Starbase 001: Unrealistic?

[GodThingFormerly]

I've been told that Starbase 001 was a totally unrealistic design. How so?

It's an ugly, undifferentiated lump of shiny plastic that gives absolutely no clue as to its intended function/s beyond that of an orbital garage. The fact that its design rationale cannot be traced back to a real-world space platform proposal doesn't exactly help in generating an aura of technical verisimilitude either.

TGT

 

[Maurice]

Spacedock is just Cloud City with a really big boner.

 

[ancient]

I like the design. It's elegant, it looks very TOS-like, and it looks like exactly what it is: A huge-ass office building in space.

I consider the docking area to essentially just be a parking garage, similar to one an office building might have to keep the employees' cars out of the weather.

I wouldn't put any kind of transparent door (like a forcefield) around the dock. Under direct sunlight it would get pretty darn hot. A good alternative would be an opaque forcefield, such as a holographic wall. Though that still leaves the power-drain issue.

Really, the mushroom base probably has about as much chance of being attacked as your local office building. Ok, so the twin towers were attacked. That doesn't mean we should put a weapon turret on every office building. If well protected, it has no need for it's own defenses.

 

[Strider]

Seems pretty unrealistic to me, yeah. For starters, why would you need to park your starships inside behind doors? I would imagine a more stripped-down form of the docks in which they construct starships in Utopia Planitia would be better for repairing/maintaining starships. And is it really a problem if the starbase or anything in it gets exposed to sunlight? It happens to the ISS quite often and nobody seems too bothered by it.

Building a top-secret ship in the Spacedock would be the equivalent of building one in the middle of New York Harbor with a tarp haphazardly draped over it. With all the open space in the Federation, I'm sure Starfleet could find better facilities for secret projects than one orbitting the capitol planet.

What would make a lot more sense is to maintain all your starship facilities at or around Utopia Planitia. You could do all the construction, refitting, and resupplying from there, and keep the giant, well-armed starships out of range of Earth. Starbase 1 would still be an orbital habitat and administrative center, and Starfleet personel could beam in or take shuttles from Mars.

 

[Timo]

I don't really get it why people think this is a "starship facility". Like Ancient says, it's a facility that has parking space for starships - but it's not known for actually doing anything to or for said starships, except for crew transfers.

It's a perfectly fine orbiting city, sufficiently removed from early 20th century space experiments to create the verisimilitude of a futuristic structure. Unlike, say, the office complex of TMP, which features modularity where none is due, and uses absurdly shaped modules at that. Why a pillbox? It isn't something you can launch to orbit easily. It's not the best way to maximize useful floor area, either: something with corners would be superior. And why lay out the modules so that they obscure each others' rim windows and hatches? Why not just stack them atop each other, considering that there are no dorsal or ventral features of note that would require exposure?

TMP is full of stuff that pretends to be "spacelike" by taking an element of 20th century space engineering here, another there, and putting them together in illogical fashion - completely forgetting that it's not the 20th century that the movie is trying to portray, but the 23rd. At least this Spacedock thing is a step away from that conceptually flawed approach.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[aridas sofia]

It's funny how in order to defend the design both you and Ancient have to say it is something else other than what it plainly is. So, it is an office building? A city? That just so happens to harbor, what... ten or twelve starships? It's your local office building... if the U.S. Fleet stopped by for dinner.

It is exactly what it is -- a place where starships dock. Why, it is even called Space Dock.

"Sometimes a banana is just a banana, Anna." And if it is what it is called, then it should be assessed as a design by how much it makes sense as a dock. A military dock. And it doesn't make any sense as a dock. Particularly as a military dock. So it's a stinko poopoo failure of a design.

 

[Timo]

It is exactly what it is -- a place where starships dock. Why, it is even called Space Dock

Well, it contains a Spacedock. New York contains a harbor, too; New York isn't a harbor. But when one arrives in New York in a ship, the pilot guides one to something he identifies as New York harbor.

And the Enteprise as presented in TOS is a "stinko poopoo failure" as a starship. But it defines "starship" for us, which automatically makes it an example of excellence in starship design.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GodThingFormerly]

It's a perfectly fine orbiting city, sufficiently removed from early 20th century space experiments to create the verisimilitude of a futuristic structure. Unlike, say, the office complex of TMP, which features modularity where none is due...

Haven't we had this discussion, like, a dozen times over the last five years? Modularity is always due for manned spacecraft and platforms which are expected to last longer than a condom, particularly when it comes to a structure which Probert describes as "an older facility that's continuing to evolve". Speaking of evolution, I was recently rereading Jesco von Puttkamer's Der erste Tag der neuen Welt: Vom Abenteuer der Raumfahrt zur Zukunft im All (Umschau Verlag, 1981) and was struck by this illustration:

The caption reads: "Unlimited growth. An evolutionary space colony in orbit. With increasing size space systems will increasingly resemble quasi-organic entities and thus replicate the advantages of flexibility, mutability and heredity of living organisms."

