Constellation class

[Bill Morris]

Thanks, JNG.

So this should be okay, I hope:

Constitution: 190,000
1701-A: 210,000
Miranda: 150,000
Constellation: 700,000

Another one I need some guidance on is the Luna class, with overall length of 454.3 meters. I just pulled a figure out of the air that seems way too high, and I need something reasonable to put on the schematic.

Luna class schematic:
http://lcars24.com/schem27.html

 

[JNG]

^

The Miranda volume (at a length of 765 feet, as on this chart here, or thereabouts) is so similar to that of the TOS Constitution that the difference is within the margin of error. As such, it would seem a little odd for the former to be so much (if any) less massive.

Ballparking the Luna with a very quick approximation: I am not super familiar with this design but have drawings, and I would say it is likely in the range of 1,100,000 to 1,300,000 tons, assuming a density not dissimilar to that of Voyager. Probably lower end. They are pretty big ships, but much narrower than, say, an Akira-class ship.

 

[Bill Morris]

Thanks again, JNG. That's what I was thinking for the Luna, too. I'll make it in that range.

Vance said 150,000 for the Miranda but didn't answer about the Constellation. But 190,000 and 700,000 are fine with me.

For the NASA MSDs, I've got good "canon" figures.

 

[SicOne]

You know, guys, we should do a starship mass thread and pin all of the classes down...

Just as soon as we argue about dimensions, lengths, etc of the ships first.

 

[Lashmore]

Not saying its in the wrong place...but the anti-matter storage just seems to be in a place where its to vulnerable to attack...as anti-matter can be volatile and is a primary resource for so many things. Having them so close to an bulkhead that leads straight to space just seems....

Klingon Captain: Bring us to their aft and fire one small burst!

 

[Praetor]

No more than having it at the bottom, when you think about it a bit.

 

[JNG]

You know, guys, we should do a starship mass thread and pin all of the classes down...

Just as soon as we argue about dimensions, lengths, etc of the ships first.

I joined this board in September 2001 and have enjoyed trying to contribute to hashing all that stuff out ever since. Others have been here notably longer. At the rate we're going, we should all get to that big "everything pinned down" thread by...oh, the 23rd century

 

[Bill Morris]

I guess I should put together a chart, at least for the ships I have covered, and start a thread.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

I think that would be a good idea give people like me who draw a place to get some quasi-realistic numbers for blueprints and such.

 

[MichaelS]

Thank, Rick. I just labeled it narrow-beam sensor here for brevity, even though it's called SNARE (Super Narrow Angle Reconnaisance Emitter) sensor, probably referenced from your article, in one schematic I've included in my package.

Actually, the SNARES acronym was something Rick came up with when I posted my in-progress Constellation schematics here some years back. (See this post in my currently dormant thread.)

 

[Bill Morris]

I think that would be a good idea give people like me who draw a place to get some quasi-realistic numbers for blueprints and such.

I had my LCARS system spit out a chart. I'll start a thread with it right after this post. Maybe I'll get some valuable information from it and not too much fighting.

Thank, Rick. I just labeled it narrow-beam sensor here for brevity, even though it's called SNARE (Super Narrow Angle Reconnaisance Emitter) sensor, probably referenced from your article, in one schematic I've included in my package.

Actually, the SNARES acronym was something Rick came up with when I posted my in-progress Constellation schematics here some years back. (See this post in my currently dormant thread.)

Cool. Now I know the source!

 

[SicOne]

Where did the measurements for the Constellation-class come from? I don't recollect ever seeing a decent top-down dorsal view of the ship where we could accurately measure it out. Does anyone have dimensions of the studio model?

For that matter, if anyone has dimensions of any of the studio models (Olympic, Nebula, etc), maybe we could all hash this out over on LCARS 24's other thread...

 

[MichaelS]

Measurements probably come from the STM article.

As for the dimensions of the studio model: I don't think they're known, but if people were to find out what size the Macross kit pieces were that Greg Jein used (as mentioned by Doug Drexler in his blog article), they could use a photo like this one and do the extrapolations from there.

