Voyager Nacelles

Can someone shed any light then on why Voyagers nacelles needed to be motorised?
I understand the concept of when they are up they create a stronger more efficient warp field but that begs the question of why not just have the damn nacelles in the upright position permanently??
What difference did the nacelles being in the down position actually make to sub light speeds?
Even when the position of the nacelles were moved the distance between the down and up positions was minuscule.

Any worthy explanations out there?

 

The producers wanted the ship to have moving parts.

 

Yes but what is the in universe explanation for not having them permanently fixed in the upwards position.

 

Center of mass, maybe?

Other than that, none, as far as I can tell.

 

This is weird, Tachyon Shield has made a point I agree with!

When Voyager was first starting, a friend of mine tried to explain it as being like a swing wing on modern fighter aircraft. That explanation doesn't make much sense though. Modern swing wing fighters move there wings because at different speeds they need different aerodynamic properties (wide wing=lots of lift at low speeds, great for take off and landing. Narrow wing=minimum drag, ideal for high speed).

Now Voyager's warp nacelles are permanently up at warp, whether it's warp 1 or 9.99. So it can't be that.

My personal speculation is that having a lower centre of mass coupled with a wider profile could actually increase manoeuvrability at impulse speeds.

 

According to some things I've read about field mechanics is that two fields that move against each other will generate energy. Bring the nacelles briefly toward each other may be part of the reason why Intrepid is considered smart and effiecient. It may not need as much power to jump to warp in the first place as say the Galaxy or Excelsior Classes. That may also be why Intrepid has the smallest engines to hull size ratio than any other ship.

Speculation of course.

 

But the nacelles don't power up until they are actually in the full up position. The warp charging does not occur during the motorisation period.

 

Because they look better in the down position then they do in the up position. Starfleet has an image to protect, after all; starship aesthetics are a part of it.

 

I just always assumed it was something to do with those geometry things (can't remember the correct name right now) which allow the ship to travel at warp without damaging subspace?

 

The question I asked still remains.......... why not keep the nacelles in the upwards position permanently?

 

That was one idea the was flitted about. Added to that was that the folding nacelles also steamlined the ship's warp envelope to allow for higher sustainable velocities, IIRC.

I wonder if that feature might now be considered obsolete these days and that newer Intrepid-class ships no longer have that variable-geometry ability?

 

Hey Tachyon, You'll love this. I asked that exact question of Rick Sternbach on this board some time back. Essentially the answer was that the producers wanted something on the ship to move. See the thread here:
http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=86150

Yea, Like Tachyon said, "Why not just leave them up then?". This theory would work better if in the show we had seen Voyager using different angles at different speeds.

 

Well warp nacelles are already active before warp at a low threshold. The conflicting fields could increase the current of the incoming energy. Voyager did seem to have less charge time than the Galaxy and it doesn't seem to be as powerful of a charge from the photons given off.

 

It was a stupid idea based on a stupid premise.

 

Actually, we might just as well decide that it was a stupid idea in-universe as well. Starfleet tried to achieve something with it, but failed, and was then stuck with a design that could only make use of two of the originally intended great many positions - fully up or fully down.

That is, originally the ship was supposed to have nacelles flat at warp 1, halfway up at warp 7, and fully up at warp 9.7 or whatnot. The impulse engine designers were told this would be the case, so they decided to put the impulse engines in a location that would get hot warp plasma in the easiest possible way - in the warp engine pylons. Alas, that meant the impulse engines could only be used with the nacelles flat - and this meant problems when all warp flight was later confined to the full-up position.

Personally, I prefer the explanation already suggested by Saquist, that the squeezing action itself is the important thing, not the initial or eventual position. Never mind that the engines don't glow blue-hot during the squeeze: we can argue that they are at least starting to glow during the squeezing action.

Timo Saloniemi

 

We do have on-screen example in the early seasons of Voyager being at Warp 2 with it's nacelles down.
Granted, it might be explained as an VFX error of course ... but it also fits into the theory that the ship can achieve low warp velocities without raising it's nacelles.

If SF was ordering it's ships to avoid tear of subspace by limiting themselves to Warp 5 ... it's entirely possible that the Intrepid class was actually meant as a prototype class that SF would learn from in order for their ships to be able to sustain high warp velocities without doing damage to subspace (which hopefully was settled by the time of post TNG).

I would imagine there wouldn't be that many Intrepid class ships in service as a result ... then again, there might be and they would still retain the folding nacelles option as it also might have allowed SF to upgrade the maximum warp velocity of the Intrepid.

We know that the Prometheus ended up being the fastest in the fleet, but by the time it rolled out, I would have imagined SF upgraded the velocity of their Intrepids even further.
Older ships would likely still be limited to a specific range, so it's possible the folding aspect gives the Intrepid the advantage of pushing it's engines even further.

 

Nah, I just assume that means that the Voyager was neutered...

 

Voyager was a new cheap shitty star fleet vehicle. To save costs they had the moving nacelles thing, as in the powered position only then could they reach warp, as a result of poor engineering and cheapness.

 

I can remember the early pre-view drawings of Voyager in TV Guide before the show came out with the warp nacelles fixed in a down position. I truly wanted to see the nacelles move according to the different speed of the ship.

 

But... why?

That's really the point. We know why it was really done... for the same reason that so many other nonsensical design decisions have been made through the years... "Becuz it'll be kewl!" But is there any plausible technical reason for doing so?

I can think of quite a few technical reasons for NOT doing so... not the least of which are the decreased mechanical strength of the nacelle attachment points and the increased complexity of the hardware required to go through hinged joints.

But is there any plausible reason for moving the nacelles, other than because Jeri T wanted it that way?