Building NCC-1701 [The Trek XI Way]

[Captain Robert April]

What we have here is JJ & Co. spotting that 10+ year old pic someone did of their AMT model mixed into a picture of the Newport News shipyard, thinking that it was "kewl", and basing a teaser on it, then coming back and cranking out a lot of very lame excuses to justify their move.

Build the nacelles on the ground and lift 'em up to orbit for fitting? Sure.

Build the secondary hull on the ground? Okay, a stretch, but not too much.

Saucer? I don't think so. Way too ungainly to build that sucker on the ground and then try and put it in orbit. Lot easier to build it in orbit and bring the other components to it. Especially when it appears that the ship depicted in that trailer looks to be about twice the size of the TOS design, if not bigger!

As for that pic in "Parallels" that so many folks are jumping over as "proof", anybody remember that knock-down-drag-out donnybrook we had over precisely that matter, before we even knew there was going to be another movie?

Allow me to recap the findings: Mike Okuda or Rick Sternbach (or maybe both) pointed out that the image wasn't really fully fleshed out with regard to just what it was we were seeing, and that my offering that what we were seeing was actually a ground test facility, for checking out various prospective systems upgrades could be tested on the ground in nearly real conditions before being sent out to the field, was quite plausible and maybe even likely. And as Rick pointed out recently, Mars gravity is only 0.3 of Earth's. Big fat honking difference.

Besides, we've seen starships, before and after, being put together in orbital spacedocks, including the Enterprise-D. Assembling the Enterprise on the ground is nonsensical in the extreme.

 

[trevanian]

EliyahuQeoni said:

Haytil said: If robots could do everything, what would be the point of HUMANITY doing the exploring?

Agreed. This was the whole point of "The Ultimate Computer"

Because exploration is a growth process. welding, unless you're doing artwork, is tedium for most. If it ain't fun, do something that is fun, and let the machine do the unfun stuff. Let the machine weld the ship, then YOU fly the ship or go explore planets. That'd be more like the point of ULTIMATE, that it frees people up, not that it obsoletes them.

 

[Deks]

I agree with 'trevanian'.

There is a difference between using advanced technology to aid in the construction process of a starship (which in turn minimizes the time needed to build it) and having the said technology to do EVERYTHING for you.

For Trek in the 23rd century, the type of shipbuilding that was displayed in the teaser trailer (if it's the actual thing to be used in the movie) is unrealistic.

Having said that, I plan to watch and enjoy the movie regardless of canon.
I'm merely saying how building a ship using techniques suitable for the 21st century when Trek in the 23rd century has technology people in this time period can dream of is not only pointless but stupid (in-universe wise) and time consuming.

As I said in another thread ... it's no wonder SF takes so long to build star-ships if they are using this kind of technique.

 

[Samurai8472]

Deks said:
As I said in another thread ... it's no wonder SF takes so long to build star-ships if they are using this kind of technique.

It takes about a year for Stargate SG-1/Atlantis ships to be built or whenever the story requires one :thumbsup:

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Assuming most materials used in starship construction are from space--I doubt they're doing too much strip mining on 23rd century Earth--what sense does it make to drop your raw material down a gravity well only to haul it right back up?

If it were me, I'd park an iron-nickel asteroid in orbit, dig a hole in the thing and build my ships inside. Think of the pre-production art for the base in the aborted Planet of the Titans for an example. Plenty of raw material, ready shielding from flares and such. Dig the base on one side and you can even have a little ("Very little, Ensign") gravity if need be. Space docks and Spacedock may be kewl, but they don't strike me as the most technologically sound approach to the problem. Better than doing all that work on the ground, but not the best.

 

[Christopher]

Let's face it, folks -- most of what's been established about starships in the Trekverse ranges from unrealistic to nonsensical. They have random shapes that don't seem to follow function (in reality, all vehicles of a given type have certain fundamentals in common). They don't have heat radiators. They stick antimatter reactors right in the middle of the habitat section of the ship and somehow the crew isn't baked alive by the incredible amounts of waste heat. They have no seat restraints. They have no airlocks on their shuttles. They have no toilets in their shuttles. People can be weightless atop their hulls even though there's a gravity source just a few meters below them. They fire beam weapons that are somehow visible in vacuum. They bank when they turn. They always somehow manage to be "right side up" relative to one another. They have their bridges on top, exposed to danger. They use energy shields and tractor beams that defy realistic physics. They're inexplicably lacking in maintenance robots, and yet somehow manage to stay clean even though we never see a janitor. They're equipped with holodecks, warp cores, and other systems that have repeatedly proven to be quite dangerous and badly designed and yet have not been replaced with better systems.

