What is the ''OFFICIAL'' length of the 1701?

[miraclefan]

Did some ''number work'' and the NX-O1 does come to it's ''official'' 225m=675 foot length! and if ''Praetor''s numbers are accurate (I belive they are) the 1701 at 289m=867 feet! now that sounds right because, now I don't remember where I read this, but the NX's saucer section is supposed to be the same diameter as the 1701's! So these measurements sound about right!

 

[Praetor]

Well, technically 289.0 meters is 948.1627311 feet... if I implied otherwise, I apologize.

For your diorama, I would just go with 289 m/947 ft for 1701 and 225 m/738 ft for NX-01. But I like keeping things as official as possible.

 

[miraclefan]

^Boy do I feel like a IDIOT! I did some research and I am ''WRONG'' remind me never to doubt you! A meter is 3.5 feet (39 in) ''NOT'' 3 feet (36 in) that's why my measurements have been ''OFF'' So you are right ''Praetor'' the NX-O1 is 738 ft ( or close enough to it) not 675 ft!, & the 1701 is indeed 947 ft! not 847!

 

[FalTorPan]

One inch is exactly 2.54 cm, and as a result, one meter is about 39.37 inches or 3.2808 feet.

The "289 meters" often touted as the length of the TOS E is an estimate based on Jefferies' 947 feet. 947 feet = 11,364 inches = 28864.56 cm = 288.6456 meters, which is then rounded to 289 meters.

 

[Whorfin]

One inch is exactly 2.54 cm, and as a result, one meter is about 39.37 inches or 3.2808 feet.

The measure I am use to using for conversions, read out of a scientific-measurement standards table from several decades ago, has 1m = 3.2808333 feet, and we suspected at the time that the 'threes' at the end continued indefinitely (we were trying to be precise as possible at the time). So my understanding would be that 2.54cm, while 'close enough for jazz', is not exact.

The other issue is that the various ships may have been deemed to be different sizes at different stages in the planning and assuming that there was always agreement can be misleading.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Could somebody PLEASE tell me what the official length of TOS ENTERPRISE IS! I've heard & read everything I could and I get differant answers! some say 847 feet to 947 feet to even 1000 feet!?? So does anybody know for sure!?

I don't know why there'd be different opinions. Every reference I've ever seen, from The Making of Star Trek on, has said that the original ship was 947 feet long. The figure of 1000 feet (304.8 meters) is for the TMP refit Enterprise, according to the official blueprints.

The reasons are really pretty simple. Anyone who's tried to fit what we know about the "real" ship (that is, the set designs, the model designs, and the spoken words from episodes) has determined, eventually, that things don't fit together quite right.

M.J. designed the ship to be smallish, and carry a crew of around 200. The ship then, later, got upsized, and he put together a sketch which established the "upsized" version as 947'.

He never really worked out the details much beyond the "sketch" level. Which is fine... he didn't have the tools we have today.

What I've found is that the various elements from TOS simply don't work right if you accept the 947' length. But increase the size by a bit, and things suddenly "fall into place." Sets fit. Details match. Lines of text correlate correctly to the "reality" of the design.

If it's a choice of saying that you have to abandon a dozen specific elements of the show, or just make a minor adjustment to ONE item which was never directly referenced on-screen anyway, I think that the choice is obvious.

By the way, I'm working on this very issue right now... go look in the "Trek Art" forum.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=89810

I started off, several weeks ago, with a 947' foot ship and had to abandon it because nothing matched between the sets and the model (at that size). I "upsized" to 1080' and most everything worked... but I've eventually settled on a ship that will be 1067' in length as the size that seems to "fit" best with the real sets and all the other on-screen evidence.

 

[B.J.]

One inch is exactly 2.54 cm, and as a result, one meter is about 39.37 inches or 3.2808 feet.

