Is the ground safer than orbit? Both the surface and an orbital shipyard can be shielded, but if the shields are powered by antimatter annihilation I wouldn't want them to be on the surface. The safest place to build the ship would probably be on the dark side of the moon, or on Mars. Just enough gravity so that things don't float away, and if it explodes Port Chicago-style no one important (i.e. politically embarrassing) will be hurt.
Building NCC-1701 [The Trek XI Way]
- Thread starter Tigger
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It is well established that Earth has a non-capitalistic society, where learning, teaching, living and caring are infinitely more important then Federation Credits. It has also been established that everybody can be whatever they want to be, provided they can learn the proper skills and are willing to invest the proper time, patience and concentration into it.
So yes, a lot of work would be done by robots. But it doesn't seem strange that there would be quite a few people who'd want a welding profession. And what better place to exercise your knowledge by helping to weld one of Starfleet's finest vessels? I'd be more shocked if there were only robots here, and all the fine welders would be working on some shitty job.
I wouldn't underestimate the importance of age-old crafts. Most of those still can't be done by machines, especially in the creative (and related) craft fields. And yes, if I was to be the Captain, I'd definitely want it built with love.
It is well established that Earth has a non-capitalistic society, where learning, teaching, living and caring are infinitely more important then Federation Credits. It has also been established that everybody can be whatever they want to be, provided they can learn the proper skills and are willing to invest the proper time, patience and concentration into it.
So yes, a lot of work would be done by robots. But it doesn't seem strange that there would be quite a few people who'd want a welding profession. And what better place to exercise your knowledge by helping to weld one of Starfleet's finest vessels? I'd be more shocked if there were only robots here, and all the fine welders would be working on some shitty job.
I wouldn't underestimate the importance of age-old crafts. Most of those still can't be done by machines, especially in the creative (and related) craft fields. And yes, if I was to be the Captain, I'd definitely want it built with love.
...Also, considering the state of completion in the trailer, we could be seeing "final manual inspection" or other such detailing after the robots have left the scene. "Look at this seam - we have to do it all over again!"; "Okay, now the bots have the plating in place - let's cut the opening for the bow subspace beacon here".
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Actually, in the TOS era at least, all that we know is that they don't have CURRENCY. Which, considering how often we use our credit/debit cards instead of cash, really isn't all that different from today. It's stated more than once, in TOS, about people "earning their pay" and we know that wealth or poverty is possible within the Federation (see "Mudd's Women" for instance).
For that matter, on a realistic basis, I find it utterly unbelievable that you'd ever have a situation where everyone has as much as they want. Even TNG wasn't able to steer clear of that entirely, you'll note... though they tried to paint the pursuit of personal advancement as an indication of "lesser races" (which was really sort of offensive, I think!)
What if EVERYONE wants their own personal planet? What if everyone wants their own battlecruiser-class spaceship? What if people want servants? (Which we've seen is the case in TOS and in TNG eras).
Honestly, I think that Picard's statements about everyone having everything that they want was naive utopianism... and it was nice to see (in DS9) some of that naivity get turned on its ear.
I just don't believe that sort of pie-in-the-sky dreaminess is possible to see made REAL in any real world.
I agree wholeheartedly with that point, on the other hand.
I'm one of those people who LOVES creating things. I enjoy doing things myself, and would rather build it myself than have someone do it for me (all other things being equal of course!). It's part of that human need to strive, to create, to make our mark, to feel like when we leave the world we've left it a better place than we found it...
There's also a level of SUBTLETY that humans are capable that computers aren't. We can adjust, on the fly, to unforeseen (and unprepared-for) changes... computers can't.
"Computers" like Data are the exception to that... and at that point, we start to see humanity being REPLACED by their creations (which is a whole 'nother discussion).
Starfleet isn't gonna give a rat's ass about the amount of love the workers have for the ship they're building, they're gonna be concerned about whether it's being built to specs and on schedule.
That means robots with sentient supervision (human, Vulcan, Tellarite, whatever). And it also means the bulk of the work being done in an orbital drydock, not actually in the San Francisco Navy Yards.
If the teaser is supposed to portray how they actually built the Enterprise, then they've already destroyed any credibility they might have had as far as I'm concerned.
That means robots with sentient supervision (human, Vulcan, Tellarite, whatever). And it also means the bulk of the work being done in an orbital drydock, not actually in the San Francisco Navy Yards.
If the teaser is supposed to portray how they actually built the Enterprise, then they've already destroyed any credibility they might have had as far as I'm concerned.
And by saying that, you imply that you think that primarily automated production is more effective and less error-prone than manual or "semi-automated" work.
What do you base that upon? As someone who's seen lots of "automated systems" which are more cost-effective, but FAR more error-prone, than manual production methods, I'm dramatically less convinced of that than you seem to be.
Look at automobile manufacturing, just for example. The high-speed automated assembly lines are pretty good at producing cars, but the best cars out there are still the ones that are "lovingly made by hand." Not just from the standpoint of them being the most EXPENSIVE ones, but also of having the closest tolerances, the highest quality, etc.
Has ANYONE here who's bought a "stock off the production line" car gotten it home and not found at least a few manufacturing defects which would never have gotten past a manual assembly method?
You may argue that in a couple of hundred years, that'll change. Fine... but if you want to make that argument, support it with facts, not just "well, it's the future, everything will be PUUUUURRRRRFECT."
Again... why?
Seriously. Explain to me why you believe that basic construction is better done in a vacuum as opposed to in an atmosphere?
I can give you a TON of good reasons for why working in a shirtsleeves environment is beneficial... not the least of which is the fact that the people working out there (even if they are just "supervising" robots) need to be spacesuited!
