Why not just use the pilot design?

[trekkerguy]

First of, by the 23rd century people aren't enlightened yet, that that happen until another century later.

As for "staying on a planet, stuck until it get blown to bits by its star", well there's this thing that they didn't, they went out and colonized the moon, mars, they built fleets of starships. And they colonized onward, eventually to the point of forming the Maquis.

But more importantly, people staying on a planet because they are "enlightened" would mean they cared about nothing that existed in the universe except sitting on that planet. These types of folks would not build fleets of starships. They wouldn't go out and explore. And as a result, they would also care nothing about enjoying say, the days with children. They would not let them watch a movie, enjoy a holodeck, a book, a theme park, visit other planets, and go to enjoyable things in place that children would like to do. They emotionless monsters that deny their children everything because it wouldn't be the enlightened thng to do.

What a fantastically optimistic view of the future! (Incidentally, it doesn't seem very enlightened to me either, I hope it doesn't to you the same way.

 

[Sci]

Posted by 3D Master:
First of, by the 23rd century people aren't enlightened yet, that that happen until another century later.

I think you're taking the "enlightenment" concept a little too literally here. It's a term used to refer to the change in social values that led to the unification of Earth and the Federation, not to a specific historic event with a specific moment in time. The TOS characters were no less enlightened than the TNG ones.

As for "staying on a planet, stuck until it get blown to bits by its star", well there's this thing that they didn't, they went out and colonized the moon, mars, they built fleets of starships. And they colonized onward, eventually to the point of forming the Maquis.

Right. But any society will have diversity of life choices. There are obviously going to be large segments of society that travel through interstellar space, large segments that only travel within their home systems, and large segments that stay on-planet. And there's nothing wrong with any of those choices.

But more importantly, people staying on a planet because they are "enlightened" would mean they cared about nothing that existed in the universe except sitting on that planet.

.... why? My grandmother has spent most of her life in my hometown, but that doesn't mean she cares for nothing but our little corner of Ohio.

These types of folks would not build fleets of starships. They wouldn't go out and explore.

Again, you're painting all of society with a single brush. Yes, the Federation is a society of explorers -- and it's a society of engineers, of artists, of homemakers, of cooks, of farmers, of all sorts of occupations and objectives that don't necessarily encompass space travel. The notion that only one particular life choice is valid is just bizarre. Or are you going to claim that because most Americans never leave the United States that they therefore must not care about the rest of the world?

And as a result, they would also care nothing about enjoying say, the days with children. They would not let them watch a movie, enjoy a holodeck, a book, a theme park, visit other planets, and go to enjoyable things in place that children would like to do. They emotionless monsters that deny their children everything because it wouldn't be the enlightened thng to do.

....

I think I speak for everyone when I say: What?

My mother doesn't like to travel, but that doesn't mean that she didn't want me to be able to do all those things or to think in terms of the larger world. What's with the stereotyping?

 

[trekkerguy]

^^^ You speak for everyone

 

[SonicRanger]

... space tourism like, space walking, orbital skydiving,... going to inhospitable planets in a fragile space suit because there is beauty there, and skiing down low-gravity worlds with the finest snow you can imagine because its fun, to hell with the fact that only a "thin fragile spacesuit" is in between you and certain death...

Point to one scene in all of Trek that portrays ordinary civilians doing just one of those things.

In Trek, we have, as I mentioned before, humans who are content to run their family vineyard in France and cook using stoves in a New Orleans restaurant.

Have you noticed how those ships do not have pieces free floating next to the base - like say a saucer and nacelles. Do you understand than, that if anything goes wrong with the scaffolding, all it does is tip over the ship, instead of pieces falling down? Do you also understand that construction like this is dangerous and can and has killed people in the past; in short, it's DANGEROUS! Yet, we still do it.

Your reasoning continues to increase in bizarreness.

 

[Sci]

As for the rest of you: I was under the impression, some of you have even said so, that Star Trek was an optimistic view of the future. But apparently to you folks that is not as important as the kewl visual of Kirk riding on a motor cycle up to an Enterprise built on the ground.

