Building the Mighty Mushroom - Spacedock

[JarodRussell]

It does say in "Starship Spotter" (see my entry on Page 2) that two doors were enlarged for the Galaxy-class.

They weren't. The footage in that TNG episode is exactly the same as in TSFS, which means that the doors are just as large relative to the size of the entire station. So the entire station would have been enlarged.

This whole thing is based on a cheap fuck up in TNG, because they didn't want to spend money on a new VFX shot.

 

[Timo]

Canonically speaking, the doors of Spacedock were enlarged: the only time we saw Spacedock after ST3/4/6 was VOY "Non Sequitur", where we saw that the facility was now equipped with the kilometer-wide doors of the Dyson Sphere.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Albertese]

I figure the spacedock in "Non-Sequitur" was not the same one from the movies. Or, perhaps it was a whole 'nother addition to one end or the other of the spacedock we already know and love.

--Alex

 

[Timo]

True enough, as there is no establishing exterior view.

Nor do ST3 or "Non Sequitur" necessarily suggest that the word "spacedock" ought to refer to any specific facility for docking in space. It sounds more like a generic name for any purpose-built anchorage in space, despite the fact that many transcripts give it an uppercase S. The wording is equally generic in ST6.

However, in ST4, Starfleet Command issues a specific order that goes "Spacedock, this is SF Command: launch all vessels!". The facility responds with "SF Command, this is Spacedock on emergency channel; we have lost all internal power!". The wording here suggests that Spacedock indeed is a specific and unique spacedocking facility, separate from the well-established other spacedocks near Earth. In any other case, the expression used should be something like "Spacedock One" or "Spacedock Earth", to specify which spacedock is being hailed or is responding.

We're free to speculate here. My personal preference is that every civilized world has a dedicated Spacedock (uppercase in text references, "implicit uppercase" in verbal exchanges unless the word is followed by an ID number) that serves as the transportation hub of that world, in addition to possibly sporting other spacedocking facilities. On most Spacedocks, there's also a Starfleet pier or two, and Starfleet may even be tasked with running the Spacedocks even though their primary purpose is civilian.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

Well, since the radio operator in Spacedock was working in what appeared to be an internal control tower (not an external "bridge" like Deep Space Nine), perhaps it can be concluded that Spacedock is the inner part of the top of the Mighty Mushroom, not that whole station. The station itself could be Starbase One, but the cavernous enclosure would be a special segment of it referred to as Spacedock.

 

[bryce]

In the nuTrek movie they also referred to the station that the Starfleet task force ships were docked at as "spacedock"...so that confuses the issue even more...was this a facility that exists *only* in the nuTrek verse? Or in both universes?

And if so, did it exist along with "Spacedock"...? Or before it...?

I've always assumed that such a HUGE structure as Spacedock (in the TOS movies) probably took years - or even decades - to build, so probably construction on it began around the end of Archer's time...but perhaps I am wrong and the nuTrek "spacedock" (which also looked a lot like the Matt Jefferies designed "Starfleet Headquarters") was THE "Spacedock" in the TOS era, and later the big mushroom station became THE "Spacedock" after it was constructed...

Or perhaps the nuTrek station is like "Spacedock 2" or "Spacedock B" and the Mushroom dock is "Spacedock Alpha" or some-such...

ETA:

(In fact, I'd assume that such a major Federation hub world as Earth probably has *several* large spacedocks (plural) around it - and in the Sol system..maybe around Mars too - and perhaps Starfleet runs or manages them in a similar capacity as America's Coast Guard here on Earth...)

 

[bryce]

[SNIP]...we do have pressing visual reasons for thinking that the "11001001" starbase truly is much bigger than the ST3 Spacedock:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd0155.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s1/1x16/oneone006.jpg

If we assumed here that the E-nil were closer to the camera than the E-D or the doors (and performed a funny last-minute dogleg maneuver to align herself with the doors after the camera turned away), things might still work out. But other scenes confirm that the E-nil only barely fits through those very same doors, defying that line of argument.

