Who has done a TOS E cross-section?

[yotsuya]

I'm going by Jeffries external drawings found in TMOST. There are three drawings that all show the shuttle with a person and are all the same 22' size. As well as the hanger and small shuttle model being built in scale with that intended size and the large mockup being almost that size (it is actually slightly shorter than 22', I think it is 20'10"). And I'm not interested in making sure everything we see in the Gallileo Seven can fit exactly like we see in that episode. Almost none of that is used again and some doesn't really fit, even at larger sizes, unless you redo the exterior. I'm more interested in fitting the shuttle in a 947' Enterprise and then fitting the interior into that. And while the aft room has always been an issue, the rest of the interior, the main cabin, does fit. You can fit 7 seats in the space and have a nice aisle and gap for the door. And we even see at least one seat on the inside of the large mockup. Star Trek has a lot of contradictory set changes to begin with so conforming the interior of the shuttle and compromising those few extra spaces seen in Galileo Seven is acceptable to me. I've lost track of how many engine rooms the ship would need to fit everything we see on screen exactly. So some compromise to draft a ship that would fit what we see in the series is acceptable to me.

So for the ship to remain at 947', I feel that largest the shuttle can be is 22'. I think Jefferies knew that and intended it be the more cramped 22'. His hanger model, while needing some corrections, was built in scale with an intended size so that the hanger shell would fit in the 947' ship. We can discuss whether to go by the length of the model or the length of the hanger in his cross sections, but either way it fits in 947'. I think you might be able to push it up to 24', but that requires adjusting the decks to fit the shuttle. And for decks I am going by the windows on the exterior (wtih them being a consistent height off the deck).

But that is my interpretation of the ship, hanger and shuttle. Others are free to make it fit as they feel it needs to. I am just explaining my reasoning for my project. I'm trying to stick to Jefferies drawings and intentions and the 11 foot model. There are some differences, but there are reasons behind them.

 

[Warped9]

Then you have chosen not to try to recreate the “reality” of what we see onscreen, which us your thing.

My 27ft. shuttlecraft can easily be accommodated within a 947ft. starship along with three other like craft along with a spacious maintenance bay below the flight deck, as I’ve illustrated upthread. Others have done similar. And everything looks pretty much exactly as it does onscreen.

This is no different than many fans who have managed to fit the interiors of the ship as seen comfortably within a 947ft. Enterprise.

 

[yotsuya]

Everyone has their own goals and parameters. A big one for me is tying the TOS E to the Refit E. Also staying true to the models and some of the designer intent. Another is eliminating Hollywood production shortcuts and necessities. For the shuttle and hanger I am going by these:

 

[Warped9]

Whatever the creator’s original intent, which should not be discarded arbitrarily, what ends up on the screen is what is taken as the reality by viewers.

We accept the events presented onscreen as what actually happened in TOS’ “reality.” To that end fans try to reconcile noticeable inconsistencies to make it as real as possible in their minds. We know one side of the 11ft. Enterprise filming miniature was left unfinished, but in no way do we believe an actual starship Enterprise would be unfinished on one side. We accept that the real Enterprise would be finished all around.

I have long come to accept that Matt Jefferies’ shuttlecraft and hangar deck drawings found in The Making Of Star Trek were of the production miniatures rather than the actual full size real items.

 

[yotsuya]

Whatever the creator’s original intent, which should not be discarded arbitrarily, what ends up on the screen is what is taken as the reality by viewers.

We accept the events presented onscreen as what actually happened in TOS’ “reality.” To that end fans try to reconcile noticeable inconsistencies to make it as real as possible in their minds. We know one side of the 11ft. Enterprise filming miniature was left unfinished, but in no way do we believe an actual starship Enterprise would be unfinished on one side. We accept that the real Enterprise would be finished all around.

I have long come to accept that Matt Jefferies’ shuttlecraft and hangar deck drawings found in The Making Of Star Trek were of the production miniatures rather than the actual full size real items.

Well, in this case you have the actors on the interior set and then on the exterior set. So the size difference is there if you care to measure it (it was well hidden in the episode). And after that you have the occasional use of the interior, and occasional use of the exterior. And the back room and floor access are never seen again.

And you might have a point except that interior sketch shows a person about the same scale as the exterior drawing. That indicates to me it was supposed to be small and they scaled it up for production reasons. You posted information that that was the case. So I think the interior we were supposed to see was supposed to better match the exterior in size. You took the halfway between approach, but I think it needs to stay small, at the 22' size.

 

[Warped9]

Then you are totally discarding what we see onscreen in regards to the interior.

 

[yotsuya]

Then you are totally discarding what we see onscreen in regards to the interior.

Well, with all the conflicting things, you have to adjust something. I'm shrinking the set to match the exterior. So I'm not really disregarding it, but cramming it it. It isn't a Tardis after all.

 

[Redfern]

That's one of my favorite drawings from "The Making of Star Trek". It just looks cozy, reminding me of my late uncle's Ryan Navion, a 4 passenger private plane. Obviously, the tow look nothing alike. It's a comparison that only makes sense upon a personal, emotional level.

 

[Warped9]

A sampling of what I was working on several years ago.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

That's an impressive effort, @Warped9.

 

[Spaceship Jo]

In filmmaking, interiors are often scaled up to make them seem more impressive or easier to film inside, while exteriors are often scaled down to make the area in which they are situated seem more impressive or easier to film around. I see no need for such butting of heads as has happened a bit in this thread. Nobody is "totally discarding" anything, and y'all are doing (or have done) some FANTASTIC work.

Besides, this isn't a thread about everyone's particular choices (there are individual project threads all about those), it's a generalized "who's done cross-section" kind of roll call, and it's a joy to see a bunch of them here.

