What was the point in the 1701 refit?

[Richard S. Ta]

From a real-world point of view, obviously the desire was to create an updated Enterprise for the movies... I get that.

But in universe... How is it not more efficient just to manufacture a new ship? They had to gut every corridor, every console, every system and conduit... all the whatnots. I can just about accept that. But then, if your'e going to make huge alterations to the exterior too then essentially a new ship is already being built. In and out.

So why do it? Why bother ripping everything out of the Enterprise and replacing the hull and much of the superstructure for the sake of a refit? Why not just use the time and materials to build a brand new ship?

The differences are significant:



A few other things:

Are there any real world precedents where this was done on a similar scale with a naval vessel/aircraft or spacecraft?

And finally, how does it even work? They park above Mars at the docks or whatever and just get the little DSC robots go at it? How long does it take?

It all reminds me about the story about the parts of a thing being replaced over time, to the extent that eventually the thing contains none of its' original parts. Is it still the same thing?

Is an axe that has head handle and head replaced still the axe you originally owned?

Is the refit Enterprise still the Enterprise?

Thank you, I'm here all week.

 

[Seven of Five]

Your mention of whether it's the same ship despite an extensive refit made me think of Trigger.

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Personally, I was young when I first watched, and then rewatched the films, and just accepted things at face value because I didn't know any better.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It depends how much of the Enterprise is really changed in the refit. You could argue it's just the nacelles, engineering, the deflector and bridge and that the rest is "reimagined" like Strange New Worlds and Discovery. In that case it's a plausible upgrade. But otherwise... they might as well have built a new ship.

 

[shivkala]

How long does it take?

This one is easy, it's in the script:

Admiral, the Enterprise has just finished eighteen months redesigning and refitting. She needs testing, a shakedown...

This video attempts to explain some of these questions:

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As the video itself says though, it's not meant to be an authoritative source, just an attempt at explaining some of these things.

 

[Citiprime]

Are there any real world precedents where this was done on a similar scale with a naval vessel/aircraft or spacecraft?

During the 1980s, the USS Missouri and the other WWII-era Iowa Class battleships underwent extensive refits in order to be reactivated after being decommissioned for almost 30 years. The ships had to have modern radar systems installed, missile launchers, and Phalanx CIWS.

They were decommissioned again after the end of the Cold War, but there’s still a little debate among military analysts as to whether the U.S. military should have something akin to their 16-inch guns in our inventory, since the Marine Corps has at times argued the Navy lacks the ability to offer offshore shelling support to any amphibious landing.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Personally, I was young when I first watched, and then rewatched the films, and just accepted things at face value because I didn't know any better.

Same. I only just thought about this question today and I first saw TOS movies in the mid-eighties.

It depends how much of the Enterprise is really changed in the refit. You could argue it's just the nacelles, engineering, the deflector and bridge and that the rest is "reimagined" like Strange New Worlds and Discovery. In that case it's a plausible upgrade. But otherwise... they might as well have built a new ship.

I mean... just the nacelles, engineering, the deflector, the bridge... it's still a massive undertaking... the nacelles alone are 150+ metres each...

This one is easy, it's in the script:

This video attempts to explain some of these questions:

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As the video itself says though, it's not meant to be an authoritative source, just an attempt at explaining some of these things.

Thank you, I'll watch that later tonight when I'm high.

During the 1980s, the USS Missouri and the other WWII-era Iowa Class battleships underwent extensive refits in order to be reactivated after being decommissioned for almost 30 years. The ships had to have modern radar systems installed, missile launchers, and Phalanx CIWS.

Interesting. Serious question, did they tear off and replace the hull or alter the superstructure significantly?

 

[Forbin]

There are indeed real world examples. There are a lot of ships in naval history that have had their hulls gutted and rebuilt as completely different vessels. What comes to mind first are some of the first aircraft carriers. Many of them started out as cruisers, and their various governments realized that carriers were the coming thing, and used these cruisers as basis for carriers. America's first carrier, the USS Langley, started out a collier, IIRC.

Also look at the first ironclads. Remember the Monitor vs Merrimac story from the US Civil War? The Merrimac was a USN ship that was burned to the waterline to prevent capture. The Confederates salvaged it and built it into a steam-powered ironclad (renamed the CSS Virginia).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Virginia

 

[Forbin]

Interesting. Serious question, did they tear off and replace the hull or alter the superstructure significantly?

I can't recall which, but I think one of the battleships had its aft turret and superstructure removed and replaced with a helicopter landing deck.

 

[Lord Garth]

The ship was 25 years old (2245-2270), probably in need of renovation, the tech was probably becoming old or obsolete, they wanted to update everything, someone got overzealous, and we ended up with the TMP Refit.

"I know engineers! They love to change things!"

This makes sense in the context of the TOS Movies. Because by 2285, the Excelsior was the Hot New Thing and the Enterprise was relegated to training and the trash heap.

