"Building" the Refit 1701 Bridge

[Bill Thompson]

THE YEAR IS 2287. The Starfleet Corps of Engineers is putting together a museum exposition on the history of the development of human/machine interface in Starship design. The Corps has acquired a lovely warehouse space in a historic section of northern California close to SCE headquarters to use as a permanent display and exhibition space. Inside will be housed a centerpiece of the exhibit: the bridge of the 1701 USS Enterprise as it existed immediately after its refit of 2272, for this marked a key transition in the development of Starfleet's control interface design.
Of course, since the Enterprise itself was destroyed in 2285, an existing Constitution/Enterprise class bridge shell has been procured and restored for the purpose. The Enterprise's refit control modules, all of which had been upgraded and replaced by 2283, were tracked down and brought together for this exhibit, to provide an 'as-flown' experience to the greatest extent possible. A team of assembly techs, construction engineers, and specialists in the SCE (some of whom worked on the original refit project) are prepping and assembling the exhibit.
_____

<realworld>
This is part of my personal project that I call "The Logical Enterprise." It attempts to use the on-screen USS Enterprise from TMP and the Phase II Enterprise design to extrapolate the real, working Starship that is technically as complete and usable as possible.
Appearances, colors, and designs have been primarily referenced from on-screen images of the studio sets, and made to fit the physical constraints of the spaces aboard the actual Starship as closely as possible. Areas not seen onscreen are logical extrapolations.
This synthesis may include deviations from on-screen canon where applicable, and use elements of Phase II design. In all instances of these amalgams, logical operations of all controls and design consideration for maximum reality is the priority. Any instances where even Phase II left room for vague or script-dictated controls, these have been assigned a logical function.
The external hull design is taken solely from TMP images as seen on-screen, with minimal logical extrapolation. I have intentionally used no reference to other sources, movies, or conventions, even when those conventions have become widespread and are believed to be correct.
---o---O---o---
Any project based in a fictional world is subject to personal conceits, or 'headcanon,' that inform an individual's design and artistic philosophy. In other words, welcome to my world: these are my rules.

1. The world of Star Trek is real and tangible, and the organizations and technology exist in the real world of the future. The Enterprise is a real, solid, working Starship that has been freshly refit in 2272. Thus, anything represented as existing on the Enterprise must have a practical, logical function within that world, including greebles and blinkenlightzen.

2. Star Trek in any form of media is an approximation of that real world. They are stories, based on reality, shot on a soundstage with physical models, cameras, and actors. The Enterprise sets were constructed with the priority on effective filmmaking, and scripts were written with the priority on telling a compelling story. Within that constriction, the episodes of TOS, STC, TMP, etc., are canon; and the Starships as depicted are faithful approximations of the form, function, and appearance of those Starships.

3. The Phase II design philosophy was used as far as practical engineering trials by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers around 2268. The Enterprise was not refit with Phase II design, although some ships were. As design flaws were discovered and corrected over several years of testing, the result by 2272 was the Refit design we see onscreen.

Credits:
Except where otherwise noted as we go, all representations are constructed by me, using Sketchup Make 2016 and Twilight Render 2.0.
</realworld>
_____

FOR THE LAST FEW WEEKS, the assembly team has been hard at work. The hull superstructure has been moved and rebuilt on-site in the warehouse. The upper and lower bridge decks, docking port, and lift tubes have been constructed within the hull. Shipping crates full of parts are now beginning to arrive. This is where I come in: the assembly tech for the bridge modules themselves. I also have my camera to take some shots of the build. Of course, I'll be sure to show you every button and every function at every station, too!

Here is our warehouse building site, which will become the exhibition hall when the dust settles. For now, it's the Starfleet Corps of Engineers' personal sandbox. It's in a nice, remote part of town that time passed by for the last hundred years or so. Building the SCE museum complex here will do much to revitalize this sleepy community.

<realworld> Trimble 3DWarehouse credits: warehouse by Shareck, lightly modified; city block by Steelflame, modified. </realworld>

Until its battery/generator unit arrives and is installed, the bridge is powered by an external EPS feed. Early in the morning when I first arrive, Sam, our EE, is already there. He's hooked in the power and is checking the lights and EPS taps to make sure they are all active. Even at this early stage, (and knowing that this is another decommissioned ship's hull and not the Enterprise's,) seeing the docking ring lit up in the dark gives me a thrill.