It's not about being "kewl." It's about the emotional content of the image: A man longing, quite literally, for something bigger than what his current life allows. Film is a visual art form, and as such that image is an appropriate one to use. For a non-visual art form, another scene might be more appropriate, but for film, it works.

You mean, the same emotional content of the image they could have achieved of Kirk looking out the window of a shuttle craft looking down at "gasp, shock" EARTH - you know, like every astronaut has ever described - and then looking on to the massive space-based construction docks that houses MULTIPLE starships being built?

Actually, I think that would have had significantly less impact.

Look at the camera angle. It's down, low to the ground, staring up at the ship past Kirk. The intent is to convey the sense that Kirk feels trapped -- that he literally feels as though he is stuck on the ground and cannot take off and fly. That visual metaphor is lost in your scenario.

And besides the point, for my money, I'd argue that showing multiple ships being built in a space station in Earth orbit would make Abrams and Co. far more guilty of doing something for the sake of being "kewl" than showing something so literally earthy.

No. Because if you had followed the discussion, you would know, that to require ships being built on the ground, you would need:

people that are scared of space and the unknown, unwilling to go anywhere but stay stuck on a planet, too scared to go on any space tourism like, space walking, orbital skydiving, going to inhospitable planets in a space suit, skiing on low-gravity non-oxygen having worlds in a space suit; it would make them uneducated idiots afraid of their own shadows, afraid of the unknown, not willing to go out and explore (especially not with children in tow a la the Galaxy-Class) and as a result as bad education and fear of the unknown produces bigotry, hate, racism, war, suffering and death; very possibly even to other humans especially those who left Earth in earlier epochs.

Or it would just make them a people who still enjoy living on a planetary surface.

You certainly do try to infer a lot of things on the basis of no evidence, don't you?

Hold on. Someone who chooses not to go into space is an idiot and a scaredy cat? Is someone who prefers a train to an airplane also an idiot and scaredy cat? Does an optimistic future inherently mean better technology? Is there no room for people who prefer less advanced technology in Utopia According To 3D Master?

If you want them to go into space and explore, be educated, not be afraid of the unknown, and as result able to meet other species and befriend them, become the glue between a few of them and build a Federation, yeah.

So the fact that my grandmother doesn't like computers means that she's un-curious, uneducated, afraid of the unknown, incapable of building bridges and friendships with people who are different from her? Goodbye personal freedom in 3DMasterWorld.

It must be so wonderful to know everything and be able to stand in judgment of everyone's lifestyle choices, ever.

 

[JuanBolio]

As I already said, it has NO logical pros.

Yes, you said that. You were, and still are, WRONG.

WE are planning building the ships that'll go to Mars and beyond in space. WE. We with our primitive technology, and with a tiny, tiny, tiny number of people having ever even been into space, let alone know how to space walk. To think that the 23rd century doesn't have what is needed to build in space, is logically ridiculous.

If we have anti-grav technology, building large structures and ships on the ground would preferable.

No, it is not. Something goes wrong in space, nothing happens, something goes wrong on Earth and you get crushed under a falling starship.

WRONG. Something goes wrong in space and you might be killed by a swinging piece of starship that has every bit of mass it would have on the ground only with nothing to slow it down. You could also asphixiate, get radiation poisoning, be blinded by the sun, perforated by micrometeoroids, or any one of a dozen other dreadful fates. Space, even with 23rd centruy technology, is anything but safe.

No, you don't, not by the 23rd century. Here, in our time maybe, but shock, WE are going to build the ships in space.

Only because bossting large masses into orbit is prohibitively expensive and difficult for us.

All who don't pose enough of a threat to stop us from planning the construction of ships to Mars and beyond in space; which means by the 23rd century they are meaningless.

Only because we couldn't possibly build a ship that large on the ground and boost it into space at any reasonable cost.

Because it's safer as the most important reason.

If by safer you mean infinitely more dangerous, you're right. As to your fears about the starship crashing down upon the shipyard - why is it you only use 23rd century tech to boost your own arguments but conveniently forget about them elsewhere? They can manipulate gravity. Throw a switch and the shipyard is becomes zero-G. For all you know they're using gravity nullification to make everything lighter and easier to move the whole time they're building it.