As someone who has tackled the TOS Enterprise several times as an exterior model, but only done cross sections for my own designs (and a few one offs of discarded pre-production designs), I'm blown away by what everyone here has done. Even the ones I like or agree with the least are still incredibly impressive efforts.

 

[yotsuya]

In filmmaking, interiors are often scaled up to make them seem more impressive or easier to film inside, while exteriors are often scaled down to make the area in which they are situated seem more impressive or easier to film around. I see no need for such butting of heads as has happened a bit in this thread. Nobody is "totally discarding" anything, and y'all are doing (or have done) some FANTASTIC work.

Besides, this isn't a thread about everyone's particular choices (there are individual project threads all about those), it's a generalized "who's done cross-section" kind of roll call, and it's a joy to see a bunch of them here.

As someone who has tackled the TOS Enterprise several times as an exterior model, but only done cross sections for my own designs (and a few one offs of discarded pre-production designs), I'm blown away by what everyone here has done. Even the ones I like or agree with the least are still incredibly impressive efforts.

Sometimes opinions run strong. It's all good. And often it is the little things that we disagree on. For instance, the deck height. Me scrunching them down to 8' 3" or less in the saucer probably drives some people crazy just as upscaling the exterior to be bigger drives me crazy. Thought I think I might end up trying to do an alternate deck layout in the saucer that better conforms to Jefferies cross section. He didn't have 11 decks in the saucer (but he had sunken the bridge).

 

[Warped9]

Although it could drive directors nuts the sunken bridge was visually interesting and it allowed for dramatic shots.

8ft. + deck heights don’t bother me as they strike me as more realistic than 10-11ft. decks.

 

[publiusr]

There are references to the reasoning for oversized interior set. I recall watching an interview where the issue was discussed. The man interviewed, Gene Winfield, was involved in actually building the interior set. And, yes, it was to allow the actors to stand upright and to accommodate the cameras and lighting of the day. I believe it’s also referenced in a little book that was published about Matt Jefferies designing the Enterprise.

At 9:42 Winfield discusses the interior.

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But the above interview is not where I saw the reference to the interior set ceiling being raised at the last minute.

Interestingly Winfield references the exterior being 28 feet rather than 22 ft., but it’s easy to see someone misremembering something like that after fifty years.

That's a great find.

 

[Warped9]

A sampling of what I was working on several years ago.

The design with the different nacelle and landing gear arrangement was meant to be my version of the “real” shuttlecraft Copernicus from the TAS episode “Slaver Weapon.” This assumed TOS managing to build a shuttlecraft variant miniature for “Slaver Weapon” if it had been filmed as a live-action episode for a hypothetical fourth season.

This idea allowed the Copernicus to be one of the Enterprise’s complement of shuttlecraft rather than an oversized vehicle as depicted in the actual TAS episode.

And, believe or not, I first came up with this concept when I was a teenager in the mid 1970s. It just took about forty years before I turned it into detailed schematics with Adobe Illustrator and a few years later a 3D model.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Big fan of your Copernicus shuttle. The slung-back nacelles just look sexy!

I'm definitely in the make-it-look-good camp, but FWIW I'm at least trying to stay consistent within my assumption that the ship is actually 1082 feet long instead of 947 feet (assumption based on Kirk saying the Galileo is 24 feet long, the studio prop only being 21 feet long, and 24 / 21 x 947 = 1082).

If @yotsuya is going by those drawings in The Making of Star Trek, the Galileo shown in those drawings is indeed 22 feet long (I pulled the drawings into Adobe Layout to see for myself). But that doesn't square with what Kirk says onscreen in an episode of Star Trek. I love TMoST and still have my dog-eared copy I bought in a Ballantine Books store in 1973, but those drawings just don't quite square with what we saw (and heard) onscreen.

 

[aridas sofia]

The 947-foot figure was also in an episode- “Day of the Dove”. That schematic comparing Enterprise with the Klingon battlecruiser has a scale bar next to it. So even though it was just another piece of art from TMoST, it is also “canon” for whatever that is worth.

I think if “on screen” is going to be the deciding factor, it is hard to say that dialog counts but graphics don’t. Because in the end, what was 24 feet? The shuttlecraft, or the shuttlecraft with nacelles? No such ambiguity exists with the Enterprise-Klingon size comparison.

 

[blssdwlf]

The 947-foot figure was also in an episode- “Day of the Dove”. That schematic comparing Enterprise with the Klingon battlecruiser has a scale bar next to it. So even though it was just another piece of art from TMoST, it is also “canon” for whatever that is worth.

I think if “on screen” is going to be the deciding factor, it is hard to say that dialog counts but graphics don’t. Because in the end, what was 24 feet? The shuttlecraft, or the shuttlecraft with nacelles? No such ambiguity exists with the Enterprise-Klingon size comparison.

Even the scene from "Day of the Dove" has a certain amount of ambiguity. The Standard Definition version you can't make out what the scale values are. The High Definition version you can read the scale but then you can clearly see the Enterprise in the illustration deviates from the filming model enough that it could be a different version of Kirk's Enterprise. The only certainty is that a version of the Enterprise is about that much larger than a Klingon Battlecruiser.

As to the 24 feet quote, I agree it is also subject to interpretation. Was it total length with the nacelles or just the length of the body, etc..

And I also agree with others that everyone will have their own approach to realizing the Enterprise and that's a great thing

 

[Albertese]

I've taken a few stabs at cross sections and deck plans of the TOS ship. Nothing I'd consider finished enough to publish, though.

--Alex

 

[Mytran]

As to the 24 feet quote, I agree it is also subject to interpretation. Was it total length with the nacelles or just the length of the body, etc..

Or was it perhaps the emergency transport capacity of a shuttle, i.e 12 people or 24-foot maximum?