So yes, Spacedock might accommodate a Galaxy (which never saw happen) through mods (which we never witnessed), but the TNG starbases would still be bigger.

Timo Saloniemi

Since many visuals - and ships and stations - were re-done and changed in Star Trek: Remastered, it's possible that in the future a remastered version of TNG could be remade with the E-D docking outside of the Mushroom spacedock - or with a different style of spacedock (hopefully) replacing the movie style spacedock that was re-used in TNG. (And hopefully with new stations replacing the massively scaled up Orbital Office Complex/Regula 1 style stations that were reused...)

Or we could see a re-done version of the Earth Spacedock-style stations but with bigger doors added on and a re-sized (correctly) E-D...

My point is that what we see on screen may not necessarily be what "really" is "there"...but is only a....er...representation of it.

(I like how ST: Remastered used the Vanguard style station as a Starbase - unfortunately they scaled that one *down* - as it could actually fit a Connie *inside* of it, if I am not mistaken...so perhaps we could see all sorts of mushroom *shaped* stations - but ones that are much bigger than Earth's Spacedock - and of a different make and model...)

 

[Timo]

My problem with the redone "Ultimate Computer" was that they gave the space station a Starbase number - and "Starbase 6" is not a good choice for this station, for a variety of reasons...

In redoing TNG, I'd like to see the station of "Measure of a Man" redone before the "11001001" mushroom is altered. After all, that station (a reuse of the main modules of the Orbital Office / Regula I) was enlarged even more, so that a Galaxy could fly in front of it yet obscure only a small part of it! That looks indecent, because the Orbital Office is a pretty low resolution model when zoomed up that much...

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x09/themeasureofaman025.jpg

(In fact, I'd assume that such a major Federation hub world as Earth probably has *several* large spacedocks (plural) around it - and in the Sol system..maybe around Mars too - and perhaps Starfleet runs or manages them in a similar capacity as America's Coast Guard here on Earth...)

I'd think so. Even if the sky were littered with such floating cities, they wouldn't really be visible as anything more than bright dots - and the skies in Star Trek are always full of bright dots anyway, because it's a scifi show where the audience expects to see stars when one is in space, and thus TPTB generously provide the audience with such. (In reality, stars would rarely be visible in space, because they are so dim compared with brightly reflecting planets or starships, and the eye would adapt and filter out the stars in order to be able to tolerate the brilliance of the starship within the field of vision.)

ST4 is the only piece of Trek that would suggest that there only exists a single structure known as "spacedock". The rest of Trek fully allows for a great or infinite number of spacedocks of various sorts, ranging from the girder boxers of TMP/ST2 to the giant mushrooms or spheres-with-saucers, and perhaps beyond.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[UssGlenn]

My problem with the redone "Ultimate Computer" was that they gave the space station a Starbase number - and "Starbase 6" is not a good choice for this station, for a variety of reasons...

Now I'm curious. Sounds like it's more than just too small of a number.

 

[Saquist]

Keep in mind that this is just my opinion...

The Mushroomian Spacedock never made sense to me in TMP3. If it was the "hub" of spacecraft construction and traffic activity in Earth orbit, why didn't we see it before that? The thing is huge. It would loom like a second moon in Earth's sky, and be plainly visible for many thousands of miles, everywhere in Earth orbit except for the far side of the planet. In fact, it looks so huge that I wouldn't be surprised if you could see it from the Moon.

This is in sharp contrast to the orbital office complex where Kirk first meets Scott before traveling to see the refit Enterprise for the first time in TMP1. The scale of the orbital office complex is much more in line with what we've come to expect of space vehicles and stations in the TOS Universe. When did Fesarius-sized vessels become part of the Earth/Federation repertoire?

It seemed to me to be one of those examples of Star Destroyer / Death Star envy that crept into TREK during those days. It was more concept erosion.

