Andrew Probert and Rick Sternbach: The New Enterprise

[Captain X]

With airlocks and transporters they wouldn't have to depressurize and repressurize much, if at all.

Both would have limitations as far as size goes, airlocks definitely so, and as far as transporters go, I'm just guessing they can only transport something up to a certain size.

And in a vacuum you'd have a whole other set of problems - like working in spacesuits for months on end,

Actually I'm guessing they'd work in shifts.

and death.

Look out, a wrench just fell on your head. Oh look, you're dead.

Why is it so easy for you to imagine a vacuum-only construction job, but not a planet-based construction followed by a boost, whole or in sections, by anti-grav tugs?

I never said I was entirely uncomfortable with planet-based construction of components as long as final assembly took place in orbit, I simply pointed out that when you have capability to build them in a pressurized space station while still doing the final assembly in an open gantry it would be easier to do so.

 

[JuanBolio]

I agree that it would be best to built in a pressurized drydock over a planet's surface or an open spacedock... sadly that's the one thing we've never, ever seen.

 

[Captain X]

Cool, now all someone needs to do is talk the showrunners into actually showing it.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

TGT, answering the Van Allen radiation belt question, doesn't the data on this web site support the previous wikipedia article:

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/tour/vanallen.html

In fact, I just realized that Essential Spaceflight Dynamics and Magnetospherics is from the Earth's center, not its surface. That would mean wikipedia was correct, but you are incorrect?

http://books.google.com/books?id=m2...Dynamics+and+Magnetospherics&pg=PP1#PPA316,M1

My apologies, but I should have been more precise (imprecision is often a byproduct of posting with a hangover). I was referring to the component of the IVARB possessing trapped protons with kinetic energies > 10 MeV which, as Rauschenbakh et al note, is confined to within ~1.6 - 1.9 Earth radii or 3826.881 km - 5740.322 km above the Earth's surface if one uses the equatorial value.

TGT

 

[ancient]

Holy crap, there's just no getting away from this inane arguement, is there? Man, I didn't expect to see 3 pages of this damn stuff again. This is getting to be worse than the whole "welders of the future" nonsense that went on several months ago. I expected at least this thread not to devolve into pages of Where I Believe Spaceships Will Be Assembled In 300 Years in a Fictional Universe and Why You Are Doing it Wrong Part MCXXIV.

 

[largo]

this is the internet. its PURPOSE is stupid retarded arguments.

 

[Tigger]

Building the ship on the ground is not Star Trek. That's Robotech.

Well the SDF-1 Macross was already on the ground when they started re-building it. And the gravity-resist systems did punch through the hull shortly after lift-off due to their attachment structure being insufficient to support the entire mass of the vessel.

Fortunately, they figured that little problem out by the time they built the Megaroad in 2012.

 

[erifah]

I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on the new design?

Personally I don't like the secondary hulls proportions and the fact that it's been moved forward. The design also seems to have a squashed feeling to me.

Okay,... it's my turn.

I FRIGGIN' HATE IT! ... was my kneejerk reaction. I simply couldn't believe that J.J. A. would screw with us this way... nothing made any logical progression sense. This is NOT what a pre-TOS Enterprise would look like. It's like re-filming the Titanic disaster but using the QE-2 instead. Once again, we have another Hollywood swell-head putting his illogical my-way-is-oh-soooo-cool twist on redoing cinematic history.

But I kept looking at everything,... the sets, the ship exterior, the new trailer. Why would he have a bridge that was obviously visually advanced from what it was to precede? What was up with the bizarre stylistic collision of the ship's exterior? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???

A possible answer might be that J.J.A.'s mission is to "reset" the Trek universe for a new audience while trying to appease us old die-hard fans... probably not a great idea. I was there, back when Star Trek aired for the first time in 1966. My wife & I even protested with signs on the steps of NBC when they wanted to cancel it. Why? Because that show totally advanced Science Fiction with a ship that was powered by more than rocket flames shooting out the back. They had transporters, shuttlecraft, awesome ray-guns, a bridge unlike any I had ever seen, and a totally mixed crew including an alien. Those of you who aren't old enough to understand how utterly advanced Star Trek was back then cannot appreciate what I'm really saying... and that's okay, time & styles march on. As much as I still love it,... that original Star Trek has become rather 'camp' over the years and many of the advanced features of that show have been technologically surpassed already. Others, still unachievable, have been absorbed into our collective culture as things that will surely happen one day soon.

By resetting Star Trek, J.J.A. is probably trying to give this new generation of fans an upgraded version of what I felt forty three years ago. Where I think he might have gone wrong here was trying to appease us older guys. One way to do that would be to include elements from Trek's past, like that saucer... bad idea. That's what is throwing us, I think, because it clashes so badly with the new elements. Now I'm not going to get into all the new sets, as slick & shinny as they are (no comforting surfaces whatsoever, that I can see),... but I do think that they should have taken the ship's exterior ALL the way to hip-happening-ville, instead of only half way... and I've scribbled out kind of what I'm thinking.

I mean if you're resetting everything, then go for it.

For now, I'll leave it at that, and not even mention that the new shuttles look like Winnabegos with old fashioned jet engines stuck on.

Andrew-

Come, come, Mr. Scott. Young minds, fresh ideas. Be tolerant!

 

[JoeRalat]

What do you of the graphics bridge graphics? I See that Rick and Andrew are hear, what about Mr. Okuda.