 

[3D Master]

Posted by 3D Master:
First of, by the 23rd century people aren't enlightened yet, that that happen until another century later.

I think you're taking the "enlightenment" concept a little too literally here. It's a term used to refer to the change in social values that led to the unification of Earth and the Federation, not to a specific historic event with a specific moment in time. The TOS characters were no less enlightened than the TNG ones.

As for "staying on a planet, stuck until it get blown to bits by its star", well there's this thing that they didn't, they went out and colonized the moon, mars, they built fleets of starships. And they colonized onward, eventually to the point of forming the Maquis.

Right. But any society will have diversity of life choices. There are obviously going to be large segments of society that travel through interstellar space, large segments that only travel within their home systems, and large segments that stay on-planet. And there's nothing wrong with any of those choices.

But you all just said they DID NOT EXIST. Virtually all of them stayed stuck on a planet was said. There are no people living in space was said. None of them were familiar with space walking was said - only a tiny, tiny number highly trained people could do that was said, nobody would go orbital skydiving was said, nobody would go skiing in low-gravity non-oxygen atmopshere planet was said;

That's why the large majority of the people are low-educated welders and pounders, and that's why there was such an advantage of building on the ground to have those low-educated welders and pounders who don't know how to go to space, and wouldn't care to learn; and this education is obviously SO long and expensive in the future, much more easy to risk a few low-life people in dangerous gravity work.

So what is it, am I right, as you now imply, that there are many people who go into space as one of those myriad of choices - and thus that there are plenty of people who know how to work in space, that it's probably to a lot of people especially those growing up on starships and space stations, that get this training from the time of being children...

Or am I wrong, and there aren't many choices, and only the most high of high educated, a tiny minority, get trained to go into space, and the rest of humanity stays stuck on planets?

.... why? My grandmother has spent most of her life in my hometown, but that doesn't mean she cares for nothing but our little corner of Ohio.

If all of us were like that, would we be going anywhere; like space?

Now imagine if not only would she like to stay there, but she'd refuse to leave even if it's the only way for her to get a job, earn money, and not starve to death.

These types of folks would not build fleets of starships. They wouldn't go out and explore.

Again, you're painting all of society with a single brush. Yes, the Federation is a society of explorers -- and it's a society of engineers, of artists, of homemakers, of cooks, of farmers, of all sorts of occupations and objectives that don't necessarily encompass space travel. The notion that only one particular life choice is valid is just bizarre. Or are you going to claim that because most Americans never leave the United States that they therefore must not care about the rest of the world?

I am not painting society with that brush friend, the others did. I just showed the consequences of that brush.

And as a result, they would also care nothing about enjoying say, the days with children. They would not let them watch a movie, enjoy a holodeck, a book, a theme park, visit other planets, and go to enjoyable things in place that children would like to do. They emotionless monsters that deny their children everything because it wouldn't be the enlightened thng to do.

....

I think I speak for everyone when I say: What?

My mother doesn't like to travel, but that doesn't mean that she didn't want me to be able to do all those things or to think in terms of the larger world. What's with the stereotyping?

How about your father; your brothers, your sisters, your family, every single last one, only you would like to travel. And in other families the ratio would be worse.

That's the the way those who go "there is hardly any space-trained people to choose workers from" go. To them, the amount of people that go into space is no different than today. Large, massive massive, massive majority of people stay stuck on planet, aren't even willing to learn how work in space to get a job there, and thus space ships can't be built in space, to take advantage of all the barely educated scared-cat grunts who have no interest in going to space not even to get a job there to have them build the ships on the ground.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Starfleet just called. They wanted me to say to you, that the now established 'canon' disagrees with you.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. Which one will take precedence, 40 years of relatively consistent background material, or one brain dead movie?

My money's on the four decades of stuff. It's the one movie that's the pretender to the throne.

 

[3D Master]

As I already said, it has NO logical pros.

Yes, you said that. You were, and still are, WRONG.

No, I'm not.

WE are planning building the ships that'll go to Mars and beyond in space. WE. We with our primitive technology, and with a tiny, tiny, tiny number of people having ever even been into space, let alone know how to space walk. To think that the 23rd century doesn't have what is needed to build in space, is logically ridiculous.