Starships in the late-23rd Century are like cellphones in the early-21st, apparently. Wait six months and then, "It's so old!" The Enterprise-A only made it seven years and the bridge looked different every movie it was in!

EDITED TO ADD: This actually makes things changing so little during the first half of the 24th Century look even more ridiculous, the more you think about what things were like immediately before it. Honestly, they could've set the first two seasons of DSC in the early-24th Century and no one would've bat an eye. If you watch all the TOS Movies, then put on DSC Season 1 and pretend it's "25 years later" (like it was in Real Time), it actually works. If anything it works better because then something would've actually been done with this timeframe, design-wise.

 

[1001001]

Moving to Trek Tech

 

[Albertese]

Also it could have been something to do with off-screen political shenanigans. Like imagine thee Federation council refuses authorization for enough new builds in the 2270-2275 fiscal season, so to get around the limits, a ship is stripped down the keel and rebuilt whole and called a "refit."

But I also like the idea mentioned upthread that the refit was less extensive than it looked, but the movie ship was more just "reimagined." Although, remember that Kirk couldn't find a turoshaft when he first came on board so extensive internal changes seem to have been made in any scenario.

--Alex

 

[DarrenTR1970]

HMS Victorious (R38) - Wikipedia

Albany-class cruiser - Wikipedia

These were the two ships that immediately came to mind with the OP asked the question. The ships were basically gutted and rebuilt from the keel up.

I thought about posting interwar vessels, but those upgrades/modernizations were the results of the London and Washington Naval Treaties.

In my head canon - the Organian Peace Treaty was similar to the Washington and London Naval treaties in that it limited construction on certain types of starships for a number of years, and reduced the sizes of both fleets through mothballing and scrapping.

Therefore, Starfleet and the Klingons had to upgrade existing ships rather than build new ones, resulting in the Enterprise being heavily modified. The Excelsior could be the seen as the first new Starship construction in a couple of decades, with the Excelsiors replacing the Constitutions on a one-to-one basis as they came on line.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Thanks all who've come back with real-world examples of ships have internal and external structure reconfigured. It's really interesting.

So the process, in my imagination at least, goes something like:

1) Arrive in space dock and shut everything down.
2) Strip out interior assets such as panels, furnishings, consoles, warp core and other systems.
3) Remove nacelles and strip outer hull plating.
4) Extend/Shorten/Reshape various parts of the 'skeleton' which formed the original superstructure.
5) Rebuild interior spaces according to new design and install new furnishings, consoles, warp core etc.
6) Attach new nacelles* and rebuild ships exterior.
7) Lights on and party!

*This assumes a certain modularity on my part. The TMP nacelles are so different in form to the originals that they must be new pieces entirely in my mind and as they are ubiquitous to the time-period then I'm guessing both nacelles and pylons are 100% new sections.

Has this process ever been detailed in a source canon/non-canon?

In my head canon - the Organian Peace Treaty was similar to the Washington and London Naval treaties in that it limited construction on certain types of starships for a number of years, and reduced the sizes of both fleets through mothballing and scrapping.

Therefore, Starfleet and the Klingons had to upgrade existing ships rather than build new ones, resulting in the Enterprise being heavily modified. The Excelsior could be the seen as the first new Starship construction in a couple of decades, with the Excelsiors replacing the Constitutions on a one-to-one basis as they came on line.

Now that's my head canon too. Marvellous!

 

[Forbin]

Sort of like flipping a house.

 

[Tenacity]

Why not just use the time and materials to build a brand new ship?

Renovating an existing ship might have been cheaper and faster than producing a ship from scratch. Starfleet might have had a large number of older ships that they were looking to update, and needed to see what would be involved after studies to do a actual ship.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I like to think that the Enterprise's refit was originally going to be much more minor, but there were several new system and design advancements in development at the time and some admiral (not Kirk likely) decided those could be incorporated into the ship. So what started out as a fairly standard refit wound up being a redesign and upgrade of the entire vessel. There are probably traces of the original ship still in the refit, but only in a few internal spaceframe members here and there, IMO.

 

[XCV330]

In the very dawn of airplane aviation, in Britain, the Army Balloon Factory (later the Royal Aircraft Factory) was given occasional permission to try new heavier-than-air craft designs, but rarely, and there was little money allotted to it. The government was fixated on airships and wanted the staff to concentrate on that. The desigers though, a colorful bunch including de Havilland, Samuel Cody, and Folland, knew the future was in aircraft. But they were not allowed to create many new aircraft.

No problem. When they were done testing one or it crashed, it was never retired. It was rebuilt. The new improved version might have no common parts or design. Maybe bolts, wires or an engine would make it into the new "version", but it would have the same name. The government would foot the bill for repairs, unangered that invention and tinkering might be going on behind its back. It makes for some confusing early aeronautical history.

maybe the refits were a way of getting around a "no new starships" mandate. just an idea.

