Yes, that is why they can built the damn ship wherever the hell they want.
In this case: rural Iowa.
It's just a movie, and you are overthinking it.
Getting the Enterprise into space - with vids!
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
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Yes, that is why they can built the damn ship wherever the hell they want.
In this case: rural Iowa.
It's just a movie, and you are overthinking it.
Lol - I don't know if sarcasm was intended but when you put it like that it really cuts through it all and hits home how truly dumb the scene is! Thanks!
Saquist
Commodore
It's not a matter of will.
It's a matter of efficiency. The place to construct these sort awkward designs is in space. I've used the Vehicle Assembly building as an example. Even if built on the ground the ship wouldn't be constructed in the midst of the elements as shown in the movie. It would be built in a hanger likely something far taller and wider because humidity cold and heat become issues in construction of space vehicles. (which would create a minor whether system in the building). The AVB ha the largest doors in the world and thus so would this building and so massive engineering would be required here. The Floor of the building or whatever earth bound facility would need to be perfectly level (PERFECTLY) just like the AVB which is the most level piece of real estate in the world. You'd need all sorts of lifting hardware designed to lift some of the heaviest components ever constructed on a planet for precision mating and assembly. And while the AVB is built to withstand Hurricane force winds a Facility in IOWA would need to be built to withstand a tremendous 8.0 or higher Earthquake because the period of the 23rd century would have either been JUST after or during the regions regular periodic disturbance due to the compression of the Atlantic sea floor spreading and the Pacific plate subducting under the North American plate. These quakes were so powerful that they reversed the flow of the Mississippi River from south to north. They experienced 2000 Tremors of 3.0 t0 8.0. Created lakes, creating the Sunken Lands and Sand blows occuring from 200-300 years. Some place it at 500 year spans.
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I'm in the middle with you, except I see the ship being fully assembled on the ground with the pressure vessel and hull plating all fully installed so that other systems--weapons, sensors, thrusters, engines, etc--can be fitted out in space. I figure that 95% of the "fitting out" process has to be done INSIDE the ship anyway (that was basically Jeffries intention with the TOS Enterprise, that all systems must be accessible from inside the ship) so that once basic hull construction is completed the rest is just features, bells and whistles.
Really? Whose post was this, again?
What kind of dumbass would intentionally set out to design and construct a spacecraft that cannot survive in space?
Sauce for the goose: the same technology that makes work easy in space makes it even easier on the GROUND. Again, no matter how easy space activities may become, ground activities will always be that much easier.
I was referring to spaceships, aircraft AND naval vessels, all three of which are comparable to starships in their operating environment, in their sophistication, and in their size/mass, respectively.
The specific question I'm AGAIN asking you is this: if it is possible to build spaceships on the ground NOW, why would it NOT be possible to build them on the ground in the future?
If it is possible to build spaceships on the ground NOW, why would it NOT be possible to build them on the ground in the future?
Saquist
Commodore
How is my post related to your lack of clarity?
The same kind of stupidity that brings up survival in space as his point and then ask why build a ship that can't survive in space. You can't just read...for what's there... can you? Your mind is busy interpreting what you want to see. Don't ask me to rationalize on your tangents.What kind of dumbass would intentionally set out to design and construct a spacecraft that cannot survive in space?
I don't agree.
You've got "No" across the board for me.
I don't find them comparable enough for equality and equality is what I need.
It's not will, it's efficiency.
They can do what ever they want almost anywhere they want with that tech...it just doesn't make any sense to do it on the ground.
I'm beginning to think this is not just an emotional issue on your part. You literally create interpretations of what you think you see as opposed to what is written. Did I ever say it was impossible to lead you to this question. Please hunt that post down because this question and others that you conjure always have me baffled as though I've made assertions to that effect and I don't recall them at all.
Personally I'm not suggesting that it would be harder to build the ship on the ground given the Federation's ability to control environment and gravity, although I do agree that it is silly to suggest that they would build it out in the open. I'm simply suggesting that it's strange to build a ship that is too big to land on the ground because of the logistical issues involved with getting it into space against the background that we already know that, whether more difficult or not, they DO build starships in space. I'm also suggesting that it makes less sense to build the ship in full on Earth when you have to test some of its key systems in space in any event.
Building in full, out in the open, in rural Iowa was just to demonstrate a visual to Kirk and to the audience. Maybe some people thought it looked good. It was still silly.
Building in full, out in the open, in rural Iowa was just to demonstrate a visual to Kirk and to the audience. Maybe some people thought it looked good. It was still silly.
In the cited post, you said "In space all you would need is a single lateral shield."
You are wrong, in space that is NOT all you would need, the entire craft must still be hardened against the extreme environment of space.
Engineering is a tricky thing. In the 1990s there was that famous incident with the Soyuz-TDM spacecraft piloted by Vassily Leonov during its docking with the Mir space station. The Leonov had a problem with his radar, evidently the new system had been damaged during launch and he couldn't get accurate range and speed readings as he approached. Knowing that this counterparts on Mir had a laser rangefinder, he radioed and asked for guidance for docking. Roman Ivanovich on the Mir answered, "You are not close enough to dock." Since this was not particularly useful Leonov asked radioed back and asked for more specific information. Ivanovich answered, "The docking probe needs to be one meter from the drogue in order to dock. You're not one meter away, so you can't dock." Leonov, frustrated, asked him "That information does not tell me the distance from the Mir and it doesn't tell me my closing velocity. I need guidance for docking." Ivanovich radioed back instructions, telling Leonov to use the hydrazine thrusters on the Soyuz to accelerate slightly towards Mir, and then added, "In twenty five seconds, you will be close enough to dock." Leonov, realizing a potential problem, asked, "When should I perform retro fire?" Ivanovich replied "You should perform retrofire when you are ready to reenter the atmosphere." Suddenly VERY alarmed, Leonov could be heard screaming into his radio, "I mean the retrofire from my thrusters before I crash into Mir! You still haven't given me relative velocity!" Ivanovich, annoyed, answered, "That's called braking thrust, not retrofire. Don't blame me if you can't get your terms straight." Three seconds later, Ivanovich and Leonov were both killed when the Soyuz-TDM crashed into the Mir.The same kind of stupidity that brings up survival in space as his point and then ask why build a ship that can't survive in space. You can't just read...for what's there... can you? Your mind is busy interpreting what you want to see. Don't ask me to rationalize on your tangents.What kind of dumbass would intentionally set out to design and construct a spacecraft that cannot survive in space?