On the other hand, this is what happens when your space platform isn't modular and is therefore incapable of "evolving" to meet new needs.

Coincidentally, the NASA "Evolutionäre Raumkolonie" was the particular space station illustration that Mike Minor employed as the basis for his original Phase II Space Office Complex:

...and uses absurdly shaped modules at that. Why a pillbox? It isn't something you can launch to orbit easily.

Why would the habitat modules be launched from Earth? Presumably they would have been fabricated by either the SOC's own industrial facility or at another Starfleet space manufacturing center nearby. Indeed, the trajectory of the workbee carrying a piece of framework to the construction site suggests the latter.

It's not the best way to maximize useful floor area, either: something with corners would be superior.

The "office level" can be grown as large as necessary by adding additional clusters, and corners would block views above and below the neighboring hab modules.

And why lay out the modules so that they obscure each others' rim windows and hatches? Why not just stack them atop each other, considering that there are no dorsal or ventral features of note that would require exposure?

But the modules do extend above and below the main level thanks to angled access ways, thus increasing the amount of spacescape visible from most viewports. Besides, since that particular section is still under construction we don't even know how many levels there will be upon completion.

TMP is full of stuff that pretends to be "spacelike" by taking an element of 20th century space engineering here, another there, and putting them together in illogical fashion - completely forgetting that it's not the 20th century that the movie is trying to portray, but the 23rd.

Horseshit. Good engineering principles are timeless. The rotating artificial gravity space station Conrad Haas designed in 1551...

....was conceptually sound enough for Wernher von Braun (amongst others) to effectively reinvent four hundred years later:

Pages scanned from Hans Barth's Conrad Haas: Raketenpionier und Humanist (Johannis Reeg Verlag, 2005).

At least this Spacedock thing is a step away from that conceptually flawed approach.

If ST:TMP's approach was conceptually flawed then it followed in the footsteps of TOS, whether the preexisting real-world aerospace hardware proposals were the (unseen) "planetoid colonies" of Friday's Child which were first popularized by Dandridge M. Cole & Donald W. Cox in Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids (Chilton, 1964) or Deep Space Station K-7 from The Trouble with Tribbles which was little more than scaled-up Douglas Aircraft contractor models. Phase II continued the approach, whether the inspiration was the "Evolutionäre Raumkolonie" mentioned above or Peter Lizon's Tetrahedron City. However, since the ST:XI trailer has shown us an Earth-orbiting space platform which looks uncannily like a semi-completed Star Wars Death Star attached to six of those mothership saucers from V, you should be thrilled that your preferred Trek hardware design "process" has once again triumphed over mine.

TGT

 

[aridas sofia]

And the Enteprise as presented in TOS is a "stinko poopoo failure" as a starship.

Timo Saloniemi

I have absolutely no idea what in the world you could be talking about. From every way of measuring design success that I can conceive, Enterprise as presented in TOS was a success. No wonder. It was a modular combination of three iconic forms -- the flying saucer, the rocket, and the naval ship. It combined the forms in a way that was in keeping with what the public was learning about aerospace sensibilities -- modular. So the look and style were familiar for the kind of stories being told, and the logic of how it was put together made sense in relation to what the public was learning about how big space structures might be built in the future.

It was often noted that Enterprise was the main character of the show. If it had been a failure as a design, the show would not have succeeded and the model would not today be ensconced in the National Air and Space Museum.

Spacedock, OTHO, is one iconic form -- the mushroom. The fact that its parent is grown in manure gives some clue as to the "genesis" of the Spacedock idea.

 

[ancient]

It's funny how in order to defend the design both you and Ancient have to say it is something else other than what it plainly is. So, it is an office building? A city? That just so happens to harbor, what... ten or twelve starships? It's your local office building... if the U.S. Fleet stopped by for dinner.

There is no need for it to directly correlate to some present-day structure, but yes. You sound as if you believe this is ridiculous for some reason. The docking facility only takes up the exended 'mushroom' segment.

Timo is right, this is much like a small city. It includes a dock, for obvious reasons.

It is exactly what it is -- a place where starships dock. Why, it is even called Space Dock.

Yes, the structure has a space dock. But that’s not all it has. As I said, this is like an office building with a parking garage, and you’re calling it a parking garage.

"Sometimes a banana is just a banana, Anna." And if it is what it is called, then it should be assessed as a design by how much it makes sense as a dock. A military dock.

So, what? Is Pearl Harbor just a big hole in Hawaii where ships dock and a few bunkers? Of course not.

