TOS Enterprise Internals

[yotsuya]

If you want the cargo deck to match what was shown on screen then the refit needs to be at least 1,164 feet long (as per Blssdwlf's excellent research). Such a size would also help fit in the long engine room corridor but it's not absolutely essential for that.
The downside of a 1,164' refit is that the airlock docking ports would be 8' in diameter instead of 7' and we see a lot more of the docking ports (both inside and out, in numerous movies) than we do the cargo deck.

Which hanger? I have painstakingly drawn the TMP hanger and it fits perfecftly in the 1000' Refit. The TFF hanger Gary Kerr drew quite nicely and it also fits very well. The doors in the exterior view are a bit wonky, but the interior set fits. The interior of the TMP hanger was a matte painting with the cargo bay being the only thing filmed live. Andrew Probert, who drew out the deck placement, did the initial matte paintings and someone else did the final paintings. The difference is that Probert showed shuttles and the ones in the film did not.

So I don't know where the 1164 measurement comes from, but I don't agree with it. The TOS Enterprise is 947' and the TMP refit and the 1701A are 1000'. I don't accept any other lengths other than to ponder if certain sets might fit better as built, but for me, that size of the ship dictates the size of the realistic spaces. I posted both my Phase II and TMP Refit cross sections in another threat - https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/enterprise-evolution-from-tos-to-tmp.300617/page-7

 

[publiusr]

1,000 is reasonable.

That’s the best thing about the refit—longer and the nacelle roots mounted farther forward helps with hanger space.

 

[Mytran]

As far as different sized docking ports are concerned…it may not have to be that tight a fit…the doors will slide into the host ship just fine. On standard ports, the annular ring rotated in…in larger ports…iris out-that’s about two feet of leeway right there. I could even see a docking port wide enough to match the outer contour of the craft itself…rather like the more angular ports suggested at first perhaps?

I am thinking that the annular system probably has more moving parts than anything we have seen on screen…perhaps expanding enough for even damaged docking ports.

Interesting idea, although presumably the iris-expanding hardware would be built into the ship rather than the little pod (there's barely enough room in there for what we do see!) The adaptable docking would would be especially useful when the Enterprise is called upon to dock with non-Starfleet ships (not that we ever saw such a thing in TOS, they just used the transporter). Perhaps the big square docking port on the rim of the saucer has a customisable feature?
As regards the docking ports on the refit; we see in TMP we see the interior diameter of the ring when Kirk and Scotty board the inspection pod, the exterior of the docking machinery on the miniature shots during flight and also see how snug a fit the pod is when it slides into the Enterprise in TMP and TWOK. As such a diameter of 7' is fairly well established in the films, squinting at the screen not withstanding

Which hanger? I have painstakingly drawn the TMP hanger and it fits perfecftly in the 1000' Refit. The TFF hanger Gary Kerr drew quite nicely and it also fits very well. The doors in the exterior view are a bit wonky, but the interior set fits. The interior of the TMP hanger was a matte painting with the cargo bay being the only thing filmed live. Andrew Probert, who drew out the deck placement, did the initial matte paintings and someone else did the final paintings. The difference is that Probert showed shuttles and the ones in the film did not.

So I don't know where the 1164 measurement comes from, but I don't agree with it. The TOS Enterprise is 947' and the TMP refit and the 1701A are 1000'. I don't accept any other lengths other than to ponder if certain sets might fit better as built, but for me, that size of the ship dictates the size of the realistic spaces. I posted both my Phase II and TMP Refit cross sections in another threat - https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/enterprise-evolution-from-tos-to-tmp.300617/page-7

The hangar is not the problem, but @blssdwlf found that if you take the matte painting of the cargo deck and calculate its dimensions as shown on screen then the room is actually slightly wider than the hull of a 1,000' long refit Enterprise. So if literal onscreen accuracy of the cargo deck is required (which you have already stated it is not) then the ship would need to be scaled up to approx 1,164' (Blssdwlf calculated 355 metres which is 1,164.7' so maybe that should be rounded up to 1,165')
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/blssdwlfs-tos-enterprise-wip.119751/page-10#post-4261652
As the ship length of 1,000' is your "stake in the sand" rather than the way the interior sets appeared on screen, this length variant is just some fun speculation on how to marry the inconsistencies together

 

[yotsuya]

