BolianAdmiral said:
That's just the point... there ARE NO logistics to building this thing on the ground... not when a ship OLDER than the Connie has been shown to be built into orbit...
This is easily explained: The ability to cheaply and easily lift a fully assembled starship into orbit is something that wasn’t developed or fully refined until
after the NX class ships were built. Prior to that, building them planetside was simply not an option regardless of any advantages or disadvantages it may have.
plus, you're just not seeing my point on this... it makes NO sense, from a practicality standpoint... WHY should they go to all the trouble to build the components on the surface, somehow transport them up into space, and then do all the extra work to RE-assemble them, when the technology already exsists to just build the whole thing in space to begin with? Why waste all that extra time, energy, and maybe even cost? It is just not practical, in terms of manufacturing, technology, or economics.
At the time the NX-01 was built, it probably would have been
possible to build it on the ground and then fly it or lift it into orbit. All of the requisite technology existed, including ant-gravity, inertial compensation, etc. The reason they didn’t at that time is probably because most or all of the infrastructure for building starships was already
in orbit, as it
had to be prior to the development of those technologies, but there’s nothing that says it had to
stay there once ground-based construction became a viable option.
New technologies and innovations often lead to completely different ways of doing things. The process of actually building something is and probably always will be simpler, cheaper and safer to do on Earth than it is in space. Somebody probably figured out that they could retrofit a couple of old shipyards for building entire warp engines, deflector assemblies or whatever and then lift them into orbit for final assembly using tractor beams or cheap anti-grav boosters. Before long, you’ve got a whole new Earth-based manufacturing and construction industry, and less than a century later you’re building entire starships like the
Enterprise on the ground in San Francisco and floating them up to orbit under their own power.
Are you telling me that if you are the boss of the company that had a contract to build something like that, that YOU would want to spend the extra money and resources, manpower and energy to do all that extra crap? If so, you're company won't be making much money, with that philosophy. If you can do it cheaper and faster, with the same output quality, you will.
Your starting from the assumption that it would require extra money, resources, manpower and energy, which isn’t necessarily true given the kind of technology we
know exists in the 23rd century Trek universe. If I were the boss of the company and I had an Earth-based construction facility where I didn’t have to expend half of all those resources just to keep my workers alive and breathing, you’re damn straight I would build it on the ground. If getting it into orbit after it was built was hard or flat out impossible like it is today then that would be a different story, but the same technology that allows starships to accelerate at literally
millions of gravities would render that part of the process pretty much moot.
I’m serious about this. Star Trek has never treated the influence of planetary gravity as anything more than a minor nuisance except when the ship’s engines were damaged or disabled. Based on everything we’ve seen, getting a ship off the surface of a planet and into space is basically a non-issue, which leaves the construction environment as the deciding factor and I just don’t see how a shirtsleeve Earth-based shipyard loses that contest once the infrastructure is in place to support it.
FYI, the yellow figures are supposed to represent people (Though I don't presume to know the correct scale, I just took a shot in the dark.)