 

[aridas sofia]

Ancient, they don't call the thing "Space City" and just that area where the starships dock "Space Dock". They call the whole thing "Spacedock". Why? because if you look at the model, there are large ship entry hatches on almost all the segments. It has a lot of windows. But it also has lots of doors.

 

[trevanian]

I've been told that Starbase 001 was a totally unrealistic design. How so?

It's an ugly, undifferentiated lump of shiny plastic that gives absolutely no clue as to its intended function/s beyond that of an orbital garage. The fact that its design rationale cannot be traced back to a real-world space platform proposal doesn't exactly help in generating an aura of technical verisimilitude either.

TGT

Sure it has a real-world basis, just a terrestrial one, not a space one, which is why it is so stupid. The thing is like the old Moffet Field blimp hangar, looking very much like that shuttle departure area in the TREK trailer. Big waste of space unless you're berthing blimps on a planet.

I'd WTC that sucker, crash it down into Earth.

 

[Christopher]

I don't understand. What is that image supposed to be showing me?

It's a somewhat difficult concept to explain. It's called "a bigger door".

There is no call to be insulting. Since you didn't label the image and it's very stylized, it isn't automatically obvious what it's showing. You can see meaning in it instantly because you intended that meaning from the start, but you should be able to recognize that other observers who are new to the image might be puzzled by the graphical choices you made when you make no effort to clarify them.

Come on. You did such a good job with the FRS all those years ago. You made clear illustrations and labelled them well. Surely you understand the importance of communicating your intent to your audience. So why you'd resort to snide, condescending, unhelpful crap like this when I make a simple request for clarification is beyond me.

Is that dark band supposed to be some translucent wraparound window? Or a forcefield? If the latter, that seems like a very illogical idea. Why waste energy on a forcefield when you can just build a nice functional wall?

So you can push a button and the wall goes away and your ships can get out quickly so they won't get stuck in the big orbiting Pearl Harbor.

You can do that with physical doors just as well.

And with all that transparency, you severely impair your thermal regulation ability.

I must admit that I was not aware that the temperature coefficients for force fields in a vacuum had been calculated.

You're kidding, right? It's transparent. It lets energy through in the visible spectrum. It is tautological that something which is transparent is not an ideal insulator. Especially given that a G-type star pours out the bulk of its energy in the visible spectrum. A forcefield that's transparent to human eyes is specifically designed to admit energy in the sun's peak emission band, so it would clearly be useless at protecting anything from solar heating.

Put more simply: ever see a transparent beach umbrella?

And is it really a problem if the starbase or anything in it gets exposed to sunlight? It happens to the ISS quite often and nobody seems too bothered by it.

The thermal difference between sunlight and darkness is far more pronounced in space than it is here on Earth, because on Earth we have an atmosphere that retains and redistributes heat and protects us from getting too hot or too cold. But in vacuum, you're dealing with much greater extremes, a difference of 500 degrees Fahrenheit or more between sunlight and darkness. The ISS can cope with such extreme temperature variations because it's designed to protect against them. And surely a starship could as well. But it's not easy. And it would be less stressful on the ship -- not to mention on any people who had to work outside it -- if they didn't have to deal with it at all, if they could stay in a more controlled environment.

Particularly when it comes to repairs and maintenance, you want thermal control. Things expand when they heat and contract when they cool, and if you're making repairs or upgrades that require the components to be precisely positioned and securely sealed, thermal expansion and contraction during the process could cause problems.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Particularly when it comes to repairs and maintenance, you want thermal control. Things expand when they heat and contract when they cool, and if you're making repairs or upgrades that require the components to be precisely positioned and securely sealed, thermal expansion and contraction during the process could cause problems.

Thermal expansion coefficients for modern aerospace materials - especially if coated with Kapton, Mylar or Betacloth - render thermal distortion at 1 AU distance from the sun a non-issue, and 23rd century materials would presumably be far less susceptible. Even if solar insolation was somehow an issue, then a gossamer sunshield with RCS stationkeeping ability would be a vastly more elegant solution for keeping a starship shaded while in dry dock.

TGT

 

[ancient]

Ancient, they don't call the thing "Space City" and just that area where the starships dock "Space Dock". They call the whole thing "Spacedock". Why? because if you look at the model, there are large ship entry hatches on almost all the segments. It has a lot of windows. But it also has lots of doors.

They would call the dock 'space dock', that doesn't mean the entire thing is one huge pier.

 

[aridas sofia]

Coincidentally, the NASA "Evolutionäre Raumkolonie" was the particular space station illustration that Mike Minor employed as the basis for his original Phase II Space Office Complex:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c339/thegodthing/Minor_PII_SOC.jpg

TGT

Thank you for that tidbit. I haven't thought highly of that design since first seeing it back in 1978. It just seemed too old and little-modified for the 23rd century. Now, I have newfound respect at least for its parentage.

