Why is the lower Saucer deck concave?

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by Imaus, Jan 12, 2021.

  1. Imaus

    Imaus Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2020
    On the TOS-Constitution and the Refit Enterprise, the Saucer's second deck, the lower deck, is concave.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Why is this? It seems to take out a lot of usable space, pushing usable ('usable' being, say, a 3m deck) to the rim.

    The DIS-Ent has a solid two decks, but even the refit sort of has a concave...or maybe it's a trick of the eye? It's two full decks with a half-under deck? The lower windows do seem to be a bit higher than the floor of the concave.
     
    mike hill and NCC-73515 like this.
  2. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2001
    Location:
    America, Fuck Yeah!!!
    Because Matt Jefferies was a design genius. It gave the ship a look of being complex.
     
  3. ZapBrannigan

    ZapBrannigan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2013
    Location:
    New York State
    Yes, I'd say it was pure aesthetics. And at the design stage, Jefferies and Roddenberry really weren't thinking about fitting realistic decks into the ship, thought out with the ceiling heights allowed for.

    The Franz Joseph Blueprints package has outer-ring crew quarters on Deck 7 with a bare two-meter deck height (inboard profile), and most of the undercut accounted for with storage rooms (Deck 7 plan view). He makes it work.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2021
    Phaser Two and mike hill like this.
  4. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    The likely reason was that it looks cool.
     
  5. mike hill

    mike hill Lieutenant Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2020
    Location:
    Doncaster UK
    RL (as has already been mentioned) - so it looks cool.

    My in-universe reasons :-
    1) To provide lift in case of emergency saucer atmospheric landing.
    2) To conform with the warp field.
     
  6. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    3) They built a thin, sleek saucer, but the rat race called for more lateral sensors, so they ultimately installed a taller rim.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
    mike hill likes this.
  7. Mytran

    Mytran Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2009
    Location:
    North Wales
    Real world reason; I suspect it was to add more curves to the underside of the ship and help define its shape, something that was extra important on the low-res TVs of the time.
    That's long been my preferred interpretation as well, or at least a close variant. There's absolutely no justifiable reason to hamper access to the outer part of the ship by design.

    In my mind the outer saucer was originally just one deck thick (we see in TOS that the corridors and rooms are very tall). However, at higher warp speeds the structural integrity around the saucer started to have problems, so additional SIF relay modules were installed on the underside of the rim to compensate for this. Once this was found to be successful the hull was contoured to fit and the perceived undercut was born.

    As to why an additional full deck wasn't added as well (or later in the refit) I assume it was down to how the saucer was originally constructed and that it wouldn't have handled the extra tons of tritanium beams etc in order to make a habitable space. Plus, the crewmen don't mind sharing quarters, right? :devil:
     
    jackoverfull and Imaus like this.
  8. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Location:
    I said out, dammit!
    The saucer is designed to separate in case of emergency, and land on a planet as a last resort. The concavity is aerodynamic camber to help provide aerodynamic lift as the saucer glides to a hopefully-controlled emergency landing. Jefferies was a smart dude.
     
  9. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    Yet conversely, Starfleet seems to think the outer parts can remain inaccessible just fine: ring-type primary hulls now proliferate, and never mind free-floating nacelles and hull segments.

    Might be it's more important to have stuff out there, at a certain distance from other stuff, than to provide access to that stuff. Sensors today tend to dangle at the ends of accessibility-limiting masts and poles, too.

    But seeing the extended rim as analogous to those bulges navies add to ship hulls after discovering stability problems is cool, too. Doesn't necessarily mean the ship was originally designed wrong. Perhaps improved propulsion indeed called for improved SIFs. Or perhaps that's where new shield generators go when Klingons introduce improved disruptors?

    Timo Saloniemi
     
    Imaus likes this.
  10. Mytran

    Mytran Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2009
    Location:
    North Wales
    I'd be interested to know just how aerodynamic the saucer actually is and how much difference that concavity would make.
    Do I vaguely recall seeing experiments somewhere done on the shape or did I imagine that?
     
    mike hill and Henoch like this.
  11. Imaus

    Imaus Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2020
    All good points. It does add some depth-of-field? to the lower saucer, it could be aerodynamic, and...honestly the more I look at it, it looks like you COULD fit two decks in there, and there's a bit of a overhang, though the zenith? really cuts in deep.
     
    mike hill likes this.
  12. Mytran

    Mytran Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2009
    Location:
    North Wales
    Yeah, it cuts in really deep :eek:
    Not much headroom there
    [​IMG]
    (Full credit to Shaw)
     
  13. TIN_MAN

    TIN_MAN Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2007
    What about the bevel that we see on the lower outer edge of the saucer rim in some of Jefferies early drawings?
    might his suggest that he intended it to indicate (in universe) some sort of modification to an earlier one level rim, thus creating the "overhang" at the edge, and the "undercut" on the bottom? Both his early drawings and the 33 inch miniature seem to indicate a thinner saucer edge than we see in later versions.
     
    mike hill likes this.
  14. XCV330

    XCV330 Premium Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2017
    Location:
    XCV330
    it gives it the look of a ship's bow in certain camera angles
     
    publiusr, Jadeb, Phaser Two and 2 others like this.
  15. valkyrie013

    valkyrie013 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2009
    What Concave saucer bottom?.. the Enterprise doesn't have one.. .... :rofl:

    Always liked the concave saucer, makes it look nicer and faster.. don't like how JJ and Disco got rid of it.. :brickwall:
     
    publiusr, Jadeb, StarCruiser and 3 others like this.
  16. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    No. It affects DOF not at all.
     
  17. NCC-73515

    NCC-73515 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 18, 2019
    Location:
    SoCal
    It's basically a parachute ;)
     
    mike hill likes this.
  18. BK613

    BK613 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2008
    From the Before Time:
    http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/lp/lasdiag/enterp.php
     
  19. BK613

    BK613 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2008
    Frisbee
     
    Forbin, mike hill and NCC-73515 like this.
  20. Mytran

    Mytran Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2009
    Location:
    North Wales