The first one is predicated upon the non-unreasonable belief that Trek ships are made of metallic materials for the most part. This is borne out by the nomenclature used, the sounds made when the hull is overstressed, the general appearance, even the terminology used. It's also borne out by the obvious production intent. If you claim that "real" spaceships in the future will not be made of metallic materials... fine... but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about Star Trek, where ships are made from "Tritanium" and "Duranium" alloys. ALLOYS. That term is a real term which has a real meaning. An alloy is a mixture of METALS... nothing more and nothing less. Like it or not, TOS-era ships were principally metallic, and TNG-era ships were metallic but with laminated composite structures layered along with that metal.
SO... metal fabrication involves making small elements of metal structures, then joining those metal structures in such a way as to create a consistent metallic joint. That's called WELDING. Welding may be accomplished by many methods, and the "seam weld" we typically think of today may not be the one used on the Enterprise, but SOME form of weld will be.
Welding involves the controlled application of heat, and just as significantly, the controlled REMOVAL OF HEAT.
How do you do that? Well, there are various "quenching" processes which can be used (chilled oil, water, etc) but most commonly, it's just FORCED AIR which provides the proper rate of cooling to create a properly recrystalized weld joint.
In a vacuum... you don't have that. You'd need a "mystical magical heat-o-remove-o raygun" to do that... which of course is ludicrous.
In an atmosphere... it's EASY, and it's FREE.
I'm 100% in favor of the basic ship construction being performed planetside, with the components then being lifted to orbit (a TRIVIAL undertaking with antigravity systems!) for assembly and integration.
Waitaminute... aren't you a professing strong proponent of being true to the original series' production intent? If so... how do you justify your own REVISIONIST take on this?
The folks who made the original show were very specific about the ship's components being built at the San Francisco Naval Yards (a real place, by the way, not some "Trek fiction"... and a real place that the people writing the original show KNEW was a real place!) and then being assembled in space. Roddenberry stated that the ship, ONCE ASSEMBLED, would never see the surface of a planet. But he was quite clear that the PARTS were assembled here...
and in an arrangement SOMETHING like this (done from memory)
In a society that has damn-near sentient computer systems and molecular manipulation that allows for replicators and transporters, I think that'd work out most of the bugs you'd come across in a typical automobile assembly line. For those that are still there, that's why you have the aformentioned sentient supervision.
We're talking about a government job here.
That's why you have a chief engineer and why the ship goes out for a year long shakedown cruise, to find those sniggling little gremlins.
Not perfect, but a helluva lot further along that what that teaser is showing. The construction of the Titanic looks more advanced than that setup!
Same reason they're building the ISS in orbit instead of building the whole thing on the ground and trying to lift the whole shebang into orbit afterwards. More efficient use of lift technology, especially the bit about not having to use so much thrust that you wind up flash frying Sausalito.
Y'know, they're working on better spacesuits today, to get rid of that bulkiness problem.
There's also something called "hard vacuum".
And with tractor beams in an orbital spacedock, manipulating those large structures is even more trivial, since you're not fighting the planetary gravity along with the object's mass.
Therein lies the key. The components were built on the ground, then lifted up into orbit and put together. The teaser has them putting the whole thing together on the ground.
Do you hate Fisherman's Wharf so much that you want to see it incinerated by the exhaust from the impulse engines when that sucker lifts off?
To be sure, Starfleet might wish to "test fit" the components, then take them apart again (never having quite hard-wired or welded them together, mind you) and then ship them to orbit for actual assembly. It's about 95% sure that we won't see the construction scene again in the movie, nor will we see the subsequent takeoff to witness whether it's in one piece or four.
And shuttlecraft somehow manage to lift off or hover with less adverse effects on the surroundings than those caused by a helicopter... Even scaling that up for starships, we might end up with something manageable.
Timo Saloniemi
And shuttlecraft somehow manage to lift off or hover with less adverse effects on the surroundings than those caused by a helicopter... Even scaling that up for starships, we might end up with something manageable.
Timo Saloniemi
Are we certain that this is our timeline's Enterprise?
I'm just going to address this one point:
There are three ways to perform heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. In an atmosphere, you have convection (which Cary describes above) and radiation (to a much smaller amount). In vacuum, you no longer have convection, and there's no conduction, so all you're left with is radiation. In our own real-life experience, satellites and spacecraft actually have problems with getting rid of excess heat (especially in sunlight), so a lot of them are covered with insulating blankets and radiator panels.
Thanks, BJ... I was going to say pretty much the same thing.
Hard-vacuum is actually a remarkably good INSULATOR. This, in fact, is the basic idea behind thermos bottles. They have a interior bottle, an exterior one, and the space in between is evacuated (not at a "hard vacuum" level but as close as can be achieved in a cost-effective manner). So you have conduction through the inner bottle (which is very low...) you have radiation between the inner and outer bottles, and you have almost no convection (due to the vacuum in that cavity).
That's why thermos bottles work so well at keeping your coffee hot all day.
It's also the point I was making about welding... remove the convection factor and your welding process will simply not work, unless you have some other form of cooling, provided by equipment.
As I said... in an atmosphere, it's free and easy, and happens to work quite nicely.
You're correct, we don't know that. However, it's not unreasonable to assume that, considering what we know of the cast of the film. We haven't heard anything about any casting of 24th-century roles, except for Nimoy as Spock (which I happen to think is more likely a 25th-century role anyway!)
But your point is well-made. We don't really KNOW anything... except that it's UNLIKELY that they'd have multiple major casts... it's not normally something you'd expect to have be the case in a two-hour movie (though it would work for a week-long miniseries!). Since any timeframe we'll be seeing will be primarily populated by the main cast we've been made aware of, that PROBABLY limits us to limited exposure to later or earlier timeframes, mainly for framing purposes.
It's how long, now, til we'll all know for sure?
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