Actual Size of Ships in Star Trek

[Mytran]

When you say "below deck", do you mean right under the Flight Deck floor? There'd be absolutely no problem fitting them in if you extended the shuttle storage facility forward a bit (towards the dish).

Or is there a specific cutaway you're working from?

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Myrtran

1. Below deck means below the hangar floor

2. Good to hear

 

[Timo]

A fun thing about terminology: the belowdecks space is what should properly be called the "hangar", because that's where the shuttles hang around. In aircraft carrier terminology, "hangar" would be below "flight deck", which is what the facility we actually see in miniature form (with the clamshell doors) seems to be for.

The practical significance? Well, we have interior sets with doors labeled "hangar" (or "hanger", sic), and if we want to stay true to terminology, these probably lead to the belowdecks facility where the shuttles are stored, not to the flight deck. This helps explain why we never see any of the familiar shuttlebay features such as clamshell doors through those doorways labeled "hangar": the doorways open into a featureless room belowdecks, and the arriving shuttles are always immediately taken down there by the elevator before the passengers disembark!

As for the turntable (possibly doubling as elevator), this need not be the sole means of moving things between decks. We could assume the secondary hull is the same in TOS and TMP, and the two square elevators from TMP are already there in TOS. There just happen to be physical walls and sliding or rolling doors where TMP only has forcefields (or walls and floors that slide entirely out of the way).

This is the beauty of the forced perspective TOS shuttlebay model: it really establishes nothing much, and can always be interpreted in the most convenient manner possible.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

2. Good to hear

Referring to the extra space? Well certainly, there's the whole secondary hull to play with! It just depends on what rooms you wish to place and where, and how literally you want to take the onscreen depiction of corridor layouts etc. That was why I asked if you were working from a particular cutaway (i.e Drexler's), since that would restrict placement.

As for the Shuttlebay/Flight Deck itself, it is highly likely that the miniature was NOT forced perspective (see post 143 especially), despite years of assumption to the contrary.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Mytran

This is of course longer than the refit (flying in the face of "official" lengths) but I see no reason why more advanced=bigger; in fact the opposite is often true, making the TMP-E a sleeker, faster, leaner vessel.

That is often true of technology, but consider the following

• The bigger saucer would be needed to house that monster recreation room: It could fit along the centerline (which was one suggestion)
• The Big-E from TMP was supposed to be proportionally bigger (5.5966%)

Referring to the extra space? Well certainly, there's the whole secondary hull to play with!

Understood

That was why I asked if you were working from a particular cutaway (i.e Drexler's), since that would restrict placement.

I needed it as a guideline...

 

[Mytran]

Mytran
consider the following

• The bigger saucer would be needed to house that monster recreation room: It could fit along the centerline (which was one suggestion)

I think there's a general consensus that it wouldn't fit on the edge! But there's no shortage of space on even a 1,000' TMP-E to fit that Rec Deck nearer the centreline of the saucer. It would fit in the 947' TOS one too.

• The Big-E from TMP was supposed to be proportionally bigger (5.5966%)

The phase II refit was supposed to be restricted to an engine upgrade (Shaw's done an excellent model of this, BTW), so the rest of the ship dimensions would have been the same as TOS. Once the new FX team came on board for TMP, they made further alterations, aiming to make our stgarship look her best on the big screen - both hull grew and changed shape in the process. Some of this information was absorbed into the supporting non-canon materials (like the novelisation, posters etc ) but nothing onscreen - good job too, that Cargo Deck is way too big for a mere 1,000' Enterprise!

 

[Timo]

It would fit in the 947' TOS one too.

...And indeed in "Let That Be, Let That Be-ee, Let That Be, Let That Be-eee!", it appeared that there existed a Recreation Room Three that was at least three decks high and located next to a (series of) stairwell(s) that ran from the Bridge to the nearest Transporter Room. Probert's original ideas about placement just aft of the saucer central axis would be a very good match.

The thing about ST:TMP is that the ship there provides its own scaling elements, rather uniquely at that. Namely, it has airlock doors of known height visible at many points of the hull - much simpler and more accurate than comparisons against shuttlecraft floating nearby or the like. Supposedly, those match the thousand-feet size to a few percentage points either way.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

The airlock doors were only roughly scaled though - we never saw an actor next to them externally. As such, I think we can also insert some wiggle room from the curved (magnifying) window on the inspection pod - maybe making the refit as much as 16.4% larger?

 

[blssdwlf]

Those airlock doors had a known height? Interesting... what were they and what was the source?

 

[Timo]

We had characters stand right next to / walk through the "inner" doors of both the ship side of the port and the inspection pod - and in the case of the latter, the "inner" are explicitly the same as the "outer" (even though we can also observe the very same door molds [or whatever goes for mold in carpentry] were used for both sets). The geometry of the situation thus is particularly clear.

OTOH, we also know for certain that the shipside "inner" doors in TWoK weren't the "outer" ones, as seen in this picture showing a space outside the "inner" doors:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0253.jpg

We cannot be quite that sure about the other docking sets, from ST:TMP:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0388.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd1063.jpg

But we can be sure about the inspection pod, from both movies. The scene below is probably the best example of the inevitables involved:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0267.jpg

We have the relationship between the door seams and the floor level, and the exact door height, and when we combine those with the exterior views of the pod, the exact docking port dimensions automatically get fixed as well.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Yes I'm aware of being able to derive the size of the inner doors by examining screenshots but was just wondering if one of the designers or set blueprints showed the dimensions.

