Mass of the Constitution class Enterprise?

[Santaman]

Out of curiousity, I know you're not fond of using the 1,080-foot size, but could you provide volume estimates for the Enterprise if it was of that size?

Sure... I'll be making a diagram of the general shapes over a diagram of the Enterprise so people can see where the estimate is coming from. At that time I'll do two sets of figures: the Jefferies dimensions and the 1080 dimensions.

I'll also include information so anyone wanting to apply it to any other scaling can make estimates.

Just out of curiosity do you have upper and lower estimate?

Right now, not really.

I need to set up the equations for a balanced system to see if my theory that the mass of the warp engines can be found by their placement relative to the impulse engines (as a balancing point) and the other elements. The system will be made up of 4 mass points, the primary hull and secondary hull derived from the system I described and the two warp engines of unknown mass all balanced on the position of the impulse engines (with the ship pointing up).

But I'm assuming that the warp engines are quite heavy considering how low they are to the impulse engine center line.

But will it work?

We'll see... but it'll be cool if it does!

I disagree with you there I'm afraid on most ships the placement of the impulse exhaust doesn't make any sense so there is no inication of the nacelles mass in relation to the position of the fusion reactor exhaust we see on the back of the saucer in the case of the Constitution class vessels, heck, some ships don't even have an exhaust at all.

 

[Bill Morris]

I've consulted with you guys in various threads about mass figures for all these ships and used what people thought was reasonable. I need some kind of figure for each one. This is for the library files in my LCARS software package, but I've also posted a gallery here so people who don't have LCARS 24 installed can at least enjoy these schematics.

http://lcars24.com/starfleet.html

Of course, there aren't any canon sources for most of them, but I have to put something there in the statistics and try to derive a reasonable figure. If you have better figures I can use for any of these, please let me know.

Part of that gallery is also in the LCARS 24 section of the Cygnus-XI Starfleet Blueprint Database, and that will be updated after I finish making corrections for the Constellation class.

 

[Vance]

The most reliable figure for the TOS Enterprise is 195,000 tons, as given by Franz Joseph. FASA has a similar number (160,000 tons).

 

[Bill Morris]

Okay, Vance, I'll change it on my schematic. Thanks. I have 260,000 for the 1701-A, 150,000 for the Miranda class, and 304,700 for the Constellation class (all metric tons [1 M.T. = 2204.6 lb.]). So what do you recommend for those? I guess you mean 195,000 U.S. tons (about 177,000 metric tons). So I should be safe scaling those down in proportion to that.

But still, I wonder if that figure of 195,000 U.S. tons takes into account the extreme density of the warp coils, which on the TOS Enterprise might be nearly as heavy as the rest of the ship. Even if they weren't made of sandwiched verterium cortenide and tungsten-cobalt-magnesium in those days, they still had to contain some kind of very massive materials in order to do the job.

 

[Vance]

Again, the problem is Trek's consistancy in that regard. We actually DO see the interiors of warp nacelles (in TAS, and TNG) and they're hollow like the rest of the ship! What's worse, the equipment that we do see inside them are manhandled quite often with cast members picking up large installations BY HAND and moving them. That pretty much throws the whole 'super-dense' argument out the window.

For the record, FJ:TM puts the TOS nacelles at 35,000 MT each (70,000 MT for the pair), which is pretty hefty, really, considering it really is just engine. That leaves 90,000MT for the rest of the ship (saucer, secondary hull, pylons), which are shown to be far more 'naval vessel' like in layout and design. Seems a fair guess to me.

(And, it occurs to me, since the shots of the TM flicker by on the monitors, which do include the mass of the ship, wouldn't the 190,000 be 'canon' by the canonistas?)

 

[Vance]

Some quick mass notes to make things easier for you:

PB-31 (SW40/5-3K) Warp Engine: 31,000MT

Constitution Class: 190KMT
Saladin Class: 95KMT
Ptolemy Class: 126KMT

Saladin Class (Primary Hull and Pylon): 64KMT
Constitution Class (Secondary Hull, with engines and engine pylons): 126KMT
Constitution Class (Secondary Hull, with engine pylons): 64KMT

Federation Class: 285KMT
Federation Class (sans engines): 192KMT

TMP Constitution Class: 210KMT (from FRS) / 190KMT (from Mr. Scott's Guide)

The TMP mass change is iffy. On the one hand, it had a much larger saucer. On the other, the nacelles are much smaller (very thin, in comparison to the TOS version) and the secondary hull is explicitly mostly hollow. Would be pretty strange for the arrangement to balance out PERFECTLY, when you consider it, though...

 

[Bill Morris]

Okay, Vance, I'll change it to 190,000 M.T for the 1701 and estimate new figures for the 1701-A, Miranda class, and Constellation class accordingly. Thanks.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I always thought that scene in TAS was the other side of the big glowy tube thinging in Engineering, not up in one of the nacelles.