<realworld> Trimble 3DWarehouse credits: Forklift by Archi; maquettes by Alex S., highly modified; containers by Robert Pearce, AIA, modified.
This is a good example of "logical deviation from canon." TMP shooting model of 1701 shows no such detail around its bridge docking port. Realistically, the scale of the model cannot show this detail, and the larger model for its docking scene does not show this angle. Since Starfleet docking ports are highly standardized, it makes logical sense that all the grapples, lights, signage, ball targets, etc. that we DO see in the movie on the secondary hull docking port would be duplicated on every docking port on the "actual" ship. Similarly, the navigation lights would be ridiculously large if scaled up from the model, so I have created the ship with navigation lights in realistic scale. </realworld>

As dawn creeps in, an early shipment arrives. Fred, our heavy equip operator, offloads the truck and stores the contents off to the side in the wings of the warehouse. Don't be shocked by the terrestrially primitive! Things may be shiny and floaty in space, but down here on the ground, we still need and use the mundane--wheels, forklifts, hand tools, and sweat equity.

As the morning sun breaks through the clouds outside, I ride up to the top level to get a nice overview of the area. Notice that the sensor dome is suspended from the rafters. We'll lock it down once we get the long-range sensor array installed over the bridge. That green shipping container in the far corner houses the bridge modules, which I can't wait to get my hands on! In front of the shipping container you can just make out the wedge-shaped sensor arrays.

<realworld> Another logical deviation from canon: the turbolift caps. Not exactly the same size, shape, or placement as on the shooting model, but it's obvious that's what they are for, so I made them fit the lift shafts directly under them. </realworld>

Here's a shot down the other side of the warehouse. Sam is finally finishing up his EPS check. The boxes along the far wall are parts of the air handler (I think,) the astrogator, the minitransporter buffers, and a box of parts which probably also go with the transporter module. Guess that means unless the other parts arrive soon, we'll be building the transporter modules first! More on that later, though. Next, we'll go down and step inside the bridge itself.

<realworld> Hope you all enjoy this little flight of fancy. I'll add to it and/or answer questions periodically. I'm a middle-school teacher by day, and this is what I use as my escape! It's not by coincidence that I'm setting this thread up a week before school starts... </realworld>

 

[Psion]

Alright, this is a cool project. I'm sure there will be disagreements about the specifics, but the approach is novel and fun!

 

[Spaceship Jo]

This is deeply, quintessentially cool, in the way that only such a wonderfully nerdy, detail-obsessed, impressively skilled Trek fan art project can be. Very much looking forward to updates here.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

neat

 

[Sibyl]

Yup, this is pretty freaking cool!

I can't wait to see how this progresses.

 

[Psion]

Now ... I'm gonna be a trouble-maker:

How big are the doors on that warehouse?

 

[Bill Thompson]

...How big are the doors on that warehouse?

Well...there are a couple different answers to that.

The "Unverifiable Assertion" answer is that the doors have been carefully measured and rendered to be exactly large enough for the largest unassembled piece to fit through.

The "Future Magic" answer is that the large hull pieces were beamed in.

The "Unlikely Technology" answer is that the roof girders are actually a scissor-like framework that retracts the roof so the hull pieces can be lowered by crane.

The "Retcon Solves Everything" answer is that much of the back wall is actually a cleverly disguised false door.

The "Plausible Deniability" answer is that the back wall was in a bad state when the SCE acquired the property, and the hull was moved in as the wall was being partially disassembled and rebuilt.

The "MST3K" answer is
"...if you wonder how Joel eats and breathes
and other science facts, (la la la),
then repeat to yourself 'it's just a show;
I should really just relax'..."

BUT the truthful answer is I just really hoped no one would notice.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

got to keep that in mind

 

[Psion]

Well...there are a couple different answers to that.

The "Unverifiable Assertion" answer is that the doors have been carefully measured and rendered to be exactly large enough for the largest unassembled piece to fit through.

The "Future Magic" answer is that the large hull pieces were beamed in.

The "Unlikely Technology" answer is that the roof girders are actually a scissor-like framework that retracts the roof so the hull pieces can be lowered by crane.

The "Retcon Solves Everything" answer is that much of the back wall is actually a cleverly disguised false door.

The "Plausible Deniability" answer is that the back wall was in a bad state when the SCE acquired the property, and the hull was moved in as the wall was being partially disassembled and rebuilt.

The "MST3K" answer is
"...if you wonder how Joel eats and breathes
and other science facts, (la la la),
then repeat to yourself 'it's just a show;
I should really just relax'..."

BUT the truthful answer is I just really hoped no one would notice.

