I doubt I'm the only one who has noticed the ribbing on the secondary hull and nacelles of the Daedalus models, which I have not noticed appearing on any other Earth or Federation ships. I was wondering if any others had any theories as to why they chose to put the ribs on the outside of the Daedalus instead of the inside, and thought I might mention my own. I posited that the vessels themselves were something like Liberty ships, simple designs meant for easy and rapid construction, and adaptability post-Enterprise, during the Romulan war and early Federation years. I posited that the engines were in the primary hull, including an impulse engine at the rear equator of it, which necessitated the offset of the gangway between the primary and secondary hulls, which I also theorized contained a symmetrical warp field governor. This leaves the secondary hull free for supplies, sensors, equipment, cargo, and other goods not necessarily requiring frequent human attention. Now, in my view, this is one of the reasons for the ribs, which I explain as clinker plating, to borrow an ancient nautical term. In the clinker plating system, the ribs at the rear of the hull sections are actually larger diameter sections of the hull, designed to not only increase strength, but provide a section with a larger interior diameter into which the front of the next hull section can be fitted and fastened. This way, hull sections, and therefore starships, could be mass-produced using simpler construction methods at less advanced construction facilities, modularly assembled, and later mated with the primary hull globe, whose smooth-skinned design suggests they were constructed with more individual attention and advanced technology. This follows with the given premise that the primary hull is what contains the most crew-oriented systems, relative to the cargo and largely unmanned equipment in the secondary hull. This design, with a relatively empty secondary hull into which whatever is needed could be fitted, allowed the vessel to be extremely adaptable, with heavy weapons loadouts during the Romulan war, which were easily replaced with additional sensors, stores, labs, and crew housing, or more cargo space, when the Federation Starfleet was formed and started looking for vessels to use as long-range explorers and cargo ships beyond the vessels pressed into service from the Vulcan High Command, the Andorian Imperial Guard, the Tellarite fleet, and Earth's United Earth Space Probe Agency Starfleet. Anyone else have any ideas as to what the ribs are for, or why they would use them on this design and no others?
Well, if we accept the strange speculation in the Encyclopedias that the ship is barely a hundred meters long, it seems fairly obvious that the designers would do everything they can to put things on the outside, making life less miserable for the people serving in the cramped interior... I'm all for saying that the sphere-and-cylinder ship was built differently from frontline combatants because she wasn't a frontline combatant. The only sphere-and-cylinder ship we know of, USS Horizon, was never described as a frontline vessel akin to Kirk's ship (assuming she was the ship mentioned in TOS "A Piece of the Action"). For all we know, second-rate ships and auxiliaries have always featured a telltale ribbed construction, different from the sleek armor plating of the hero vessels. OTOH, I'm all for your idea of modular "snap-tite" construction. Especially the secondary hull looks like something that consists of a monobloc bow section (possibly housing the main powerplant), a long mission-specific central section (apparently with big badass dorsal doors), and a final stern section of possible impulse propulsion functionality. Other ships of that design could perhaps be put together without the long central section. Or with a stern that sports a different type of engine, or introduces/omits a shuttlebay (it's difficult to say whether the known stern structure has one). Timo Saloniemi
The reason is that those are seams between prefabricated segments of the structure. This same approach can be found on REAL space vessel design (look, for instance, at the solid-rocket boosters on the space shuttle). The original Matt Jeffries sketch did not make these obvious external raised seams. But they were interpreted as such by the prototype builder (it WAS Greg Jein wasn't it?) who borrowed from current rocket construction techniques. Actually, it makes much more sense, in an atmosphere-less situation, to have that sort of stuff on the outside if practical, as was described in the above post (among other reasons). This page has an image which shows nicely why there are those "ribbed" seams on the outside of the SRBs... http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/system/system_SRB.html
One wonders why there would be pronounced segmentation on the nacelles (which probably aren't built in multiple places and then brought together at the dockyard) but no such segmentation on the primary hull and very little in the secondary (both of which are bulky items that could plausibly be built in Liberty fashion). Perhaps the nacelles are sectioned because they are an even closer analogy to the shuttle SBRs than you postulate - because they are designed to allow the warp coils to be swapped, one by one. That is, when one coil fails, the section can be jettisoned and a new one be bolted in its place. The Voyager was shown to have a removable nacelle top cover for the same purpose in "Nightingale", but the preferred technology in the 22nd century could be different. OTOH, all ships might have seams like that, and it's just that the military ones happen to feature an additional overcoat of armor or stealthing that smooths the seams over. Overall, there is little consistency between the multi-panel NX-01 style, the half-ribbed, half-smooth NCC-176 style and the all-smooth NCC-1701 style. But then again, there is little "consistency" between Earth seagoing warships that span a similar century of hectic development. Timo Saloniemi
...Also, we might want to seriously consider the possibility that the NCC-176 nacelles are the space shuttle SRBs! I mean, the overall relative dimensions are the same. There are the same six center segments, then the broader collars at either end, then the end segments. The SRBs would be bolted to the starship with the nozzles facing forward (and being replaced by the ramscoop domes) and the nose cones facing aft (replaced by the aft grillework). Some of the detail in the collars and the aftmost segment (the topmost segment of the SRB) seem to match up as well. Timo Saloniemi
Hi, I'm the Double Hard Return, I don't believe we've met. You use me to seperate pargraphs because big, huge, blocks of text are very hard on the eyes.
So you're one of 'em slow readers, huh? Yeah, paragraphs are easier on the eye. But sometimes the fingers just keep on typing... And I don't think it should be that hard to adjust to mere thirty or forty lines of text. Timo Saloniemi
Sorry about that, 4747, when I posted that, it was around three or four AM, and I literally got out of bed to post it out of insomnia. I would not be surprised at all if the pieces on the model were shuttle SRBs. It certainly is not without precedent in modeling.
It isn't just a for instance, those are solid-rocket boosters from a space shuttle model kit. So yeah, anyone thinking of building a Daedalus class model, starting with a space shuttle kit (that includes the boosters) would make their life easier. As I recall, Jein was in a bit of a rush to build a number of models to be photographed for the encyclopedia and chronology, and none were going to be viewed that closely. Kit bashing helped streamline the process.
And the secondary hull is shuttle's external fuel tank. http://www.thomasmodels.com/dae1.jpg http://www.thomasmodels.com/dae2.jpg Thanks to Minicraft and Lowe's plumbing section, who needs a lathe? A free case of nothing to the one who can identify what Greg used for the front of the secondary hull.
I would personally say that they are seams for constructing the ship out of easily pre-fabbed sections, and as Timo says the engines could be modular so burnt out warp coils could be easily swapped. I'm not entirely sold on the 'super-modular' option or on having the reactor in the sphere, though. Which reminds me that I started writing an NX to Constitution evolution lineage a while ago... I may post it later tonight possibly in art...
On the basis of the ribbing, I'm guessing it's the screw-on cap from a bottle of fabric softener or laundry detergent, something like that.
While building and painting that model, it also occured to me to be made up of segments which could be swapped out, added on, or removed for a variety of hull and nacelle lengths and configurations. A 'standard' fore and aft caps with interchangable middle segments to configure mission specific starships. Or maybe since the ribs were on the SRBs, the fuel tank should have also had some detail added to fit in with the rest of the model. Aside from that Jefferies concept drawing had lines around the shapes and the shuttle with booster kit fit in nicely. The diameter of the assembled model in the front secondary hull area is 59mm or 2-5/16". And it wasn't a screw-on or any other type of cap.