 

[SicOne]

Whoa, cool, MichaelS, thanks for the links.

 

[SicOne]

JNG, you mentioned a volumetrics thing earlier, are you talking the ST-vs-SW volumetrics chart, or another chart? If another chart, would you mind posting a link?

 

[Atrahasis]

In my opinion, there's very little chance that the Constellation weighs in at anything close to 700,000 MT, a figure of 370-380,000 (or less) is ideal, and here's why:

From the Franz Joseph Technical Manual, where it all began, we can derive the approximate mass of a single warp engine by subtracting the mass of the Destroyer from the Transport:

126,500 - 95,000 = 31,500.

You can derive other useful approximate figures like the mass of a saucer plus dorsal = 63,500, or the mass of the secondary hull = 62,500, or the mass of the Heavy Cruiser without warp engines = 126,000.

Let's say the mass of the Constellation's hull is twice that of the Heavy Cruiser's = 252,000. If we assume each warp engine is at least 31,500 then we get a total mass of 378,000.

I just don't see where anyone would get that 700,000 figure from, unless I'm totally missing something? Maybe by taking the total volume of the ship including the warp engines and applying some kind of average density to that? But that's not a very good way for obvious reasons. You need to account for how much the engines weigh first, and then you can do all the volumetric analyses you like on the rest of the hull.

 

[SicOne]

^ I think, IIRC, what we were looking at was not actually tonnage of the ship if you were able to weigh the components thereof on Earth's surface, but rather tonnage of seawater displaced if you were able to submerge the entire ship in seawater. Since we have no way of knowing how much materials such as warp coils weigh (though there is a figure in the TNG TM, there's no corresponding measurement for TOS warp coils) or the materials that make up the rest of the ship, it's the only real way we can get any idea for any kind of a "tonnage" measurement for Trek ships.

The foundation for the 700k figure came from a Volumetrics website (the link to it might be found above somewhere), but most of it was from the Constellation-class primary hull, which was about 3.5x the size of a regular Constitution-refit-class p-hull. Constellation's is two Con-re saucers atop each other, with a lot of shit in between them, and expanded outwards in diameter by about another 40-50 meters or so.

 

[blssdwlf]

Depends also on how one views the supporting materials.

FJ's manual and blueprints list measurements in "Deadweight". Deadweight is the stuff that is carried like people, cargo, consumables but does not include the rest of the ship like the structure, engines, etc. FJ's materials do not list the weight or mass of ship components.

"The Making of Star Trek" lists the mass or weight without the "Deadweight" designation however it appears to have changed over the years as it wasn't used in dialogue.

Scotty on "Mudd's Women" says the Enterprise is "almost a million gross tons".

Voyager has been mentioned twice in dialogue to be "700,000 metric tons".

The Constellation could be anywhere between 200,000 and 1,000,000 tons due to her 4 warp nacelles and either adjusted up or down for technology

 

[Albertese]

^ Tonnage in this sense has nothing to do with weight in a gravity well or weight of displaced water, but, rather, mass, which is unaffected by gravity. Weight is the result of two massive bodies accelerating towards each other. Pounds and their related English tons are a measurement of weight. So a guy who weighs 220 pounds of Earth will weigh about 37 pounds on the Moon. But kilograms and their related metric tons are a measurement of mass which is just the mass, not it's relationship with any other mass. Therefore a 220 pound guy would have a mass of about 100 kilograms, and that never changes based on where he's standing. (BTW, the metric system does cover weight in the sense of pounds (i.e. the acceleration of interacting masses) using a unit called "Newtons." This is also sometimes used to describe force application, such as metric torque screwdrivers being set for newton-centimeters instead of pound-inches.)

Therefore, I think it's fair to claim that a starship's tonnage would be the metric measurement of straight up mass rather than how much water it displaces, as if it were a wet-navy ship.

--Alex

 

[Atrahasis]

That's a fascinating point about Deadweight Tonnage being the cargo and things it carries, I did not know that!

For years I thought it was the same as displacement.

Is there a site that lists the actual mass of the TOS-TMP ships then?