The hangar is not the problem, but @blssdwlf found that if you take the matte painting of the cargo deck and calculate its dimensions as shown on screen then the room is actually slightly wider than the hull of a 1,000' long refit Enterprise. So if literal onscreen accuracy of the cargo deck is required (which you have already stated it is not) then the ship would need to be scaled up to approx 1,164' (Blssdwlf calculated 355 metres which is 1,164.7' so maybe that should be rounded up to 1,165')
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/blssdwlfs-tos-enterprise-wip.119751/page-10#post-4261652
As the ship length of 1,000' is your "stake in the sand" rather than the way the interior sets appeared on screen, this length variant is just some fun speculation on how to marry the inconsistencies together

I see a number of issues with the scaling on that topic. For one, that ortho from Drexler's site is just a slightly corrected CG version of Kimble's drawings. A number of details give it away. I compared it to several others and my own work and I came up with something completely different. As far as I know, Darren Docterman hasn't released any orthos of his CG model. And one of the giveaways of those matte paintings is the hanger doors. That is an exterior feature and you need to connect those to the airlocks on either side. That really changes the geometry you are working with and shows the matte paintings have a few errors in them. The width works at the airlocks and the width has to work at the hanger doors. Everything in between can be tweaked to fit. Besides there are several other things in the movie where we have scale from the ship to people. So the size of the ship is more than just the matte paintings of the cargo/hanger area.

He also accepts the corridor going forward from main engineering. I take that to be a convenience of the set and a different deck (except for the horizontal shaft, all engineering deck would look the same). Another Hollywood shortcut for a far more complicated Engineering area. I also go by where Probert put it. Like the Rec Deck, it is not exact, but a compromise for practical considerations.

 

[Mytran]

I see a number of issues with the scaling on that topic. For one, that ortho from Drexler's site is just a slightly corrected CG version of Kimble's drawings. A number of details give it away. I compared it to several others and my own work and I came up with something completely different. As far as I know, Darren Docterman hasn't released any orthos of his CG model. And one of the giveaways of those matte paintings is the hanger doors. That is an exterior feature and you need to connect those to the airlocks on either side. That really changes the geometry you are working with and shows the matte paintings have a few errors in them. The width works at the airlocks and the width has to work at the hanger doors. Everything in between can be tweaked to fit. Besides there are several other things in the movie where we have scale from the ship to people. So the size of the ship is more than just the matte paintings of the cargo/hanger area.

He also accepts the corridor going forward from main engineering. I take that to be a convenience of the set and a different deck (except for the horizontal shaft, all engineering deck would look the same). Another Hollywood shortcut for a far more complicated Engineering area. I also go by where Probert put it. Like the Rec Deck, it is not exact, but a compromise for practical considerations.

Just curious, but do any of your drawings address the height discrepancy of the port/starboard airlocks in relation to the flight deck? What I mean is, on the model the airlock is placed at least half a deck higher than the level of the flight deck at the rear of the ship. Using the actual miniature I drew some (very rough) lines between the two points here:

Despite the height difference, the the matte painting shows a flat and continuous walkway between the two points.
I've seen some orthos which lower the airlocks slightly but never all the way down to the flight deck level.
Other solutions might be to place some steps inside the airlock itself (assuming 2 sets of doors, which seems sensible) or a set of steps on the walkway (which were not present on the matte painting).
Since a tweak to something is required, what is your preference for this project?

 

[yotsuya]

Just curious, but do any of your drawings address the height discrepancy of the port/starboard airlocks in relation to the flight deck? What I mean is, on the model the airlock is placed at least half a deck higher than the level of the flight deck at the rear of the ship. Using the actual miniature I drew some (very rough) lines between the two points here:

Despite the height difference, the the matte painting shows a flat and continuous walkway between the two points.
I've seen some orthos which lower the airlocks slightly but never all the way down to the flight deck level.
Other solutions might be to place some steps inside the airlock itself (assuming 2 sets of doors, which seems sensible) or a set of steps on the walkway (which were not present on the matte painting).
Since a tweak to something is required, what is your preference for this project?