Thanks
Joe R.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I agree that it would be best to built in a pressurized drydock over a planet's surface or an open spacedock... sadly that's the one thing we've never, ever seen.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, we have. In ST-III. The fact that it's pressurized is indisputable... there is no other explanation for the interior searchlight beams having been visible.

The BIG MISTAKE that I think people are making (and something which is never the case in real life) is that a ship is built, in its entirety, in one spot.

It makes perfect sense for subsystems and subcomponents to be built on the ground in some situations. It makes perfect sense for other subsystems and subcomponents to be built in zero-g and in a vacuum. And it makes perfect sense for still other subsystems and subcomponents to be built in zero-g but with an atmosphere. (And the same goes for the various assembly steps.)

Hell, it's totally plausible for the nacelles to be built at the Betelguese Engine Works, Inc... the main computer to be built at the Daystrom Institute, Alpha Centauri, the bridge module to be built at Jeffries Naval Works, and so forth... ie, not only not in one "spacedock" but not even in one star system.

 

[Ptrope]

One of the Ships of the Line calendars actually had a great picture of a ship coming together out of major components, in spacedock, rather than being built from the keel up in space. With things like workbees, as well as robotics and telematics, assembling a ship in space, out of components, might be difficult, but probably a lot more plausible than being built literally from the ground up and then lifting into orbit. Even with anti-gravity, the energy costs would be inconceivable for something of the mass of Enterprise.

As for the argument that the ship itself has artificial gravity and so should be able to withstand natural gravity, the artificial gravity only affects the internal content; keeping people and things stuck to the deck is a whole different beast from supporting the entire weight of the saucer or of the nacelles from a point so near their ends. Gravity isn't the enemy in all of the structure of the ship - it's the enemy in all that negative space between the ship components and the ground.

 

[David cgc]

Even with anti-gravity, the energy costs would be inconceivable for something of the mass of Enterprise.

If your faster-than-light, zero-to-full-impulse-in-twelve-seconds starship doesn't have the fuel capacity to handle a continuous acceleration of just ten meters per second per second, how is it going to get to Alpha Centauri?

keeping people and things stuck to the deck is a whole different beast from supporting the entire weight of the saucer or of the nacelles from a point so near their ends.

If your structural-integrity-fielded, million-ton starship can't handle the stress of an acceleration of just ten meters per second per second, how is it going to maneuver or take a photon torpedo hit without popping apart at the seams?

 

[JuanBolio]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, we have. In ST-III. The fact that it's pressurized is indisputable... there is no other explanation for the interior searchlight beams having been visible.

Assuming you're right, what ship did we ever see being built inside it?

 

[Vance]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, we have. In ST-III. The fact that it's pressurized is indisputable... there is no other explanation for the interior searchlight beams having been visible.

Assuming you're right, what ship did we ever see being built inside it?

The Enterprise-D

 

[Manticore]

Even with anti-gravity, the energy costs would be inconceivable for something of the mass of Enterprise.

If your faster-than-light, zero-to-full-impulse-in-twelve-seconds starship doesn't have the fuel capacity to handle a continuous acceleration of just ten meters per second per second, how is it going to get to Alpha Centauri?

keeping people and things stuck to the deck is a whole different beast from supporting the entire weight of the saucer or of the nacelles from a point so near their ends.

If your structural-integrity-fielded, million-ton starship can't handle the stress of an acceleration of just ten meters per second per second, how is it going to maneuver or take a photon torpedo hit without popping apart at the seams?

Exactly. We see Trek ships routinely suffer stresses that make staying on or lifting off from a planet look like nothing. Hell, the NX-01 flew around inside a gas giant, while under fire, for a few hours with nothing worse to show from it save some turbulence.

I can't say as I'm the biggest fan of assembly on the surface from a practicality standpoint, but I feel that the shot of Kirk looking at her is worth it.

 

[JuanBolio]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, we have. In ST-III. The fact that it's pressurized is indisputable... there is no other explanation for the interior searchlight beams having been visible.

Assuming you're right, what ship did we ever see being built inside it?

The Enterprise-D

I'm not sure that scene was meant to depict a pressurized drydock, but okay. There's one in a row.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Building the ship on the ground is not Star Trek. That's Robotech.

That's not buliding a ship, that's a ground test facility. Active ships that actually go somewhere are built in the orbital spacedocks.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Assuming you're right, what ship did we ever see being built inside it?

The Enterprise-D

I'm not sure that scene was meant to depict a pressurized drydock, but okay. There's one in a row.

Did you not read the rest of my post? To assume I'm saying "ships are built, in their entirety, inside of the Spacedock facility" would be to totally ignore what was actually said.

SOME PORTIONS OF THE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS might be better-suited for that pressurized, zero-g environment. Others might be better-suited for the zero-g, vacuum environment of the TMP drydock. Others still might be better suited for planetary-surfaces. And to assume that the entire construction process would be done in just one situation is utter nonsense.

 

[Gepard]

That's not buliding a ship, that's a ground test facility. Active ships that actually go somewhere are built in the orbital spacedocks.

And you know this...how?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Comments from Mike Okuda the first time this issue came up waaaaaaaaay back when, juxtaposed with the pics of the Utopia Planitia Orbital Spacedocks, which included a certain Galaxy class starship of some reknown...