The measure I am use to using for conversions, read out of a scientific-measurement standards table from several decades ago, has 1m = 3.2808333 feet, and we suspected at the time that the 'threes' at the end continued indefinitely (we were trying to be precise as possible at the time). So my understanding would be that 2.54cm, while 'close enough for jazz', is not exact.

In a word, no. The international definition for an inch (which the US uses as well) is *exactly* 2.54 cm. The conversion you used is the definition for an inch in US survey measure (defined as 39.37 in exactly = 1 meter), which is only used in surveying. The US adopted the international definition back in 1959.
*edit*
Just so you have an official source, on this page of the National Institute of Standards & Technology's website, you can find Appendix C in PDF format, which will give you tables of the official exact definitions of measurement. Scroll down to section 4 (page 6), and the first two tables are the international and US survey length definitions.

 

[Whorfin]

B.J.,

In a word, no. The international definition for an inch (which the US uses as well) is *exactly* 2.54 cm. The conversion you used is the definition for an inch in US survey measure (defined as 39.37 in exactly = 1 meter), which is only used in surveying. The US adopted the international definition back in 1959.

Sorry I didn't catch this post at the time, I guess I didn't get or notice an email notification of your reply.

Actually we are both wrong.

According to the unquestionably accurate source on all facts, Wikipedia of course , The U.S. uses two different values for converting feet/inches to meters. In addition to the value you have discussed, what we might term the standard meter, there is another:

"The United States survey foot is defined as exactly 1200⁄3937 meters, approximately 0.3048006 m"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(length)

Today, the use depends on context. So the number I have used since the mid-80s (3.2808333'/m, or 3937'/1200m or 39.37"/1m) is a correct and valid conversion factor... For surveying, that is. The reason this slightly different unit of measurement was retained was because there was a vast amount of U.S. surveying data using the pre-1959 definition of the meter and it was easier to just not recalculate all the numbers. [Don't blame me, I'm not the USGS!]

So, the post-1959 meter come out to be 3.280839895', if I'm not mistaken. (Sorry to nitpick, but I am a Trekker.)

Why, in the texts (those big omnibus collections of formulas and constants) I consulted in the mid-80s, the pre-1959 definition of a meter was still being used is beyond me.

But I'm glad to have been corrected.

 

[Vance]

Could somebody PLEASE tell me what the official length of TOS ENTERPRISE IS! I've heard & read everything I could and I get differant answers! some say 847 feet to 947 feet to even 1000 feet!?? So does anybody know for sure!?

947', officially. It appears in a diagram next to the Klingon Cruiser in Enterprise Incident. On screen, the diagram isn't all that readable, but the diagram itself is reprinted in The Making of Star Trek and other books.

 

[Timo]

That diagram has a "scale in feet" bar, but it doesn't feature "length in feet" figures for the respective ships. It only sez "USS Enterprise Space Cruiser" and ""Battle Cruiser Klingon Empire" IIRC. So an accuracy of one foot isn't exactly warranted by that diagram - but 947' is an acceptable interpration of the diagram.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

That diagram has a "scale in feet" bar, but it doesn't feature "length in feet" figures for the respective ships. It only sez "USS Enterprise Space Cruiser" and ""Battle Cruiser Klingon Empire" IIRC. So an accuracy of one foot isn't exactly warranted by that diagram - but 947' is an acceptable interpration of the diagram.

True, but you can get to about 950 with the 'error range' of measuring based on that picture. Like I said, though, everything else in the material says 947'. (There's another production drawing showing all the measurements, but I don't think it ever appeared in background art actually on the show like most of the other pieces.)

The only real oddity for an 'in universe' measuring of the ship is that it actually is measured in feet -even in 1964 meters were the standard scientific measurement in these cases.

 

[Captain Robert April]

"Official" length, 947'.

Canon length is undetermined.

 

[Wingsley]

I'm a bit puzzled by some of the remarks upthread.