As you so nicely point out, the airlock on model is quite high. But there is an elegant solution that I found. One of the issues with starship design is the slavish aherance to flat decks. These ships have artificial gravity and the decks can be any angle needed. So the two things you need to do to line up the airlock door to the hanger are to break the walkway where to goes to the landing bay and to angle the airlock so it is at a right angle to the hatch. The two of those allow everything to line up. If you follow the link above and look at my TMP cross section, you will see I left the very visible walkway that follows the structure back to the aft end of the elevator section level (about halfway between the airlock hatch level and the flight deck level) and insert some stairs at the aft end of the walkway. What is funny is that even Kimble's drawings (which Probert used to layout the cargo bay) has a sizable break between the flight deck and that airlock. And apparently he did the first pass at the matte paintings and so the error lies with him. An otherwise very careful layout has a glitch. Fortunately the oddities of perspective would hide that nicely when you make it fit the interior. The location of the airlock is one of the signs that those CG orthos from Drexler's site are just a slightly corrected version of Kimble's drawings. Plus the windows are in the wrong places. I spent hours looking at the model and adjusting the windows and grid lines to make them match the model.

 

[yotsuya]

As we have been discussing these other things, I have been creating the layers so I have the TOS 1st Pilot, 2nd Pilot, and Series versions of the Enterprise. There are some discrepancies. In Mirror Mirror there is a very clear shot of the ship in mirror orientation (same side, but reversed markings and reversed on screen). It is missing 2 windows that are there on the series version, the 1st pilot version, and some other versions of the 2nd Pilot. It seemed to have gone through a few steps to its final form. Also, Spock holding the 33" model shows the underside and it has a running light at 90 degrees port and starboard when the 11' model clearly does not and has the running light moved back to the center of the 3 lower lights on the rim.

What I am agonizing over at the moment is the front windows on the bottom of the saucer. There is a row of 7 windows (instead of the 5 on the port and starboard) and a row of 3 above it (instead of 2). The windows as cut in for the 2nd Pilot and continuing in the series to today are not aligned to the centerline. The question is where these windows were on the first pilot. Both the 11' and the 33" have the same windows, but I can't tell exactly what the alignment is between the two rows. The grid lines are very clear so the is no mistake that the Series windows are not centered, but should the 1st Pilot windows be centered? Or at least that upper row of 3? There is no clear indication of where exactly they are. Curved surfaces make it difficult to determine. Adding to the confusion, the 33" seems to have a slightly different configuration. My guess is because on neither of them did they redo the windows, just the ones being changed. It seems to have an extra rectangle window where the 11' has a small round window. So much fun.

As a side note, I did use the 33 inch version to fill in a lot of the windows on the port side. It has a slightly different pattern and this fits with the TMP and Excelsior models haveing different windows on port and starboard.

 

[blssdwlf]

As you so nicely point out, the airlock on model is quite high. But there is an elegant solution that I found. One of the issues with starship design is the slavish aherance to flat decks. These ships have artificial gravity and the decks can be any angle needed. So the two things you need to do to line up the airlock door to the hanger are to break the walkway where to goes to the landing bay and to angle the airlock so it is at a right angle to the hatch. The two of those allow everything to line up. If you follow the link above and look at my TMP cross section, you will see I left the very visible walkway that follows the structure back to the aft end of the elevator section level (about halfway between the airlock hatch level and the flight deck level) and insert some stairs at the aft end of the walkway. What is funny is that even Kimble's drawings (which Probert used to layout the cargo bay) has a sizable break between the flight deck and that airlock. And apparently he did the first pass at the matte paintings and so the error lies with him. An otherwise very careful layout has a glitch. Fortunately the oddities of perspective would hide that nicely when you make it fit the interior. The location of the airlock is one of the signs that those CG orthos from Drexler's site are just a slightly corrected version of Kimble's drawings. Plus the windows are in the wrong places. I spent hours looking at the model and adjusting the windows and grid lines to make them match the model.

When asked, Andrew Probert was kind enough to say that there was a ramp between the airlock and the deck. Given that it's your idealized version of the Enterprise then being screen-accurate is entirely optional and probably counter to your illustrated plans. Build it the way you want to. IDIC

 

[Vale]

Kind of odd that the hatch would be designed that way though, rather than just moving it up a bit to be level with the deck above. Especially given it cuts into the deflector grid there.

 

[blssdwlf]

Kind of odd that the hatch would be designed that way though, rather than just moving it up a bit to be level with the deck above. Especially given it cuts into the deflector grid there.

It is. I personally never liked the deflector grid idea as it seems to cut deep into aztec plating and created surface vulnerabilities. Oh well.