Well done!

How about using an aircraft hangar? They lack the bricks and dust contrast with a starship bridge, but typically have a big door. I think Star Trek: Enterprise suggested the use of hangars in several episodes.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Y'know, I did think about using a hangar. Sketchup didn't have anything that caught my attention, though. Your comment actually nailed it: I liked the detail and the grotty appearance of this little warehouse. Hangars tend to be sterile-looking without a lot of windows--I love the glass space the warehouse has, and the way the light plays over the bridge hull. It also gives the bridge a good sense of scale.

 

[DanGovier]

The funny thing is, if I had enough land and a big enough barn, I would be building exactly what is in that warehouse!
It would be the ultimate man cave.

 

[Sibyl]

The funny thing is, if I had enough land and a big enough barn, I would be building exactly what is in that warehouse!
It would be the ultimate man cave.

^^ THIS!!!

 

[Bill Thompson]

AS I CLAMBER THROUGH the docking port, this is the scene that greets me:

Not many people have seen a completely bare Starship bridge deck! The first thing to notice is that you've probably thought of it as a flat circular floor with a sunken 'pit' in the middle, but the truth is nearly the opposite. The main deck is the large annular ring that surrounds a raised upper annulus. What you think of as the "lower bridge" is actually level with the deck floor. The docking area is self-contained and isolated from the bridge itself: you can see at this stage of construction how the docking half of Deck One was essentially tacked onto the old Connie bridge dome.
Structurally, the entire bridge level, from the deck to the hull, is an assembly that can be removed from a Starship and replaced, well, if not exactly easily, then at least with a minimum of fuss and downtime in spacedock. The deck is bolted to a system of radial girders that mechanically interlock with a matching set of girders on the topside of Deck Two. The upper deck is similarly interlocked with the computer core, and the computer core is interlocked to each deck through the primary hull. This enables the entire core to be removed with the bridge for system upgrades.
Looking across to the far side of the dome, you can see the access panels for the forwardmost of the three floodlight assemblies with their flanking short-range sensor emitters. The niches between the access panels will house the enormous nitrogen and oxygen tanks for the bridge reserve air supply. Under normal conditions, the bridge air handler shares the ship's circulation, but it keeps a quantity in reserve that allows the bridge to function with a completely self-contained air supply if the need arises. The outer deck behind the lifts will be populated with smaller subsidiary tanks. In front of the lifts and around the outside of the bridge modules, the deck serves as a maintenance accessway, exactly like on the old Connie. The docking deck won't yet be installed until we get the tanks in place, which is why the lift appears to open several feet above the bridge deck.

Here I am at the forward end of the upper deck looking aft to the docking hatch, ostensibly to get out of the way of Conrad, Eddie, Mike, and Ernie, who have all arrived and are busy helping Sam and Fred unpack the air bottles. (Because it's a bit dim in here, the exposure blew-out the lighted cove around the lower bridge...it's not nearly as harsh as it looks here.) Airtight pressure bulkheads will separate the docking deck from the bridge deck, enabling depressurization of the dock without affecting bridge operations. The wedge-shaped area aft of the port lift will be the generator/battery room, and aft of the starboard lift is where the lifeboat will be stowed. (Lifeboat, you say? Why yes: our exhibit will have its lifeboat on board! I'll be sure to show you every detail of our restored lifeboat, too.) You can just see the hole in the hull where we've left the lifeboat hatch open, to make it a little easier to get the equipment in.

Here's the first of the massive air bottles in place and strapped down. Eddie's throwing himself into hooking up the O2 connections, (even though these bottles are for show--the exhibit will use ambient filtered air through the handlers.) Eddie's been a real motivating factor for the whole project; he's a ground-based engineer who loves this old tech and is a natural tinkerer. Mike is bringing in the hold down straps for the N2 bottle, which will go in the other niche. Mike's one of our old-timers, an engineer who actually worked on the Connie Phase II and Refit projects, and is a treasure-trove of anecdotes from the design trials. Conrad's our project CO. He's a bit of a prat and can be more than a little OCD, but has seriously done a great job coordinating the bringing of all these disparate and mostly obsolete parts together from the far-flung corners of the Federation, and more-or-less on time.