Having said all that, even though the Mushroom sticks out like a sore thumb, I suppose the Federation would have the technology to build one if they really really wanted to. The practicality of maintaining and securing a vessel of that size would seem to be a headache, though.

It would seem to me that if it takes Earth and/or the Federation years to design and build a new class of starship-of-the-line, then a station the size of the Mushroom would take years or even decades. Maybe the station evolved gradually over time, starting as a small office complex during the early days of the UFP, then growing over generations. That's the only way it would make sense to me.

Well, the point of this thread is not if we LIKE Spacedock as a concept or construct... I am trying to ascertain how long it would theoretically take to build it, to establish a rough timeline of when Starfleet might have begun work on it.

See, guys the Spackdock concept makes complete sense.
Even NASA at this primitive time in Space Exploration has planned concepts of an enclosed ship production facility.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...8C0gwY&t=1&usg=__xcvuwPne3wuKBYKq_uVYbagzj54=

Designing the Facility

Producing plans of anything is about man power and processing for the job size. If you're designing something this large then it would be important to break the project into section of descending order. Powerplant, Habitat, Dock.

The Design of the Spacedock was already predisposed to a certain amount of alacrity because it's symmetrical which means a large amount of repetition of design per 10 degrees with minor deviation per section. Each Area Level would be given Design Priority Authority which means in the design phase certain sections were more important than others. Any needs or mistakes in utilities or just design in general would conform to the needs of Authoritative section. Sectional Degress would be broken up by utilites, architecture, structural (not in that order)

With a design crew of say, 25,000 to 30,000 of Senior Designer, Drafters, checkers and Nuclear Specialist it's just a 5 to 7 Year design project.

Production

The trick with production is purely about available materials. Often you are always waiting for something and almost everything is on back order.

What we haven't seen in Trek of the 23rd century are orbital production facilities. It doesn't mean they don't exist but without them planetary/STS transit for all those materials is necessary. Amusing that these orbital production facilities were in the 1st of 2nd stages of development for the Federation Civilization (I say 2nd Stage because the Registry shows a fantastic BOOM of ship production from the 2,000's-6,000's in the late 23rd Century to the 20,000 and 40,000's in just a few Decades.) then the production and transit of these materals to location would have been on the scale of 1-10 a 5.

Construction
Every Construction project has a Time Frame and every Time frame is dictated by available funds. The Federation doesn't have a completely capitalist system. So they only dictate is available materials.

With money out the way available materials are abundant but limited by distance, say of around 10 to 15 lightyears. With the combined production of High Council Planets aswell as the Founding Planets Vulcans, Andor, Earth, Alpha Centauri, Tellar (the more advanced civilization carrying the larger load) the Production and Construction load can be adequately distributed.

If WWII is any indication of even primitive production/construction ability on the scale of ships.

In Seven Years Combined AXIS/ALLIED PRODUCTION
(Most Battleships and Cruiser were pre-WWII proucts)

121 Aircraft Carriers
20 Battleships
97 Cruisers
900 Destroyers
1758 Submarines

That tonage alone could be a quarter of the Primary Dock Facility and that's just one Primitive Production and Resource system in 7 Years.

My Conclusion

Mandate and Legislation: 2 Years
Design: 5 Years
Construction: 8-10 Years

Since the Design of the Spacedock is modular it's possible that there was considerable overlap in Design and Production like with the Intentional Space Station. Completed in stages
at 12 or 13 years of Construction.

The project could have began halfway through Enterprises Life Time which would make sense as the dock size fits the Constitution Class Properly.

 

[Irishman]

We're assuming a lot about this station.

1. We're assuming it was completed and fully staffed when we see it in TWOK.
2. We're assuming that it would have been visible from the TMP orbital office and the facility where the E was refit.
3. We're assuming that future technologies that we know the Federation has (transporters, m-am reactors, etc) were not brought to bear in a major fashion in construction of this (and other similar facilities).
4. We're assuming that there would be no good reason for SF admin to be centered there instead of on Earth. (we're forgetting FJ's SF HQ design from the 70s, which totally influenced this design).
5. We're assuming that "just because we can" isn't still a powerful motivator for humanity in the Trekverse (especially when so many awe-inspiring things are possible then because of more advanced technologies).
6. We're assuming that there is no good reason for starships to be contained (and built) within it, instead of open Earth orbit.