If Cary L Brown was asserting that Matt Jefferies' original designs for the Starship Enterprise were for a much-smaller vessel suited for a crew of 200, and the "upsized" final-draft Enterprise is supposedly about 947 feet, yet the sets and whatever other aspects of the TOS ship don't fit in the Enterprise's hull-shape when scaled at 947, then are we concluding that this (suggested) contradiction between the show's contents and the 947 figure is just another odd quirk in TOS' canon legacy? In essence, is this just like a host of other continuity goofs in TOS?

Did Jefferies or anyone else ever address this issue, post-TOS? Does the refit TMP Enterprise have the same issues?

 

[Timo]

The TMP-refit ship has multiple issues, some of which might be solved by enlarging the ship a little over the figures Probert had in mind when supposedly coordinating interior and exterior work on the legacy material. Probert fought against the Recreation Room interior design, for example, realizing that this facility cannot fit inside the outer rim of the saucer of a 300m vessel because of the ventral cavity. But that issue could not be much alleviated by enlarging the ship, unless it were to become a 500m monster.

Now, relocating Rec Deck to a more central part of the saucer ought to work just fine. A similar solution works on some of the oddities of the Jeffries ship: move the bridge interior down a bit from its "supposed" location, and it fits much better, for example. But the Jeffries ship benefits more from a 10% size increase than the Probert one would.

In essence, is this just like a host of other continuity goofs in TOS?

It fits in the category of "if we ignore noncanon material or perhaps a single obscure bit of canon, things no longer contradict our concepts of reality and continuity", yes. Many other goofs fall in the categories of "we have to fast-forward past a full minute of onscreen material to make it mesh with the rules of the physical universe" or "no matter what we do, it ain't making an ounce of sense" though, and happily the exact size of the TOS ship isn't one of these.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

I'd forgotten about Cary L. Brown's project. Very cool.

 

[blssdwlf]

Did Jefferies or anyone else ever address this issue, post-TOS? Does the refit TMP Enterprise have the same issues?

As far as I can tell, the TOS sets will fit in a 947' version. The TMP sets (such as the TMP cargo bay+shuttle bay, rec deck) will not fit in a 1000' version (due to differences between Probert's design and the production people building the sets.)

 

[Captain Rob]

Did Jefferies or anyone else ever address this issue, post-TOS? Does the refit TMP Enterprise have the same issues?

As far as I can tell, the TOS sets will fit in a 947' version. The TMP sets (such as the TMP cargo bay+shuttle bay, rec deck) will not fit in a 1000' version (due to differences between Probert's design and the production people building the sets.)

Don't forget sbout the RecDeck. That set won't even begin to fit in the location seen on the model. The RecDeck's windows are supposed to match up with the set of windows on the aft starboard edge of the primary hull. I think that both the TOS E and TMP E need to be increased to 1100 to 1200 feet long. That way you could have two full complete decks spanning the primary hull with space for sensors and equipment below deck around the outer edge. The one thing I didn't like about those ships was done away with on the JJPrise. The concavity of the underside of the primary hull. There's no real need for it.

 

[Warped9]

The concavity of the underside of the primary hull. There's no real need for it.

Don't be too hasty. I believe I recall a discussion around here a couple of years back that discuss the issue of the saucer hull separating and then entering the atmosphere of a planet to land, as a life boat issue if the rest of the ship were destroyed. In that event the concavity of the lower part of the saucer might contribute to aerodynamics of the saucer much like the shape of a frisbee.

 

[Ronald Held]

Warped9, has anyone looked into the technical details of TOS saucer reentry?

 

[Wingsley]

Okay, I'm a little bit less confused now. Is it absolutely set-in-stone canon that the TOS-era Enterprise has to be 947 feet in length? Cary Brown's findings seem to point to this running roughshod over some details. Brown's conjecture is definitely not "official" (what does that mean, anyway?) and naturally it is also open to criticism, but he makes an interesting case that canon points to a length of 1,067 feet.