Because it is so dark inside the hull, we decided to install the aft lights ahead of schedule to make it easier to sinch in the aft gas bottles. That privilege went to Ernie, of course. He's our newest member, one of our youngsters at the SCE and still firmly in the 'hazing' phase. It's all in good fun, of course, and Ernie's a good sport. (Fortunately!) Sam is supplying the 'encouragement.'
Oh, in case you are wondering, we are all wearing vintage SCE work overalls! It adds a bit of spirit to the build. Unlike the Starfleet duty uniforms that rolled out around 2270, which we always referred to as 'flannelette pyjamas,' SCE's work overalls offered a bit of protection. The engineers down here on Earth actually work with sharp edges and heavy objects, and don't particularly like our more delicate bits blowing in the breeze. The standard spacefaring uniforms back then were a bit of an experiment that went wrong, anyway. It involved more than a little politics--and when political posturing gets in the way of proper engineering, the result is almost always a disaster. In an effort to make the uniform less disparate between the sexes, they managed to come up with a design that looked equally atrocious on absolutely everyone. To be fair, they had worked out a compromise design by 2275 that corrected most of the aesthetic shortcomings. Personally, I like the old overalls. They have good range of motion, breathe well, and don't have all the metal bits that the new ones do. Even the old clunky perscans do what they're supposed to. In short, the old stuff is just as usable today--a mark of good design, and one I can really appreciate as an engineer.

That's all for this morning; after lunch we'll finish installing the bottles, and if there's time lay the dock floor!

 

[Pauln6]

Awesome! ! Just remember, women and be engineers too ;-p

 

[Bill Thompson]

INSTALLING THE BOTTLES goes rather quickly, largely due to the fact that the associated piping doesn't need to be routed for the sake of the display. On a functioning bridge, the lines would be routed under the bridge deck, up the turboshaft housing to the air handlers, and back down to a connector junction with lines running to the air processors on deck four. Having the lines accessible from below makes for an easy bridge install procedure in spacedock.

Mike and Eddie are hard at it installing the 'back bottles' on the aft of the bridge deck. The smaller bottles aren't prohibitively heavy, being made of a carbon-carbon composite skinned in duranium; but they are a bit unwieldy. They were unpacked and sideloaded through the blowout panel while the big N2 tank is still waiting on the forklift. (That was Mike's idea--he insisted on a bit of a break before tacking the big bottle, and after watching their wrestling match with the fore O2 bottle this morning, I don't blame him!) He's skidding the aft N2 tank into place, which will sit perpendicular to the yellow lithium peroxide tanks that Eddie is just finishing setting into place. The N2 tank will in turn be flanked by two O2 tanks. The red H2 tanks sit outside of both lifts. In case you're curious, the H2 tanks service the generator-battery array, and the Li2O2s service the CO2 scrubbers.

Every component on the bridge is designed such that they can be loaded directly through the docking port. This makes individual bridge module upgrades possible without removing the entire bridge assembly. Here's the whole team at work (except me--ha ha) shoehorning that massive N2 tank through to the fore of the bridge. This sort of thing is a whole lot easier in zero-gee! Null-gee hand trucks would be a huge help; but as ubiquitous and useful as those are on board a Starship, hand trucks nullify artificial gravity a lot more efficiently than the pull of an actual planet. On Earth's surface, they're just about useless.

Now we're talking! By five o'clock, Eddie lays in the last panel on the docking deck. If this were an actual production assembly in orbit, we wouldn't build the bridge in quite this order. The entirety of the docking deck, lifts, generator, and outer hull would be finished first as a major subassembly. The air bottles and line routing would be mounted to the bridge deck as a separate subassembly, and then the deck would be 'offered up' to the hull and microwelded in place.

Since we're building 'from the ground up,' as it were, only after we've put in the docking deck can we add in the docking port cross-bracing. These help absorb the torsional and inertial forces that a docking craft puts on the face of the hull, which can be considerable. Willie has come in to do some late-evening welding on the bracing.
Mike shared an interesting story with the team: originally, the braces were continually box welded up the hull and across the ceiling. Under testing, the structure worked well until it failed--and it failed suddenly, catastrophically, and with no warning when the brace buckled under high torque and cracked the hull. The horizontal brace was then redesigned as a floating stringer, not directly attached to the ceiling but intentionally designed to stress against the light panels. Torsional flex causes the brace to deflect differentially to the hull, so at around 80% of maximum safe deformation the light panels will crack. It's an unmistakable warning signal within a sufficient safety margin to permit rapid evacuation of the docking deck--and all without having to design and engineer a new system of sensors and warning triggers. (Mike seemed pretty proud of this...he may have had more than a hand in its design.)

As the sun sets on our little warehouse, we'll leave Willie to his work and return in the morning.