If we have anti-grav technology, building large structures and ships on the ground would preferable.

WRONG. Something goes wrong in space and you might be killed by a swinging piece of starship that has every bit of mass it would have on the ground only with nothing to slow it down.

You could also asphixiate, get radiation poisoning, be blinded by the sun, perforated by micrometeoroids, or any one of a dozen other dreadful fates. Space, even with 23rd centruy technology, is anything but safe.

No, there won't be a swinging piece of starship, because it takes something to make that piece swing, and the only thing powerful enough to make that piece swing at great enough speeds to do damage is... GRAVITY, and there's no gravity there. So no, not a problem.

How many astronauts TODAY, with our ridiculously primitive technology and no way to rescue them if that technology fails have been asphyxiated, hit by a micro meteroids, hurt by radiation (and no you don't get killed by radiation easily or quickly), blinded by the sun, and no, not a dozen other dreadful fates, that's it?

Not a one.

It simply is not as big a problem as you think it is. The only reason you make it out to be so horrible, because you're not used to it. It is the unknown, and you're afraid of it. On Earth on the other hand; how many people have not tripped and fell to their deaths in a construction site?

Now, imagine the 23rd century technology protecting people in space (or on the ground for that matter). Something happens to your suit, you have at least minutes, and even as much as hours to be rescued; and with transporters that's oceans of time.

On the ground though, you trip, a few seconds at most before your dead. Something that keeps something up fails? A few seconds later that thing as slammed into the ground and crushed anything in between.

Only because bossting large masses into orbit is prohibitively expensive and difficult for us.

No, not JUST. It's the main starting reason, but once you've wrapped your mind around that we're going to build in space, take a step back and go over it, you realize it's the best way to go, especially with an eye to the future.

All who don't pose enough of a threat to stop us from planning the construction of ships to Mars and beyond in space; which means by the 23rd century they are meaningless.

Only because we couldn't possibly build a ship that large on the ground and boost it into space at any reasonable cost.

First, no, not only, see above. Second, it doesn't really matter. We're talking safety here. And the safety isn't an big enough obstacle to us. In the 23rd century, thus, it'll be non-existent.

Because it's safer as the most important reason.

If by safer you mean infinitely more dangerous, you're right.

Nope, sorry, but you're wrong. Space is not far more dangerous. You're just afraid of it because the world around to you is so much more unknown. But the ways to die and die quickly are far more numerous down here on Earth, than in space.

As to your fears about the starship crashing down upon the shipyard - why is it you only use 23rd century tech to boost your own arguments but conveniently forget about them elsewhere? They can manipulate gravity. Throw a switch and the shipyard is becomes zero-G. For all you know they're using gravity nullification to make everything lighter and easier to move the whole time they're building it.

I'm not friend. I've been talking and talking and talking about WHEN IT FAILS! No technology is without flaw, things always break down. On Earth it fails, and it comes crash down. In space it fails nothing happens. That's what makes space such an ideal place to build especially starships.

 

[JuanBolio]

No, there won't be a swinging piece of starship, because it takes something to make that piece swing, and the only thing powerful enough to make that piece swing at great enough speeds to do damage is... GRAVITY, and there's no gravity there. So no, not a problem.

They have to move the pieces of starship into position, either using tugs or robotic arms. With the sheer mass of some of those pieces, getting hit at even relatively low speeds would be bone-shattering. Also, let's not for get all the safety lines that would be floating around - one of those gets snagged and the guy attached to it is going for a potentially fatal ride.

How many astronauts TODAY, with our ridiculously primitive technology and no way to rescue them if that technology fails have been asphyxiated, hit by a micro meteroids, hurt by radiation (and no you don't get killed by radiation easily or quickly), blinded by the sun, and no, not a dozen other dreadful fates, that's it?

Not a one.

Because there are so damn few. Increase their numbers exponentially, make spacewalking and everyday thing, and you BET there will be deadly accidents. Plenty of 'em.