The only good variables I see are the TMP facility scene where we can confirm the interior opening size because we can see the interior of both pod and facility and the gap between the pod and facility doors. That helps us with sizing the interior doorway diameter.
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0267.jpg

The other screens, http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd1063.jpg , http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0253.jpg the gap isn't deep enough which indicates that we're not seeing the interior of the pod and thus not a usable measurement for checking the diameter of the interior doorway.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0377.jpg and http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0380.jpg shows on the exterior that the doors have a frame around it.

We lack a screenshot showing the pod doors open or the facility/ship doors open but having them not attached to each other in order to determine the height of the interior to exterior openings to lock it down. Without that, we can still have a fudge factor

Edit: Also, we'd need to know if Shatner and/or Doohan were wearing heels

 

[Mytran]

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0253.jpg the gap isn't deep enough which indicates that we're not seeing the interior of the pod and thus not a usable measurement for checking the diameter of the interior doorway.

Yeah, there is something seriously weird going on with that "pod" door over Uhura's shoulder:

There's no way it can be can be the Inspection Pod - we're missing the Enterprise's set of doors, not to mention the gap where the collar of the pod should sit. An anteroom perhaps?

 

[Timo]

An anteroom would take care of many things, such as the presence of portholes on the exterior but not the interior; difference in floor level between docking port (see the seams) and that implied by the positioning of the portholes; and general set dimensions and access issues (but it would further complicate any theories on two side-by-side bays).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BK613]

I agree that there is some fudge to be had but it seems to me that pixelologists could use the travel pod sequence to set some narrow upper and lower limits, with certain assumptions.

-The exterior quartering of the travel pod door appears to match the interior quartering of the door, which makes sense, considering how thin the door appears to be (gray band on tube.)
-The maximum height of the total door can be determined by the door slots (office, Enterprise.) The pod doors presumably slide into those slots.
-The the floor height can be determined by the chord of the door circle (a safe bet considering you can see the floor portion of the docking tube.)
-The matching doors with their chords on the office and Enterprise are not that much smaller than the maximum door height defined by the door slots (especially visible on the left).
Matching to interior:
-The distance between the two peninsulas (which Kirk walks through here) appears to be the same length as the floor door chord (Compare against the quartering here and here.) Also note Scott's height against the quartering.
-Exterior detailing, present on the model, is echoed reasonably well in this shot, allowing for head height to be matched to the exterior of the pod.
Just need a Kirkometer...
-Finally, the interior doors of the Enterprise have a different "quartering" than the exterior doors but they look standardized. One could compare the distance between the stanchions here to see if anything derived from the pod matches.

 

[Mytran]

It would interesting to figure out the minimum size of the airlock and pod, at least.

 

[yenny]

I agree that there is some fudge to be had but it seems to me that pixelologists could use the travel pod sequence to set some narrow upper and lower limits, with certain assumptions.

-The exterior quartering of the travel pod door appears to match the interior quartering of the door, which makes sense, considering how thin the door appears to be (gray band on tube.)
-The maximum height of the total door can be determined by the door slots (office, Enterprise.) The pod doors presumably slide into those slots.
-The the floor height can be determined by the chord of the door circle (a safe bet considering you can see the floor portion of the docking tube.)
-The matching doors with their chords on the office and Enterprise are not that much smaller than the maximum door height defined by the door slots (especially visible on the left).
Matching to interior:
-The distance between the two peninsulas (which Kirk walks through here) appears to be the same length as the floor door chord (Compare against the quartering here and here.) Also note Scott's height against the quartering.
-Exterior detailing, present on the model, is echoed reasonably well in this shot, allowing for head height to be matched to the exterior of the pod.
Just need a Kirkometer...
-Finally, the interior doors of the Enterprise have a different "quartering" than the exterior doors but they look standardized. One could compare the distance between the stanchions here to see if anything derived from the pod matches.

Why not use the guy peeking out the porthole near the Enterprise airlock/docking port 5?

 

[Mytran]

He seems to have an abnormally large head!

Also, the airlock/portholes placement do not match what is on the side of the ship in that area.

 

[Maurice]

The phase II refit was supposed to be restricted to an engine upgrade (Shaw's done an excellent model of this, BTW), so the rest of the ship dimensions would have been the same as TOS. Once the new FX team came on board for TMP, they made further alterations, aiming to make our stgarship look her best on the big screen - both hull grew and changed shape in the process. Some of this information was absorbed into the supporting non-canon materials (like the novelisation, posters etc ) but nothing onscreen - good job too, that Cargo Deck is way too big for a mere 1,000' Enterprise!

If anything, Shaw's work illustrates that much of what we assumed to be the TMP designers' work was actually Jefferies. Probert and Co. refined this, but the fatter engineering hull and larger diameter saucer are right there in the Jefferies plans.

For the fun of it I modified Jefferies' Phase II diagrams a bit to look like the TOS Writer's Guide diagrams and set them up for a comparison...

Click to enlarge​

It also helps in showing the relative sizes of the two... the design was scaled up (to an even 1000 feet long) when converted to the final TMP version.

 

[BK613]

I agree that there is some fudge to be had but it seems to me that pixelologists could use the travel pod sequence to set some narrow upper and lower limits, with certain assumptions.

Why not use the guy peeking out the porthole near the Enterprise airlock/docking port 5?

This is why.

 

[blssdwlf]

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0253.jpg the gap isn't deep enough which indicates that we're not seeing the interior of the pod and thus not a usable measurement for checking the diameter of the interior doorway.

Yeah, there is something seriously weird going on with that "pod" door over Uhura's shoulder:



There's no way it can be can be the Inspection Pod - we're missing the Enterprise's set of doors, not to mention the gap where the collar of the pod should sit. An anteroom perhaps?

Or maybe an airlock? We see this also when Spock arrives in TMP.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd1063.jpg