Besides, can you imagine Kirk and Scotty trying to haul that piece of antimatter aaaallllll the way up one of those pylons without blowing up the ship in the process?

 

[Santaman]

Again, the problem is Trek's consistancy in that regard. We actually DO see the interiors of warp nacelles (in TAS, and TNG) and they're hollow like the rest of the ship! What's worse, the equipment that we do see inside them are manhandled quite often with cast members picking up large installations BY HAND and moving them. That pretty much throws the whole 'super-dense' argument out the window.

Also, the warp coils themselves must be hollow, else you can't have drive plasma run through them.

 

[Bill Morris]

Again, the problem is Trek's consistancy in that regard. We actually DO see the interiors of warp nacelles (in TAS, and TNG) and they're hollow like the rest of the ship! What's worse, the equipment that we do see inside them are manhandled quite often with cast members picking up large installations BY HAND and moving them. That pretty much throws the whole 'super-dense' argument out the window.

Also, the warp coils themselves must be hollow, else you can't have drive plasma run through them.

Yeah, but they're still very dense, very massive rings, like this:

http://lcars24.com/schem21.html

 

[Vance]

As I said, the only real problem is that, despite the numbers quoted, TNG shows people MAN-HANDLING THEM like the props they were... making each segment only weigh up to 100lbs, maximum. So here it really is going to depend on what you want for flavour, it you want to 'believe the cake' or accept that 'the cake is a lie'.

 

[Timo]

Also, the warp coils themselves must be hollow, else you can't have drive plasma run through them.

To be sure, we don't know how plasma gets through these things. In TNG "Eye of the Beholder", we witness the idle mode where a long stream goes through the line of coil donuts along the middle, without touching the coil material - but in the TNG Tech Manual, there's an injector adjoining each of the nine coils (even though we see eighteen whenever we look at a diagram, or at the real deal as in "EotB"!). So perhaps propulsive mode has different plasma streams from idle mode? Perhaps each donut is indeed hollow, in addition to having a hole in the middle?

As I said, the only real problem is that, despite the numbers quoted, TNG shows people MAN-HANDLING THEM like the props they were...

The only time we really see an actual warp coil manhanded is in ENT "Damage", and it's a teeny weeny thing the size of an oil barrel. And even then, the only "manhandling" we see done on this very odd-looking piece of equipment is actually done by transporter.

When coils of Starfleet vessels are handled, machinery is involved. There's just one example so far of coils being handled on a planetary surface, VOY "Nightingale", where either the upper halves of coils or some sort of casings covering the upper halves are possibly lifted by Type 12 shuttles (or whatever you call the speedboat thing from VOY). That is, we see two such halves lifted out of place, and a shuttle hovering above the starboard nacelle... Although not really lifting anything by itself at that time.

Since we know that the starships themselves can cope with the weight of the coils, it is natural to assume that the shuttles can do it, too - regardless of whether the coils are "naturally" dense or superdense. The latter case would just involve more gravitic magic than the former.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

I guess I'm still confused about the mass of the Constellation class. What's your best estimate for that?

And can I assume 150,000 M.T. for the Miranda class?

 

[Vance]

I think we're still at 190KMT for the Constitution class (and 150ish is about right for a TOS Miranda), it's just that we're arguing a little over exactly how that mass is spread out.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I thought Shaw said he got a figure around 132,000 tons...

 

[Vance]

I thought Shaw said he got a figure around 132,000 tons...

He's wrong, and he's a horrible person and should feel bad.

 

[Shaw]

I thought Shaw said he got a figure around 132,000 tons...

He's wrong, and he's a horrible person and should feel bad.

I feel bad.





... and they were very early estimates. I'm sure I'll feel much better after I finish doing all the work and display both the results and methodology behind it.

 

[Vance]

... and they were very early estimates. I'm sure I'll feel much better after I finish doing all the work and display both the results and methodology behind it.

I want a Zoidberg emote.

Anyway, more seriously, I actually don't mind the 31KMT for each nacelle (we can fudge anything with those), and the 64KMT saucer (with pylon), considering it's pretty much laid out like a naval vessel, is pretty solid as a figure as well.

The secondary hull is tricky, though. At also being 64KMT, it would seem to be awfully heavy considering that at least, visibly, a third of it is COMPLETELY hollow (the hangar deck). I would have to assume that much of the hull's mass is in the fore, though I'm not sure what could be there that wouldn't be present (in lesser form) on the Saladin and other ships.

TMP makes this even more problematic, since if the mass is the same, the 64KMT would be for a hull that's almost COMPLETELY hollow, as shown in the movie itself. Gets hard to rectify.

 

[SicOne]

Timo, don't let Shaw get you down, he's a smarty-pants...

 

[Unicron]

That's not necessary. Keep the comments on topic please.