I'm not friend. I've been talking and talking and talking about WHEN IT FAILS! No technology is without flaw, things always break down. On Earth it fails, and it comes crash down. In space it fails nothing happens. That's what makes space such an ideal place to build especially starships.

Just off the top of my head, what if a thruster gets stuck in the on position, sending the ship and the whole orbital construction facility crashing to Earth? Sheer altitude has its own dangers.

 

[Captain Robert April]

As far as moving large sections around, forget the robotic arms and tugs. TRACTOR BEAMS. Computer controlled, to boot.

Just stay out of the way and nobody gets hurt.

 

[JBElliott]

I'd rather have seen something a lot closer to what was shown in TOS-R. The design is sound and with the right (in my opinion) modifications, it would look great on the big screen. The modifications made by deg3d (see: http://deg3d.biz/) are a great example of what could have been done to "improve" what was done in TOS yet stay true to the design. The version in the new movie just isn't for me.

 

[JuanBolio]

As far as moving large sections around, forget the robotic arms and tugs. TRACTOR BEAMS. Computer controlled, to boot.

Just stay out of the way and nobody gets hurt.

The same could be said of anything used to move the pieces - stay out of the way and nobody gets hurt. But with hundreds of people up there on multiple ships, every day, every year, some poor fool is going to get in the way. To say nothing about what would happen if one large piece collided with another and the whole assembly started to rotate alone an axis or two, or started to fall.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Fall? From orbit? That could take days, which is plenty of time to fix the problem.

 

[JBElliott]

Given what was shown on screen in TOS (the "limitless power" the warp engines, scanning technology, transporter technology, computer power, etc.) it's clear that if they so desired the engineers at Star Fleet could have beamed the Enterprise into existence anywhere they desired. Either in parts or whole.

 

[JuanBolio]

Fall? From orbit? That could take days, which is plenty of time to fix the problem.

Unless the impulse engine or a thruster quad happens to misfire.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think they'd have those bugs worked out long before they tried to install the thing.

Besides, impulse engines use fusion reactors. One of those "misfiring" is a virtual impossibility, mainly due to the number of things that have to be in place and online before it's capable of being anything but a several hundred ton paperweight. As for thrusters, they'd have to be fueled up first, which wouldn't happen until the ship is already built and ready for testing. If you're one of the workers, you're in greater danger from your own handtools.

 

[Sci]

Starfleet just called. They wanted me to say to you, that the now established 'canon' disagrees with you.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. Which one will take precedence, 40 years of relatively consistent background material, or one brain dead movie?

1) Depends on whether or not Star Trek comes to encompass multiple continuities. If it does, there's no need for either one to take precedence. They can both be valid in their respective continuities. (We'll find out if that's what happens this summer.

2) Technically, what is canonical and what is in continuity is whatever the creators of Star Trek decide is canonical and in continuity. That's why episodes like "The Alternate Factor" or "Threshold" and the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier are, for all intents and purposes, no longer canonical: Later creators decided they didn't like the creative choices made in them and so contradicted them (eg, anti-matter destroying the universe, transwarp turning people into newts, and the center of the galaxy only being a few hours away).

When there's a conflict between facts in an older and newer production, the newer one always wins out.

My money's on the four decades of stuff. It's the one movie that's the pretender to the throne.

Um, no, it's the latest Star Trek film produced by Paramount Pictures under license from CBS Studios, the owners of Star Trek. It's as legitimate a Trek production as any other.

Posted by 3D Master:
First of, by the 23rd century people aren't enlightened yet, that that happen until another century later.

I think you're taking the "enlightenment" concept a little too literally here. It's a term used to refer to the change in social values that led to the unification of Earth and the Federation, not to a specific historic event with a specific moment in time. The TOS characters were no less enlightened than the TNG ones.

Right. But any society will have diversity of life choices. There are obviously going to be large segments of society that travel through interstellar space, large segments that only travel within their home systems, and large segments that stay on-planet. And there's nothing wrong with any of those choices.

But you all just said they DID NOT EXIST.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I never said that. I did see others saying that a majority of people would stay earthbound, and that there would be sufficient scarcity of qualified orbital construction workers to give Starfleet an incentive to have ships built on the ground. That's it.