 

[uniderth]

This project is awesome!

 

[Bill Thompson]

BY THE TIME I arrive the next day, the assembly crew has been onsite since before dawn. A transport truck finally arrived with the rest of the bridge modules neatly packed in boxes, as well as several not-so-neat pallets of miscellaneous air handler equipment. After endless cataloging, we've started to assemble the upper long-range scanners.

The central hub and platform sit cantilevered over the bridge by eight radial scanner units.
As you can imagine, getting the first pair of ribs into place as you see here is the most challenging and perilous bit--it's assembled on the bridge deck, the first rib is lifted up and over the rim, and it's heave-ho from everyone to get the other end up and on the edge. From this point, each rib we add will make the platform more stable, until we can walk across and make the EPS and data connections. This hasn't stopped Eddie from crawling out on a rib and getting shoulder-deep in the scanner to start wiring already, of course!
More wisely, down in the bridge, Mike and Bob are working together to hoist the ribs up one by one to Tomas, our data tech, who checks the preliminary connections before helping guide the rib into place and locking it onto the hub. On the warehouse floor, Ernie is stacking ribs on the forklift. Fred will drive them around to the hatch for Ernie to take in to Bob. And Conrad? He's there, walking into the shipping box to do an inventory check on the bridge module panels. The first ones to come out are the two lift trim modules.

Much later that morning, here I am on the bridge with Mike and Bob boosting the penultimate rib into place. By the fourth rib, the three engineers had developed an efficient system amongst them: Bob, down on the bottom corner of the wedge, lifts to Mike on the ladder, who boosts the wedge up to Tomas on the rim. Tomas pulls the thin end out and over, counterbalancing for Mike who can then swing the big end around and catch it on the platform. Mike provides the muscle from underneath, pushing the wedge home against the hub, while Tomas provides the finesse by tweaking the alignment until all the catchpoints line up. Meanwhile, Bob and Ernie haul in the next rib in the sequence.

After lunch, with the sensor platform fully in place, work on the atmo system starts. The blower box has just been attached by Sam.
(This is part of another production subassembly that would have been completed in orbit separately. The sensor ribs mount to the interior of the sensor dome, the platform mounts to that, and the entirety of the air handler mounts underneath, with the recycler machinery mounted between the ribs. The dome assembly--called 'deck zero' in parlance--would then be bolted down to the bridge hull.)
The lift module panels which flank the blower box serve as the routing path for the air bottle lines, which run to the recyclers above. The EPS feeds and sensor data trunk use the aft end of the blower box to route directly to the library computer module, and thus down to the computer core.

Later that afternoon, while Tomas, Bob, and Sam mount the condensors, evaporators, compressors, scrubbers, separators, and associated bits to the sensor ribs above, Ernie is tasked with mounting the radial vanes below. The vanes, a combination of air delivery and temperature regulation, use laminar airflow to provide superior coverage and circulation to all parts of the bridge.

As evening draws near, the inner-dome assembly is complete enough that we can lower the sensor dome itself! As the rest of the crew throws an ad hoc celebration on the warehouse floor, Eddie locks down the dome manually with the largest torque wrench you've ever seen. The top row of sockets lock the sensor ribs to the dome; the lower row of sockets lock the dome to the hull. In spacedock, there's a special workbee jig that holds the dome and locks all of the sockets simultaneously. I'll leave Eddie now (and his daredevil sense of balance) to join the crew for a pint--and more of Mike's stories through the evening.

 

[Bill Thompson]

WITH THE HULL AND DECKS complete, the next morning it's time to start installing the walls and bulkheads! The first pressure bulkheads form the battery/generator room on the port side of the docking area under the slope of the hull.

I'm standing inside the cramped little wedge-shaped room, looking out through the maintenance hatch at Bob. The room is really little more than a closet, just large enough to house the battery-generator unit. (With very few exceptions, actually, on Starships of this era everything is "just large enough" and no larger.) Bob has just finished the stub wall that runs along the aft side of the dome, and is adjusting the fit of the door panels. The bottom row of panels access the data trunks and EPS lines that connect up to the sensor/floodlight pods. The top row of panels is a "toolbox" storage area that holds an array of hand-tools for servicing the bridge modules and generator. There's an identical stub wall on the opposite starboard side; it houses the most commonly needed replacement components and miscellaneous bits, and a stepladder. (There is a rumor that on the original 1701, it also stored a bottle of Glen Garioch single-malt scotch, for 'emergencies.')
In actual operation, the maintenance hatch I'm looking through would be closed with a manually-locked pressure door, atmospherically sealing the room from the rest of the bridge. This would permit maintenance or replacement of the battery/generator unit through the external hatch on the side of the hull without unduly compromising bridge operations.

