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The E-D was built on the ground, don't see why The 1701 couldn't

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It was clearly a mistake for the U.S. Government to organize its successful Moon missions without consulting sf fans about the most reasonable approach. Just because NASA's way worked proves nothing. ;)

Hey! We all know that GR was way, way more of an expert on space travel than those NASA losers.

I will e-mail NASA right away and tell them to stop violating Trek canon.

If you could be troubled to read any accounts of the space program (or failing that, watch a dramatization of same), you might see that all of these various approaches were considered early on.

And then we decided it would be more fun to watch something entertaining. Rather than offering up expert analysis of a 30 second trailer sequence which reveals that the Future is foggy. And also sparky. And it's nighttime. And Aaagggh! The nacelles are too big!!!!!

Noooooooooooooooo....deep breath...ooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Damn writers and their drama.

DAMN YOU, DRAMA!
 
^^ Actually, the "Alias/Xena guys" said (in the same interview with the "balancing the warp nacelles in a gravity well" quote) that what we saw in the trailer could have been just the individual components being built, with final assembly happening in space (which would explain why the nacelles looked to be in an odd position to the saucer).

Which doesn't explain why you'd want to have your shiny new engineering and primary hulls right next to something filled w/ antimatter that you're calibrating on the ground,

A. wouldn't the antimatter be in the shiny new engineering hull?
B. why would they fill the ship with antimatter before they finish construction?

in an environment that is probably less safe than vaccuum (shock waves don't propigate in vaccuum.)
a hundred tons of flaming tritenium (or whatever the hell the hull is made of) can propagate very well in vacuum...:devil:

Disregarding the second part since it sounds like bs, how would you calibrate the engines if you didn't have anything to put through them?
 
Disregarding the second part since it sounds like bs, how would you calibrate the engines if you didn't have anything to put through them?

The warp plasma would probably be fed to the drives through a drydock umbilical (and no, the reactor on ground needn't necessarily be m/am, so no risk).
 
Which doesn't explain why you'd want to have your shiny new engineering and primary hulls right next to something filled w/ antimatter that you're calibrating on the ground,

A. wouldn't the antimatter be in the shiny new engineering hull?
B. why would they fill the ship with antimatter before they finish construction?

in an environment that is probably less safe than vaccuum (shock waves don't propigate in vaccuum.)
a hundred tons of flaming tritenium (or whatever the hell the hull is made of) can propagate very well in vacuum...:devil:

Disregarding the second part since it sounds like bs,
Excuse me? Let me dumb it down for you: If the nacelle blows up, it really doesn't matter if the ship is vacuum or not. The damage that the flying debris will cause will be the same (probably less so in an atmosphere then in vacuum).
how would you calibrate the engines if you didn't have anything to put through them?

Dummy load, or some other technobable crap:
The warp plasma would probably be fed to the drives through a drydock umbilical (and no, the reactor on ground needn't necessarily be m/am, so no risk).
 
Okay, just speculating here, but...

I think that the NX was largely assembled in space (from components built on Earth, packet into crates and lifted, and/or components built from material mined in space) because at the time Earth didn't have a heavy lift vehicle large enough to tow the entire finished craft into orbit.

The nacelles may have been built whole on Earth, or the Moon, then lifted to the dry dock - but the entire ship, it was easier to build in space.

Now, those older arrow-head shaped ships, those could have been built all on Earth, and then lifted up on their own power - but probably not the NX-01/02.

(That ignores the NX-01 hovering in the air like a UFO in that space Nazi episode...but then again, the NX-Alpha & Beta's were launched in rails and with rockets, while in the Borg episode, we saw a ship that appeared to use antigravity - so ENT has never consistent on this. Those shuttlepods would *have* to use some anti-gravity - but they also had some sort of thrusters, and that in itself is a walking - well, flying - inconstancy.)

Now, but TOS' time, perhaps the capacity existed to build large parts on the ground, and then lift them to orbit, so the parts of the ship were maybe built on the ground, maybe even assembled for testing, and then hauled (in large peices) to orbit for final assembly but some fancy new anti-grav heavy lifter.

In fact, in one older Trek novel, it was said that the "box-docks" we saw in TMP and TWoK, could be lowered to the ground - and back up again - *while* cradling a ship - using antigravity. (Beams to hold the ship in place, others to lower and raise the entire dock.)

(Don't even *ask* me how Spacedock was built.)

Buy TNG's eara, the infrastructure was firmly in place for large-scale, safe, spaced-based construction, from the keel up. So mostly that's what we saw.

Voyager *could* have been built on the ground, I suppose, and maybe even the Defiant, and both launched on their own power.

Maybe Starfleet even experiments with both types of construction - ground and spaced based. And that's why we saw a ship in pieces on the ground - but I think more it was likely a components testing facility. But by the 24th century, for sure, most of the materials to build a ship were probably mined in space, and the alloys mixed there. (I imagine then even back in ENT's time, a lot of those alloys were manufactured in zero-g, and couldn't be made on Earth.)

Now...as for wielding...well, I consider the trailer a metaphor. A cool one, I like what it invoked...but I don't take it literally. In ENT we saw that outer hull segments were snap-together - and that makes sense to make ships as modular as possible. (And even in that VOY pic of a Galaxy class being built in space...seems to ignore the accepted idea that the bridge is an interchangeable *module*, not a part of the superstructure.)