 

[Irishman]

I expect it's not just a good frame for lights. The frame also, no doubt, serves as a place to hook up mechanical arms and such to work on the ship. We see such details in the drydocks shown in Enterprise. I don't think relying so heavily on forcefields during construction would be very cost effective. It seems that shields are used in Trek only when they are really needed. I'm pretty sure the point of the drydock frame is basically the equivalent of scaffolding on any building project.

--Alex

Cost effective? By what standards?

 

[Irishman]

Having doors about twice as wide and higher by a half ought to solve the entry problem to ST3 Spacedock. After that, the ship ought to have enough elbow room for maneuvering to a mooring position, and perhaps even turning around (even if the ship in "11001001" for some reason exits the much larger starbase at reverse), as evidenced by this view from ST3:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd0595.jpg

Still, I don't think we have a pressing reason for thinking that the ST3 Spacedock should be capable of accommodating a Galaxy - or a Nebula, despite "Non Sequitur". OTOH, we do have pressing visual reasons for thinking that the "11001001" starbase truly is much bigger than the ST3 Spacedock:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd0155.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s1/1x16/oneone006.jpg

If we assumed here that the E-nil were closer to the camera than the E-D or the doors (and performed a funny last-minute dogleg maneuver to align herself with the doors after the camera turned away), things might still work out. But other scenes confirm that the E-nil only barely fits through those very same doors, defying that line of argument.

So yes, Spacedock might accommodate a Galaxy (which never saw happen) through mods (which we never witnessed), but the TNG starbases would still be bigger.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, I think, that in this case, it's clear they rebuilt a new station by the time the Enterprise D used it. I don't think that the explanation from the Starship Spotter - that they just widened a couple of the doors - holds water.

I would tend to think that between 2275 and the nearly-80 years leading to the appearance of the larger station in TNG it gives them plenty of time to build a station twice as large as the original.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, though, the E-D never used a mushroom station near Earth.

The E-D used three different mushroom-shaped starbases during the show, but none of those were on Earth orbit. The first one, SB74 in "11001001", orbited Tarsas III; the second one, SB 133 in "Remember Me", orbited an unnamed planet that, like Tarsas III, looked a lot like Earth (and had a similar-looking moon as well) but was never suggested to be Earth; and the third one, SB 84 in "Phantasms", was indicated to lie close to "the neutral zone" (supposedly the Romulan one) in "Heart of Glory". In addition, there was Lya Station Alpha from "Ensign Ro", supposedly not orbiting Earth but a world named Lya, or inhabited by the Lya, or something like that.

When visiting Earth, the E-D either stayed free on orbit ("Conspiracy") or docked with that spidery thing called the McKinley station ("Family"). No mushrooms were in sight on those occasions. So the old Spacedock might remain just as small as ever...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Irishman]

The thing is, though, the E-D never used a mushroom station near Earth.

The E-D used three different mushroom-shaped starbases during the show, but none of those were on Earth orbit. The first one, SB74 in "11001001", orbited Tarsas III; the second one, SB 133 in "Remember Me", orbited an unnamed planet that, like Tarsas III, looked a lot like Earth (and had a similar-looking moon as well) but was never suggested to be Earth; and the third one, SB 84 in "Phantasms", was indicated to lie close to "the neutral zone" (supposedly the Romulan one) in "Heart of Glory". In addition, there was Lya Station Alpha from "Ensign Ro", supposedly not orbiting Earth but a world named Lya, or inhabited by the Lya, or something like that.

When visiting Earth, the E-D either stayed free on orbit ("Conspiracy") or docked with that spidery thing called the McKinley station ("Family"). No mushrooms were in sight on those occasions. So the old Spacedock might remain just as small as ever...