 

[yotsuya]

When asked, Andrew Probert was kind enough to say that there was a ramp between the airlock and the deck. Given that it's your idealized version of the Enterprise then being screen-accurate is entirely optional and probably counter to your illustrated plans. Build it the way you want to. IDIC

Like I said, he was going off of Kimball's drawing which is in error on the location of the airlock. The airlock is much higher than that on the model. So to accommodate the actual location of the airlock you have to disconnect the cargo bay and lift galleries from the landing bay. They don't line up and they can't line up. An alternate way to do it would be if the airlock was an elevator and moved down to the deck below. Though I truly don't understand why you wouldn't just have it attached to the correct deck level. That would make much more sense. But that's not what they did. And it's a scene that was in the pilot long before they built the model. It was going to be in the Phase 2 Enterprise and the docking bay was a couple decks lower on a very drastic curve in the hull. It became a movie and they changed the model but they kept the scene.

 

[Vale]

Like I said, he was going off of Kimball's drawing which is in error on the location of the airlock. The airlock is much higher than that on the model. So to accommodate the actual location of the airlock you have to disconnect the cargo bay and lift galleries from the landing bay. They don't line up and they can't line up. An alternate way to do it would be if the airlock was an elevator and moved down to the deck below. Though I truly don't understand why you wouldn't just have it attached to the correct deck level. That would make much more sense. But that's not what they did. And it's a scene that was in the pilot long before they built the model. It was going to be in the Phase 2 Enterprise and the docking bay was a couple decks lower on a very drastic curve in the hull. It became a movie and they changed the model but they kept the scene.

You also have to wonder... just how many docking ports does the Enterprise need anyway? Couldn't they just use the one at the back of the bridge, or the ones on either side of the photon torpedo launcher? Why does there need to be two more on either side of the secondary hull as well?

 

[blssdwlf]

Like I said, he was going off of Kimball's drawing which is in error on the location of the airlock. The airlock is much higher than that on the model. So to accommodate the actual location of the airlock you have to disconnect the cargo bay and lift galleries from the landing bay. They don't line up and they can't line up. An alternate way to do it would be if the airlock was an elevator and moved down to the deck below. Though I truly don't understand why you wouldn't just have it attached to the correct deck level. That would make much more sense. But that's not what they did. And it's a scene that was in the pilot long before they built the model. It was going to be in the Phase 2 Enterprise and the docking bay was a couple decks lower on a very drastic curve in the hull. It became a movie and they changed the model but they kept the scene.

I don't think it is an error since we don't see what is beyond the airlock behind Scotty and Kirk. There isn't a way to prove that an error was made and it is reasonable for a ramp, or stairs or an elevator to be behind that airlock leading to the exterior airlock.

You also have to wonder... just how many docking ports does the Enterprise need anyway? Couldn't they just use the one at the back of the bridge, or the ones on either side of the photon torpedo launcher? Why does there need to be two more on either side of the secondary hull as well?

And don't forget the large rectangular set on the port-side of the saucer and the hidden airlock where Kirk and Spock exited on the forward port ventral of the saucer in TMP. And also the slide up hatch on the top of the saucer at the end of TMP where they go to see V'Ger. Maybe they need all those hatches and openings to allow the crew to go outside to service the now exposed shield grid, phaser turrets and random greebles?

 

[publiusr]

Now I might have…in tiny letterings “cargo chute.”

 

[yotsuya]

Here's a question, where are those features on the TOS Enterprise? I figure that Jefferies was going for a very clean look, but I'm sure that the hanger is not the only egress point on the ship. There are the two markings on the back of the teardrop island and a couple of likely markings near the impulse engines. Plus there could be concealed hatches elsewhere on the hull. And what about escape pods? We see them in the TMP cutaway, but there are no hatches for them. Would they be concealed panels and would it be similar for TOS?

 

[Richard Baker]

The DS9 Defiant had it's escape pods behind hull panels, IIRC so did the NX class (it was a Mirror ship but physically the same in all other aspects)

 

[blssdwlf]

That's how I would look at it. The TOS Enterprise probably has quite a few hidden hatches, like for phasers, launchers, escape pods, docking ports, etc.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

should the 1st Pilot windows be centered? Or at least that upper row of 3? There is no clear indication of where exactly they are. Curved surfaces make it difficult to determine. Adding to the confusion, the 33" seems to have a slightly different configuration. My guess is because on neither of them did they redo the windows, just the ones being changed. It seems to have an extra rectangle window where the 11' has a small round window. So much fun.