 

[ancient]

Particularly when it comes to repairs and maintenance, you want thermal control. Things expand when they heat and contract when they cool, and if you're making repairs or upgrades that require the components to be precisely positioned and securely sealed, thermal expansion and contraction during the process could cause problems.

Thermal expansion coefficients for modern aerospace materials - especially if coated with Kapton, Mylar or Betacloth - render thermal distortion at 1 AU distance from the sun a non-issue, and 23rd century materials would presumably be far less susceptible. Even if solar insolation was somehow an issue, then a gossamer sunshield with RCS stationkeeping ability would be a vastly more elegant solution for keeping a starship shaded while in dry dock.

TGT

Imo, the spacedock is pressurized. something a big umbrella can't be.

Aside from making repairs and patchwork easier, it protects the humans, who probably don't enjoy a 300 degree radiation bath and blinding light, even in the future.

The spacedock would allow someone to work on the exterior of the ship, all without the need for a spacesuit, which would be an inconvenience to a worker regardless of the design.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Imo, the spacedock is pressurized.

The presence of spacesuited workers in ILM's visual effects storyboards rendered for the spacedock departure sequence of ST:TUC suggest otherwise.

TGT

 

[aridas sofia]

I don't understand. What is that image supposed to be showing me?

It's a somewhat difficult concept to explain. It's called "a bigger door".

There is no call to be insulting. Since you didn't label the image and it's very stylized, it isn't automatically obvious what it's showing. You can see meaning in it instantly because you intended that meaning from the start, but you should be able to recognize that other observers who are new to the image might be puzzled by the graphical choices you made when you make no effort to clarify them.

Come on. You did such a good job with the FRS all those years ago. You made clear illustrations and labelled them well. Surely you understand the importance of communicating your intent to your audience. So why you'd resort to snide, condescending, unhelpful crap like this when I make a simple request for clarification is beyond me.

Christopher, it was meant to be a joke. It was early and I'm sure my sense of humor was off the mark. Don't take it seriously. I merely meant that in the post to which you had responded I said the doors were too small to allow the ships to escape to free space in case of attack. So I provided a radical solution -- make the entire belt where the doors are located one giant door.

I must admit that I was not aware that the temperature coefficients for force fields in a vacuum had been calculated.

You're kidding, right? It's transparent. It lets energy through in the visible spectrum. It is tautological that something which is transparent is not an ideal insulator. Especially given that a G-type star pours out the bulk of its energy in the visible spectrum. A forcefield that's transparent to human eyes is specifically designed to admit energy in the sun's peak emission band, so it would clearly be useless at protecting anything from solar heating.

Put more simply: ever see a transparent beach umbrella?

I'm sorry but I must disagree with you. It isn't transparent. My interpretation of a forcefield involves gravity manipulation. I have no idea how a magical thing like a forcefield might be possible short of gravity manipulation. I assume all the shields and fields projected from and within a starship or station involve gravity manipulation. If they have it down to the point you can walk around in one gee in a starship then I'd think the technology would be up to selectively bending away energy. But since we can't know to what extent that might be possible, I have no idea whether it would be perfect insulation or something less.

 

[ancient]

Imo, the spacedock is pressurized.

The presence of spacesuited workers in ILM's visual effects storyboards rendered for the spacedock departure sequence of ST:TUC suggest otherwise.

TGT

TUC? Storyboards? Who cares? Besides, maybe they depressurize it from time to time. The atmospheric haze in the dock is enough to justify the theory that the inside is pressurized. Besides, it makes sense.

The main segment of the station does look similar to a habitation dome.

I must admit that I was not aware that the temperature coefficients for force fields in a vacuum had been calculated.

You're kidding, right? It's transparent. It lets energy through in the visible spectrum. It is tautological that something which is transparent is not an ideal insulator. Especially given that a G-type star pours out the bulk of its energy in the visible spectrum. A forcefield that's transparent to human eyes is specifically designed to admit energy in the sun's peak emission band, so it would clearly be useless at protecting anything from solar heating.

Put more simply: ever see a transparent beach umbrella?

I'm sorry but I must disagree with you. It isn't transparent. My interpretation of a forcefield involves gravity manipulation. I have no idea how a magical thing like a forcefield might be possible short of gravity manipulation. I assume all the shields and fields projected from and within a starship or station involve gravity manipulation. If they have it down to the point you can walk around in one gee in a starship then I'd think the technology would be up to selectively bending away energy. But since we can't know to what extent that might be possible, I have no idea whether it would be perfect insulation or something less.

Well, I'm a little confused here. If you can see right through it then light (EM radiation) is passing through it unhindered. You can tell this by looking at it.

Even if it is blocking all forms of radiation OTHER than visible light, the inside of the dock is still being exposed to pretty intense radiation.