Timo Saloniemi

Possible. I was addressing the explanation given by the Starship Spotter for how just the doors were made larger to let the larger starships in.

 

[Saquist]

The thing is, though, the E-D never used a mushroom station near Earth.

The E-D used three different mushroom-shaped starbases during the show, but none of those were on Earth orbit. The first one, SB74 in "11001001", orbited Tarsas III; the second one, SB 133 in "Remember Me", orbited an unnamed planet that, like Tarsas III, looked a lot like Earth (and had a similar-looking moon as well) but was never suggested to be Earth; and the third one, SB 84 in "Phantasms", was indicated to lie close to "the neutral zone" (supposedly the Romulan one) in "Heart of Glory". In addition, there was Lya Station Alpha from "Ensign Ro", supposedly not orbiting Earth but a world named Lya, or inhabited by the Lya, or something like that.

When visiting Earth, the E-D either stayed free on orbit ("Conspiracy") or docked with that spidery thing called the McKinley station ("Family"). No mushrooms were in sight on those occasions. So the old Spacedock might remain just as small as ever...

Timo Saloniemi

There was no change in proportions for any of the spacedocks, no change in models. Only thing that changed was scale.

 

[SicOne]

^ Or maybe the two enlarged doors were on the sides of Spacedock that weren't facing the camera...

 

[Timo]

(...But again, there was no camera. The supposed enlarging of the doors happened in Starship Spotter only.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

The mush-room space-dock from Kirk's era is able to accommodate a Galaxy class ship without problem to my knowledge.
It certainly has the interior to do it.

Although, by the 24th century, it's possible that SF removed the internal central section entirely (the one which divided ships locations) or they could have retrofitted it to accommodate the Galaxy class itself.

Either way, I don't see a problem with having a larger mushroom type space-dock in the first place.
The design itself is probably sound and modular enough to accommodate upgrades for several centuries if not a millenia (and SF engineers find a way to upgrade outdated technology all the time).

The larger mushrooms could be located outside of SOL and might have been constructed while the Galaxy class was still on the drawing board (or was even proposed as a design).

There are a ton of options to ponder on.

One would also have to take into account the fact that building technology is highly advanced in the 23rd and 24th centuries.
They would probably use transporters and replicators extensively for industrial purposes (not to mention automation).
I doubt any SF ship would take more than several months to be constructed (6 months tops for the Galaxy class).
Maybe in the 23rd century it would take them about 10 to 20 years to construct a mushroom spacedock.
In the 24th, they would probably have the design handled so it would take at least half as much.

The Delta Flyer for example was constructed in less than a week (although at first, Paris mentioned it would take 7 days).
So, if we take into account that a crew of Voyager (with their limited resources) took a week to build something as big as the Flyer, my theory is that an actual drydock at Utopia Planitia (or any other construction yard in general) would probably need half as much time since they have specialized equipment and virtually unlimited resources.

A Galaxy class being constructed in 6 months time seems realistic ... perhaps even less if there would be heavy replication involved.

5 years for construction of something as large as a mushroom space-dock seems like an attainable goal.
If not far less.

The Federation IS comprised of over 150 member worlds.
If we take into account that all of the member worlds would have their own construction facilities (and they would have to have them because those planets would have created their own ships prior to joining the Federation and would undergo upgrades to keep them up with advancements), then it stands to reason one can complete the work in question in far less time if you give each member world a section of the space-dock to create, which would be taken later on to a specific location.

One can easily churn out a whole lot of these stations in a much shorter time frame than say 5 years as a result (especially if it's constructed in say 150 pieces and then towed to a specified location where it would be assembled).

 

[ShinRa Actual]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this (I...didn't read the entire thread), but you do see a starbase design in Legacy (the game) in the ENT era, that's basically the stump portion of the Mushroom. Implying that the structure was started way back then, and grew over a century or so.