 

[Deks]

By the 23rd century, UFP has molecular manufacturing capabilities on a pretty large scale.
They also recycle EVERYTHING they can.
As such, I would imagine that refitting a ship in a way the 1701 was done is not too problematic and would in fact be similar to rebuilding it from the ground up (but using pre-existing matter that the original 1701 had - just modified to be 'refreshed').

Think of it like this, the 1701 refit was for all intents and purposes almost like a brand new ship... but it was made from the old 1701.

Who says its easier to construct a brand new ship? Designing a new ship can take years before its ready to be constructed (the time it spends on the drawing board). This was an adjustment of a preexisting Constitution class which upgraded the design to be in line with modern technology standards - and is arguably faster to do rather than having to come up with a completely new design.

I would imagine a ship would undergo similar transformations every 50 odd years (depending if there are breakthroughs in overal structural design for that [and other] class of ships, and whether it has a purpose in augmenting modern Warp drives, and other technologies).

If the 1701 refit hadn't been blown up, the same ship could technically be upgraded for the next 1000 years using the same base materials which are broken down into base elements and remade into modern materials and shape of a given era, until you end up with the 32nd century version of the Constitution class and Enterprise (of course, the vessels with the same name have an unfortunate track record by being blown up - as do many other ships - It's possible we'd be hard pressed in finding a ship in UFP which managed to not get blown up over the course of 1000 years - but hey who knows... the USS Prometheus, or rather that class of ships was still in use in the 26th century alternate timeline in a battle with the Sphere Builders - along with a Dauntless class).

The superstructure could also be refreshed over time (every 50 odd years... easily done with transporters and replicators in the 24th century (before then, with molecular manufacturing as opposed to replicators) - or in bits over smaller cycles during maintenance overhauls and repair cycles.

I would imagine that all those regular maintenance cycles keep the ship and superstructure in top form (which would be necessary if they were in combat and certain things needed to be rebuilt - VOY had to rebuild the Warp coils in the early seasons from an act of sabotage - I suspect that if a ship is in service for a long period of time, its similarly 'rebuilt' piece by piece as necessary).

Given how many hull breaches VOY had over the course of 7 years (or any other ship for that matter), the vessel probably wasn't the 'original' anymore after the first 7, years given how much stuff was changed, replaced and upgraded in that time frame - it would be like a human body replacing dying/old cells every 7-15 years, so by this time, your body is mostly a brand new one.

Major maintenance overhauls seem to occur once every 7 years or so... with minor ones occuring every 3.5 to 4 years (roughly).

Looking at the USS Lakota (an upgraded Excelsior class)... for the most part, the ship's internal systems went through a major overhaul prior to the Dominion War and made it as powerful as the Defiant (without using ablative armour no less)... and I would imagine that the design was further upgraded in the 25th century like the Excelsior was to bring it up to date to that design modification - so in the 25th century, the USS Lakota likely looks like the USS Excelsior of that era we saw in ST: Picard).

 

[Falconer]

The ship was 25 years old

Later sources maybe asserted that, but at the time that TMP was made, the Enterprise was established to be at least 44 years old.

 

[STEPhon IT]

From a real-world point of view, obviously the desire was to create an updated Enterprise for the movies... I get that.

But in universe... How is it not more efficient just to manufacture a new ship? They had to gut every corridor, every console, every system and conduit... all the whatnots. I can just about accept that. But then, if your'e going to make huge alterations to the exterior too then essentially a new ship is already being built. In and out.

So why do it? Why bother ripping everything out of the Enterprise and replacing the hull and much of the superstructure for the sake of a refit? Why not just use the time and materials to build a brand new ship?

The differences are significant:



A few other things:

Are there any real world precedents where this was done on a similar scale with a naval vessel/aircraft or spacecraft?

And finally, how does it even work? They park above Mars at the docks or whatever and just get the little DSC robots go at it? How long does it take?

It all reminds me about the story about the parts of a thing being replaced over time, to the extent that eventually the thing contains none of its' original parts. Is it still the same thing?

Is an axe that has head handle and head replaced still the axe you originally owned?

Is the refit Enterprise still the Enterprise?

Thank you, I'm here all week.

It was almost as if art was imitating life with NASA and its space program where the space capsule was this durable, incredible spacecraft which could do and go anywhere, and then transitioned to a space shuttle which couldn't perform a 3rd from the previous spacecraft, literally devolved any evolution for space advancement for next 60 years. The Starship Class, I thought, this super ship could do anything; it moved fast and was elegant, while the Constitution Class 1st introduced in TMP limped right out of the gate as a thing that barely works.

Barely managing to survive in its sequel TWOK and was destroyed in the third, these kinds of things don't make me believe all of the so-called refitting made the vessel better but a lot worse. I couldn't understand why the Constitution Class vessel couldn't be established dead center in outer space exploring but now I realized it wasn't designed to do such a thing which was why I saw it always launching from Earth. It was designed to be a part timer while the Starship Class was made to last.