Not to mention the universe these ships operate in. Evolution proceeds according to bizarre laws that produce humanoid aliens with bumps on their heads. Magic instant translation is possible. Psychic powers are possible. Asteroid fields are always impossibly dense. Space is full of nebulae that don't exist in reality, and which are also impossibly dense. Ships are always somehow brightly lit even in deep space. Stars are always visible out the windows even when the lights are on inside. Asteroids and comets have Earth-level gravity. Explosions in space look exactly like liquid-fuel conflagrations in an oxygen atmosphere. Elements and particles with arbitrary and unlikely properties proliferate. Deuterium is somehow a scarce liquid substance found in subterranean pockets on ultra-hot planets.

So forgive me if I find it rather silly to make a fuss about a promotional trailer that shows a starship being built on the ground. Sure, maybe it doesn't make strict technical sense, but that just means it fits right in. And it's a whole lot less ridiculous than many of the other things we've been asked to swallow. In that context, the most ridiculous thing of all is making a big fuss over it. Using it as a launching point for a thoughtful discussion about how starships might realistically be constructed is one thing, I don't see a problem with that -- but using it as an excuse to whine about how horrible and incompetent the moviemakers are is just plain pathetic.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if the Trek universe made scientific and engineering sense, but it doesn't. For the most part, its creators have always focused more on character, story, and emotion than technical accuracy, which is their prerogative. This trailer was made to convey certain ideas and impressions to the general audience, not to serve as an engineering treatise on starship construction. And it works for what it is.

 

[B.J.]

 

[Ronald Held]

We have no idea of there are forcefield protecting the construction site. I also believe the name is just symbolic, since I would expect that and other text to be done last.

 

[trevanian]

Lieut. Arex said:
Assuming most materials used in starship construction are from space--I doubt they're doing too much strip mining on 23rd century Earth--what sense does it make to drop your raw material down a gravity well only to haul it right back up?

If it were me, I'd park an iron-nickel asteroid in orbit, dig a hole in the thing and build my ships inside. Think of the pre-production art for the base in the aborted Planet of the Titans for an example. Plenty of raw material, ready shielding from flares and such. Dig the base on one side and you can even have a little ("Very little, Ensign") gravity if need be. Space docks and Spacedock may be kewl, but they don't strike me as the most technologically sound approach to the problem. Better than doing all that work on the ground, but not the best.

Well, it'd cost next to nothing in expense or energy to mass-driver raw materials back to earth orbit from the moon, once the setup was built. They've presumably done a lot on the moon by the 23rd century, and using the local materials would be the only way to go there, and mass-drivering the stuff to earth orbit has been one of the most obvious approaches to building anything in earth orbit, tons and tons cheaper than lifting up from earth, which is a significant gravity well by comparison.

 

[Kaziarl]

We've seen the ship operate in an atmosphere. The saucer section specifications show that it has thrusters and impulse, both of which could life the saucer into orbit.

As for why it was on the surface, and the other incarnations of the enterprise weren't, thats simple too.

So far as we are aware, the NCC-1701 Enterprise was the first enterprise with the 1701 regestry. It was also the flagship. There for it's launching would have a special significance. I can imagine the old beauty lifting off and flying by the golden gate. Fireworks going off as she flies into the wild blue yonder. Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it...

 

[Captain Robert April]

NCC-1701 was not the Federation flagship. She was one of thirteen Constitution class starships doing her job.

There's an old concept when writing fiction of this type: You can sell the impossible, but the highly improbable is a whole 'nother matter.

For example, the Will Smith "Wild Wild West" movie.

A big mechanical spider, no problem.

A black Secret Service agent in the 1870's? No way in hell.

Building the ship on the ground when all precedent to this point has been orbital construction falls into the same category.

 

[trevanian]

Captain Robert April said:
NCC-1701 was not the Federation flagship.

I was thinking the same thing. Everybody heard that on TNG and just automatically retconned it to TOS, which is the most ass-backwards thing since the last ass-backwards thing in this thread.