I'd put all the windows from all the versions of the TOS models and then allow for some to be "greyed-out"/closed/unlit/whatever, and just try to align them as close as possible to allow as many windows as possible, since that would just be adding detail to the ship without changing the detail.
As far as docking ports in TOS go, I assume that there could be lots of features underneath the "hoods" that are outlined in red on the model. I also favor the idea that the triangles on the bottom of the saucer are bay doors for cargo and travel pod entry and exit. This would allow the Saladin and Ptolemy to use the equivalent of travel pods or shuttle pods for slower-than-light shuttle operations, even though they don't have secondary hulls with a dedicated hangar. This would be limited in comparison to the Galileo which is larger and apparently fast-than-light if the plot requires it. At least it does not make it look like Starfleet trusts the transporter so much that it lets ships travel without shuttles.

 

[Mytran]

As you so nicely point out, the airlock on model is quite high. But there is an elegant solution that I found.

Uh, thanks, I always aim to be nice.
Anyway, this particular oddity is one of those that I can't help but focus on ever since I first noticed it so I'm always open to any solutions for it.

One of the issues with starship design is the slavish adherence to flat decks. These ships have artificial gravity and the decks can be any angle needed. So the two things you need to do to line up the airlock door to the hanger are to break the walkway where to goes to the landing bay and to angle the airlock so it is at a right angle to the hatch. The two of those allow everything to line up.

The outer hull (and so presumably the airlock as well) only angles back slightly at that point on the curved surface, but putting the floor at a right angle to the hatch would would give a walkway of a comfortably gradient, regardless of which way the gravity was oriented

When asked, Andrew Probert was kind enough to say that there was a ramp between the airlock and the deck.

Yeah, one of them

If you follow the link above and look at my TMP cross section, you will see I left the very visible walkway that follows the structure back to the aft end of the elevator section level (about halfway between the airlock hatch level and the flight deck level) and insert some stairs at the aft end of the walkway. What is funny is that even Kimble's drawings (which Probert used to layout the cargo bay) has a sizable break between the flight deck and that airlock. And apparently he did the first pass at the matte paintings and so the error lies with him. An otherwise very careful layout has a glitch. Fortunately the oddities of perspective would hide that nicely when you make it fit the interior. The location of the airlock is one of the signs that those CG orthos from Drexler's site are just a slightly corrected version of Kimble's drawings. Plus the windows are in the wrong places. I spent hours looking at the model and adjusting the windows and grid lines to make them match the model.

Stairs at the end of the walkway would certainly do the trick, although it is a shame (cinematically) to lose the visual connection between the raised catwalk at one end and "ground" level at the other. In fact, I would not be surprised if that was the reason why the matte paintings were drawn this way! Certainly that earlier production sketch (I assume this is the one you mean) does acknowledge the height difference of the airlock:

Perhaps this is why Probert preferred the "ramp in the airlock" solution?

 

[yotsuya]

In other news, I am nearly finished with the modifications to the drawings for the 1st and 2nd Pilot versions of the TOS Enterprise. A rather complex layering of the different pieces. The moving running lights on the bottom are interesting, as is the color. Initially only the small outboard lights were red and green and the larger top and bottom were white.

And I think some of the production photos show the model somewhere between when the opening shot of The Cage was filmed (definitely with one set of markings) and when the model was lit for Where No Man Has Gone Before. The photos definitely show a gradual progression of alterations from the roll out to the final changes during season 2. For each of the major versions we typically think of, there are half steps. You have the Rollout version (photos on the street in 1964/5), the shot in The Cage, the behind the scenes shots of filming the model suspended by strings which show different markings and details, the main WNMHGB shots (though some shots are missing a couple of windows that are there in other shots), early series test shots (white frosted domes), and then the main series changes (orange frosted domes). And while they enhanced the trench painted on the inboard of the starboard nacelle, it had a painted trench on it from the beginning.

And the interior still calls. I've been thinking about the pilot briefing room and were to put it. Also where to place Pike's quarters. I have debated aligning it to one of the windows on deck 2, but his cabin has a single window and that is as troublesome as is the round shape of the cabin. I'm thinking decks 3 or 4 and put the briefing room and Pike's cabin on the same deck. Pike's cabin would be one later converted to VIP quarters or maybe junior officers. The room the Karidians stay in that uses part of Pikes cabin wall looks like it could be a shared junior officer's stateroom.

So some progress on what the interior of the pilot version might have looked like. Just no drawings to show it yet.