.... why? My grandmother has spent most of her life in my hometown, but that doesn't mean she cares for nothing but our little corner of Ohio.

If all of us were like that, would we be going anywhere; like space?

No, but nobody ever suggested that all people had to make that lifestyle choice. All I said was that making the choice not to travel much does not mean you do not care about the wider world.

Now imagine if not only would she like to stay there, but she'd refuse to leave even if it's the only way for her to get a job, earn money, and not starve to death.

What on Earth is it with you taking these things to an extreme like that? No one suggested anything of the sort.

And as a result, they would also care nothing about enjoying say, the days with children. They would not let them watch a movie, enjoy a holodeck, a book, a theme park, visit other planets, and go to enjoyable things in place that children would like to do. They emotionless monsters that deny their children everything because it wouldn't be the enlightened thng to do.

....

I think I speak for everyone when I say: What?

My mother doesn't like to travel, but that doesn't mean that she didn't want me to be able to do all those things or to think in terms of the larger world. What's with the stereotyping?

How about your father; your brothers, your sisters, your family, every single last one, only you would like to travel.

In all honesty, the only other person in my family who likes to travel is my father. But that doesn't mean the people in my family have any of those horrible traits you said that a disinclination to travel must entail -- it just means they like to be settled.

And in other families the ratio would be worse.

I think you're taking this to an irrational extreme. The majority of Her Majesty's subjects never left the British Isles, but that didn't stop the United Kingdom from building the most powerful and far-flung empire in history.

The majority of people in the Federation can live on one planet in their lives and still have a thriving interstellar community. Cultural confluence doesn't demand that 51+% of every planet's population engage in constant interstellar travel.

ETA:

Just to weigh in on this ever-so-heated argument:

Seems to me that the Federation has more than enough resources and safety measures to build ships in orbit or on the ground, whichever they may wish. If we want an in-universe justification for the building of Constitution-class starships on the ground in the mid-23rd Century, we can just say that Starfleet wanted the Earth-bound public to be able to easily see the enormity of Starfleet's space program and achievements and to perhaps inspire them in that way. Perhaps they're doing similar things on other worlds throughout the Federation -- maybe the Vulcan-crewed USS Intrepid was built in a ground-based shipyard just outside of Shir'Kahr, for instance, or maybe a Constitution-class USS Kumari or USS Shallash was built just outside the Andorian and Tellarite capitals, respectively.

 

[Penta]

Things which strike me:

1. At some level, it is being forgotten here that ship construction by a governmental entity is a political process.

Politics sometimes results in absurd outcomes.

Why might a starship be built in Iowa, not in orbit? Because the key vote for said starship's funding was, I dunno, provided by the Distinguished Gentleman from Earth who happened to have Iowa in his district.

2. At the end of the day, space will always be at least as dangerous as the deep oceans. Both environments, regardless of technology, are dangerous places - where one wrong move *can* kill you. This is the basis for the spacer archetype in so much SF - one Trek doesn't have, in my view, only because nobody in Trek seems to have ever sat down to think of how *different* living in space would be from living "landside". I'm not sure I, respectfully, can agree that space would house thousands - or that the kids that lived aboard Galaxy-class ships are the best example of kids in the future. (They're 'Fleet brats. "Military brats" are sometimes significantly different fron normal kids in any culture, even their "native" one.) And if they did, even if thousands did live in space, is there really a basis of comparison? The mindsets engrained by space life would be dramatically different, IMHO, from those engrained by planetary life.

3. Lest we forget, Star Trek, more than anything else, is a dramatic production. At some level, it just makes better drama for Young Kirk to ride up on a motorcycle, trapped in the Iowa cornfields as he is, and see workers swarming over a starship under construction.

 

[ST-One]

Starfleet just called. They wanted me to say to you, that the now established 'canon' disagrees with you.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. Which one will take precedence, 40 years of relatively consistent background material, or one brain dead movie?

My money's on the four decades of stuff. It's the one movie that's the pretender to the throne.

So that whole movie is brain-dead just because you don't like that the Enterprise is build on the ground (which itself is no 'canon-violation')?