News Crossfield Class

So now we know the class of Discovery. Crossfield Class.

Albert S. "Scott" Crossfield joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA - the predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA) at its High Speed Flight Research Station (now NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center), Edwards, CA, as a research pilot in June 1950. During the next five years, he flew the X-1, X-4, X-5, XF-92A, F-51D, F-86F, F9F, B-47A, YF-84, F-84F, F-100A, YF-102, D-558-I, and D-558-II. During that time he logged 100 rocket flights, making him the single most experienced rocket pilot.

 

We’ve known this for months. It was on the dedication plaque and also revealed by Eaglemoss some time last year.

 

...Known ships: USS Discovery, NCC-1031, USS Glenn, NCC-1030, USS Stamets, NCC-1019...

I wonder what we should make of the registry number of Stamets' personal little ship of dreams. Is "1019" somehow significant to him? Is there a real NCC-1019 of some significance? Is she of Crossfield class?

Timo Saloniemi

 

There's probably a USS Crossfield around. Maybe only the Discovery & Glenn were modified for the spore drive? The others could look very different.

 

The nacelles could be closer to "normal" size, depending on how much Discovery's nacelles have to do with the spore drive.

And yeah, the spinning saucer wouldn't be necessary. The standard Crossfield wouldn't need those spaces in the saucer at all I'd imagine.

 

The fun new datapoint here is, USS Discovery (with spore drive) and ISS Discovery (without spore drive, or the Emperor would have known about it) look 100% identical externally, so that one can be mistaken for the other even by paranoid eyes.

So the spinning saucer surfaces seem to be a relatively common and generic feature. They bleed off extra sweat for the spore drive - perhaps they bleed off extra sweat for Captain Killy's super-duper planetary bombardment weapons in that other ship?

Timo Saloniemi

 

For cutting giant space-pizzas.

 

"Pizza Cutter" was the nickname for the old SFB Fed CV.

 

Might be that ship seen in the hangar in ST3

 

Wasn't that the shorter one?

Personally, I've always loved the POTT "long" version from the McQuarrie artwork, and that's more or less what we got in the Discovery.

 

I think it was an actual POTT model, but I don't remember where I read that.

 

There were 2 little cardboard mockups. It actually looks like it was the longer version in Spacedock and the shorter one in the Surplus Depot, judging by pylon length.

 

Is that real? The Space Dock one? For a long time that scene was among my favourite ever scenes in all of trek. How could I have missed that on my VHS tv recording and fourteen inch portable Telly?

 

It is real, yes.

 

My current guess is that the stock Crossfield looks like the leaked shots of the original VFX team's refined version of the teaser trailer design, at least as far as the saucer and warp engines go. The "wing" and neck are similar enough between both designs that I can see those parts being the same between them.

 

Also, we might speculate that the original Crossfield was not a dedicated science ship (so it's a valid ride for Captain Killy), and that the extensive modifications on the Discovery and the Glenn were purely internal alterations of, if not the original design, then its first iteration of upgrades.

That is, in this line of speculation, the first upgrade would make the nacelles longer, and introduce the split saucer. But even the original saucer as seen in the test footage looks like it could have spinner surfaces, which thus would be a warship thing originally (and again something Killy would approve of).

Timo Saloniemi

 

Except it was a ship full of "timid scientists" before Lorca took command.