 

[Christopher]

Kaziarl said:
So far as we are aware, the NCC-1701 Enterprise was the first enterprise with the 1701 regestry. It was also the flagship. There for it's launching would have a special significance.

What??? Others have debunked the "flagship" myth, but aside from that... if it was the first ship with the 1701 registry, why would anyone at the time have ascribed any special significance to that? Are you assuming that psychics or time travellers told them that ships with that name and number would become famous and important in the future, so they might as well get on with the hype now?

If it was the first with that name and number, then it would've been just a name and just a number. They would've had no reason to treat it as any more special than any other ship, because it hadn't done the things that would eventually make that name and number famous.

Captain Robert April said:
Building the ship on the ground when all precedent to this point has been orbital construction falls into the same category.

Except that the very first precedent on this point, The Making of Star Trek, which was written with the cooperation of the original show's creators, asserts that the key components were, in fact, constructed on the ground at the San Francisco Naval Yards and then assembled in space. The dedication plaque itself reads "San Francisco." So it's incorrect that all precedent points to orbital construction.

Besides... it's a teaser trailer. Most teaser trailers these days contain footage made specially for them and not present in the actual films. I'm amazed how many people are overlooking that. This isn't part of the film's story; it's part of a promo for the story. It's not a documentary on the ship's construction, it's a freaking ad for a movie. So it's just not that big a deal in terms of Trek canon.

 

[Saul]

Wasn't there landing legs on the saucer? If she can land on a planet (in theory) couldn't she take off in complete form? Perhaps some antigravity generators kept her from crashing into herself.

 

[starburst]

There was on the refit version, there wasnt any visable ones on the original (then again you chouldnt see the phasers or torpedos either)

 

[Ronald Held]

Do we agree that it was the first Federation starship to be named Enterprise?

 

[Timo]

Well, we don't have any particular reason to think the opposite. Whatever be said of ENT "These Are the Voyages", it did give us the factoid that the United Earth Starfleet starship Enterprise was retired before the United Federation of Planets Starfleet was founded. So NX-01 doesn't tread on the toes of the basically solidly canonical idea that there were only five ships of that name in UFP Starfleet history during TNG "Remember Me", or six during DS9 "Trials and Tribble-ations", making Kirk's TOS ship / Pike's "The Cage" ship the very first.

As to why... Perhaps Starfleet was saving the name for something especially promising?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lieut. Arex]

trevanian said:
Well, it'd cost next to nothing in expense or energy to mass-driver raw materials back to earth orbit from the moon, once the setup was built. They've presumably done a lot on the moon by the 23rd century, and using the local materials would be the only way to go there, and mass-drivering the stuff to earth orbit has been one of the most obvious approaches to building anything in earth orbit, tons and tons cheaper than lifting up from earth, which is a significant gravity well by comparison.

Without a doubt. You've probably seen the schemes for asteroid deflection that involve planting a mass driver on the surface and using the reaction to drive it into a new path. Even starting fresh as ST-XI is I don't expect them to go explicitly into this kind of detail regarding the construction techniques for starships, but a hint here or there in the background would be nice. One of those big conical mass catchers in the distance behind a space dock or some such.

 

[Plecostomus]

Hey just a thought. The hull number is already painted on... Perhaps the ship is NOT under construction but undergoing a massive overhaul and refit? Continuing the metaphorical image we're striving for. The franchise is being overhauled and so is the ship.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

Just a quick note about the welding. I know the image of the guy actually doing the welding says a lot about historical shipbuilding, and as I mentioned elsewhere I understand the connection Abrams and co. want to make. However, this connection is valid only for images we've seen before in things like newsreel footage, war movies, and other media related to building waterborne vessels. What most people haven't seen, and it's unfortunate, is how welding was done on space hardware, particularly the long and involved processes they had to go through to build the Saturn V second stage, the S-II. Not only did they have to explosively form the dome sections of the fuel tank, they had (IIRC) computer-controlled welding jigs to seal those dome sections together, along with the cylindrical tank walls. To insure uniformity the welds all had to be x-ray inspected, too. This was forty or so years ago. Sure, they had human operators overseeing the fabrication, but they couldn't leave something that critical to handheld electrodes. Maybe individual hull plates aren't so critical in the 23rd century, but I would have had an easier time buying the idea of the welder guy carefully monitoring a robotic device.

Rick
www.spacemodelsystems.com