This is a view of the pressure bulkhead next to the lift that closes off the battery-generator room. We'll now leave Bob to finish his stub walls; then he, Fred, Willie, and Conrad will get the batt/gen in place through the side hatch. Meanwhile, Eddie, Ernie, Mike, and I will get started loading in the first of the bridge control modules.
It is entirely possible to move the bridge modules in and out through the lifts; and when only one or two modules needed an upgrade, that is certainly the way it was done. SOP in a 'clean build,' however, was to install the library computer module last, and bring all the parts straight through to the bridge from the docking ring.

We've offloaded the third bridge module from the shipping container (remember the first two were the lift trim modules), and here are all the pieces stacked up and ready to go. Yep, as I predicted--it's the transporter control module. Mike, having practical experience in the matter, knows the best order to install these things without ending up 'painting yourself into a corner.'
The module panels are in six pieces that will come together into a double-walled shell. The color-coded 'steamer trunks' contain the bits of hardware for each module. We'd already opened a teal trunk that contains light arrays, and I've just opened a red trunk containing the transporter control hardware. The trunks are extremely rugged, and the components are snugly encased in foam. The bridge modules comprise the most historical part of this build, for these modules were 'as-flown,' put in storage or re-purposed after being updated from 1701.
Ernie and Mike will put up the walls while I work on assembling the controls, so I've asked Bob to take some shots of the panel install as they're working.

 

[Irishman]

So good. Incredible.

 

[Bill Thompson]

LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, Mike and Ernie set about installing the module panels. The first piece is the upper-rear of the shell cove. It's a bit fiddly installing it solo, so of course that's why we're having Ernie try it himself!

The trick is to use the curve around the upper lip to hold the farthest end tight against its stops while you ratchet over your head. It will then hold itself in place while you work the spanner down to the far end. The compound curves allow the cove to be light relative to its strength and rigidity, so it will be able to hold in place without sagging or bending while the lower shell goes in.

While Ernie tightens down the upper part of the rear shell, Mike sets in the lower rear shell. The lower shell neatly forms the accessway inner wall, and sits several inches away from the upper deck. This enables the associated EPS and data cabling from each module to run freely between deck and shell down to the computer core below.

The next unit is the rear mid-shell. (Sam has stepped in to help Mike with this operation, because Ernie has had a slip on the ladder and bruised his shin.) The addition of the mid-shell joins the assembly together into an extremely rigid unit.
The holes in the shell are for access panels, which provide access to repair, replace, diagnose, or adjust most major module components from the rear while those parts are still in situ.
Modularity and ease of access was certainly a major factor in the bridge re-design of 2268, which becomes increasingly apparent at each stage of this build.
When all the module shells were joined together, they were strong enough to provide a last line of defense against hard vacuum in the unlikely case of a full hull breach. In deep space tests, full atmo blowout could be forestalled for several minutes--long enough for emergency evac to the secondary bridge. (This bit of trivia, of course, courtesy of Mike.)

Before the inner shell can be put in place, various hoses, lines, and cables need to be retrieved and pulled down from the air scrubbers mounted above the vanes. This is contingent upon two very important things: One, that the techs who mounted the scrubbers left the hoses within arm's reach of the edge of the platform, and two, that the techs know where to reach to get at the bloody things! Since Tomas was topside doing the atmo install, Mike (after about five minutes of fruitless searching) ever-so-politely asked him to retrieve them for us. The cables et al hook into each of the individual light panels around the bridge perimeter: one of which is being brought in now by Eddie. Tomas is pulling down a thick hose that serves as the air return, the EPS lines for the projector lights, and data lines for the various sensors mounted to the light panel.

While the shells go up, I'm still outside organizing the bits that will populate said shell. The trunks are very well packed. In the upper half were the control panel and display board, which are now sitting off to the left. In the lower half are the holodisplay unit, the 3-D display itself, and all of the components that go into the control panel. They're all modular units, obviously used, but in very good nick. This is a quick shot of me, removing the comm switch. (Apologies for the awkward camerawork--short range shooting with one hand has not improved with the centuries.)
As the afternoon goes on, the unspoken thought between us is that we are not stopping tonight until we see this module finished! The excitement of seeing this bridge come together is becoming palpable the further the build goes.