting. There’s also FlexSys control surfaces. Old NASA concept vid This one is better Shape memory powered variable wing geometry.
I've seen these But if you go this route(not objecting) then you'll need to rethink Trek entirely I've designed aircraft that the wings are totally versatile like a bird.
I'd love to hear you ideas on the wings. So far my thinking is the wings aren't useful for anything other than flying, and maybe thermal emission by rippling the skin, as in fuel and rooms can't be put inside. Additionally, having multiple geometries could be less useful than one good geometry. I can imagine a brief period of exotic shaping mixed with some morphing hull components, but ultimately being brief like intake ramps on the F-15 versus diverterless supersonic inlets on modern jets. Wings could be used until they figure out they can just hide as much as possible behind doors and shells, and keep the hull as smooth as possible, and go overboard with it until they start pulling back by exposing the Enterprise's nav dish instead of hiding it with a radome. [edit] I may have gone too extreme on the morphing wing for my own comfort, and because the ship does need quite a bit of equipment and cargo space. Also, I think I'll drop the sea landing ability because that will complicate cargo handling, and with the ability to take off and land vertically I don't think it is really needed. Instead I will add an atomic daisy cutter. I may move to a side view next and work out the engines for the command section. For the engines I'm thinking SABRE mixed with linear aerospike nozzles.
Why is the "Navigational Deflector Dish" off to one side? That seems so wierd and non AeroDynamic when in Atmosphere.
I may actually make the dish even less aerodynamic, like the Millenium Falcon's dish so it can point all over the place. That will go with some more significant warp section changes since secondary bridge access is iffy at the moment. I might place the bridge on the starboard pontoon with the deflector assembly all the way on the port side to fix access between the flying and warp sections. I want to add tanks behind the current bridge, which is easy. Also I will change the thrusters to little gimbal mounts. The flying section also could stand to be lengthened a bit which means redoing a little of the top view, and a lot of the new side view. The landing gear is silly looking and needs to be redone smaller so the scale looks better. Tracked landing gear is a real thing which was extremely loud, and lighter than single wheel landing gear, but heavier than multi-wheel landing gear. I just like the stuff so I'm going with it for now. The nose cone door, which this video calls the visor looks good, and the hybrid SABRE aerospike is a keeper.