Anyway, I imagine that if any "wielding" is done, it's by something fancy like the "fusion torches" mentioned in the TNG tech manual (not real fusion I assume, or the safety gear would be kind bulky)...or maybe post ENT ships were built using some kind or seamless wielding technique where parts were atomically bonded together, and those bonds could be broken or re-assembled by some fancy flashing gizmo that creates or dissolves molecular bonds. Still modular, in a sense - with the right tools - but more sturdy overall.

Probably some of the interior superstructure, the "ribs", on the NX-01 was wielded together somehow, but the outer hull was mostly modular. Probably not magnetic locks, those could be disrupted easily...but something locking like we saw on tv.)

But for the teaser, wielding just looked cool, and captured a certain "feel".
 
In fact, in one older Trek novel, it was said that the "box-docks" we saw in TMP and TWoK, could be lowered to the ground - and back up again - *while* cradling a ship - using antigravity. (Beams to hold the ship in place, others to lower and raise the entire dock.)

throwup.gif


TGT
 
Why does it matter whether the Enterprise was built in space or on the Earth?
If it makes for some drama and interesting visuals, I'm all for it - (pseudo-)science and thought-games be damned.
 
Why does it matter whether the Enterprise was built in space or on the Earth?

The short answer (and the only one I'm willing to invest in at this point) is that it points in a GENERAL direction to whether we're watching STAR WARS or STAR TREK. One where there are no connections to reality or attempt at grounding fantasy, and the other where there were occasional attempts to do so, using science advisers when it didn't cripple the drama.
 
Let me dumb it down for you: If the nacelle blows up, it really doesn't matter if the ship is vacuum or not. The damage that the flying debris will cause will be the same (probably less so in an atmosphere then in vacuum).

That might be the most foolish post yet in this thread, which if you skim through it, is saying a helluva lot.

Ever seen atom bomb footage? There you go. Also, this would be a lot bigger.

Unless you're doing your engine testing in the arctic and don't care about the environment (meaning THE PLANET) in the slightest, the vaporizing part of the blast would eat a lot of landscaping. That's apart from your 'flying debris.'
 
Why does it matter whether the Enterprise was built in space or on the Earth?
If it makes for some drama and interesting visuals, I'm all for it - (pseudo-)science and thought-games be damned.

Exactly. Star Trek is not a documentary, it has chicks in tiny skirts and space battles. I'd say those elements are vastly more important than explaining how ships with imaginary engines will be built 300 years from now.

Getting all sciency on it is pointless. It probably won't even be in the f***ing movie.
 
Let me dumb it down for you: If the nacelle blows up, it really doesn't matter if the ship is vacuum or not. The damage that the flying debris will cause will be the same (probably less so in an atmosphere then in vacuum).

That might be the most foolish post yet in this thread, which if you skim through it, is saying a helluva lot.

Ever seen atom bomb footage? There you go. Also, this would be a lot bigger.

Unless you're doing your engine testing in the arctic and don't care about the environment (meaning THE PLANET) in the slightest, the vaporizing part of the blast would eat a lot of landscaping. That's apart from your 'flying debris.'

I was refering to this:
Which doesn't explain why you'd want to have your shiny new engineering and primary hulls right next to something filled w/ antimatter that you're calibrating on the ground,

And once again, I don't see why you should put antimatter in the ship while it is still underconstruction.
 
This shouldn't really be an issue.

Being free of any on-screen canon that could dictate otherwise, the creators of this new WORK OF FICTION have decided to talk about a way that the Ship could have been built on Earth -- and the explanation was just as pseudo-scientific and full of scientific inaccuracies as any explanation Star Trek has ever given us -- but so what, since it is fiction. It just needs to make enough sense to be accepted as being plausible.

It's irrelevant if it is the best way the build a Starship...it only has to be a plausible way to build one -- and I think Orci's and Kurtzman's explanation is plausible (albeit not the seemingly most effective way to do it.)

But so far, they are onlyu talking about the construction. We don't know if the manner in which the ship was constructed WILL be part of the film. if we DO see the construction in this film, then it becomes part of Star Trek canon. If we don't, then nothing Orci and Kurtzman has said about the construction is officially canon...and the next movie's creative team would have the chance (if they want) to explain on film how the Enterprise was built.
 
Why does it matter whether the Enterprise was built in space or on the Earth?
If it makes for some drama and interesting visuals, I'm all for it - (pseudo-)science and thought-games be damned.

Exactly. Star Trek is not a documentary, it has chicks in tiny skirts and space battles. I'd say those elements are vastly more important than explaining how ships with imaginary engines will be built 300 years from now.

Getting all sciency on it is pointless. It probably won't even be in the f***ing movie.

Look, igf GR, who was happy to play fast and loose w/ science if it got in he way of a story, felt it necessary to stress that the E was built in space in countless behind-the-scene sources...

Forget it.
 
Come on.

The trailer was pretty much a metaphor, inspired by that picture of the Enterprise photoshopped onto a shipyard, designed to appeal to people who might not have checked out a Star Trek movie before (...Honey, what's this welding movie about..?).

Whether the ship was built in orbit or not is not likely to be one of the central themes to this movie. If we'd just had a bunch of guys in spacesuits laser-welding the thing together in spacedock (which is what we were expecting), that trailer would have had far less punch, and would have probably put the general public off ("Oh, that looks like every other Star Trek movie - spaceships and lasers...")

And before people say "this movie should apeal to the fans", I say don't talk rubbish. This movie needs to be sucessful.

Or there won't be another.

People forget that Star Trek used to blaze a trail, not recycle itself. ;)
 
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