That is what it's like to try and discuss anything with Saquist.
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Getting it into orbit doesn't seem to be a problem, with tractor beams and antigrav technology; four space dock tugs could probably do it on a Saturday afternoon.
I am actually somewhat of the opinion that a starship COULD enter an atmosphere and land if it needed to, using mooring beams or antigravs of some sort, although this is not something a starship typically needs to do. If nothing else, we have seen NX-01 flying over alternate-universe New York City, and I don't see it as much of a stretch that starships couldn't at least come to an anchored/hovering position if the situation called for it.
This is a bit of fandom duplicity here. On the one hand I have people telling me all the time that Starfleet is just a glorified space navy. But show us a scene where Starfleet builds ships the same way the Navy does, and suddenly there's a problem.
Frankly I just don't think starships or spacecraft are delicate enough any longer (by the 23rd century) to make it that much of a problem. Two hundred years from now a starship shouldn't be that much harder to build than an aircraft carrier, and some of the same construction principles probably apply. Having final shipfitting in space makes alot of sense, though; phasers, sensors, maneuvering thrusters, impulse engines and warp drives are all things you'd want to install and check out in a vacuum. But if the ship is structurally sound and fully pressurized at that point, then the process would be pretty easy going.
Saquist
Commodore
You're still being un clear or vague.
The Question is Why?
Negative. Just on debate tactics.
If you're going to pick a fight then you better be prepared for stiff strict dedication to the facts and definitions. . But most of the conflict can be eliminated if you realize one important value. I usually mean exactly what I say. There is no need to interpret or retool my statements. And if I make an error I relent. It's very simple.
Nah I don't see how a ship could realisitically test its impulse drive, warp drive, or deflector screens on Earth. Elements could be tested in labs before being fitted I suppose but even so you want full tests before fitting them to the final ship. Even thrusters would need to be fine tuned in space. There is also an awful lot of fitting work that would be quite tricky in Earth's gravity because of the size of the ship. They would need a controlled gravity environment not something out in the open in rural Iowa.
The engineering hull wasn't designed to land but I agree that wouldn't be a bar to raising and lowering it with tractor beams. I'm not somebody who ascribes to the notion that Starfleet wastes energy or risks damage to the environment unless absolutely necessary. I still think the ship would be at least partly assembled in space.
The engineering hull wasn't designed to land but I agree that wouldn't be a bar to raising and lowering it with tractor beams. I'm not somebody who ascribes to the notion that Starfleet wastes energy or risks damage to the environment unless absolutely necessary. I still think the ship would be at least partly assembled in space.
I see this theme a lot in this thread and it makes no sense. You would build the thing one hull plate at a time. Or in superlifts like current day ships. You would not try to mate an entire saucer to the secondary hull at once. I can't think of a more controlled gravity environment than a perfect continuous 1g.
That's exactly what I mean. EVERYTHING ELSE could be--and IMO should be--constructed on Earth so that the entire spaceframe, pressure vessel, power and life support systems are all installed and checked out in a relatively fail-safe environment. Once the ship is structurally and environmentally sound, THEN you can take it to a dry dock to have the rest of its primary systems installed. All of those systems have to be installed on the INSIDE of the ship anyway, so the ground phase of construction is a one-time deal.
I do too, but I strongly believe that the kind of heavy industry needed for the BASICS are the kind of thing that is more likely to be done on Earth, if only because it's a lot easier to deal with unforseen problems and circumstances in a relatively safe terrestrial environment than in a relatively harsh orbital one. Once the basic structure and pressure vessel are all fully assembled, you can tractor beam the entire hulk into orbit to be fitted out some time next Tuesday.
Saquist
Commodore
Hull goes on last.
The frame is first.
Primary Power systems are next
Then essential habitats
Then linking the habitats to the power systems
Then heavy hardware, dampners, shields and weapons etc.
Then Testing...
Then Hull plating.
The Saucer would DEFINITELY need to be mated. It would be a separate construction which is the purpose of a modular design as it would have seperate and independent power systems. (IF indeed we're still following Jeffery's Design Intent.
Even the nacelles have to be mated. All engines are constructed first and then mated to the frame and it makes more sense to just complete the nacelle rather than plate the coils withing them if they're made to separate because you're going to want to test the separation. IF those nacelles have to have perfect alignment then you don't want to assemble it on Earth where it's mass is a big issue.
It's just too big and awkward to be done on Earth efficiently.
The Trust work we saw in the movie was HORRIBLY insufficient to construct the entire ship or merely hold up what was there so the magic fields MUST have been working on the site.
I'm not okay with the major components being constructed on the ground but the assembly has to happen in space. Testing has to insure these modules are functional before they are EVER mated together....You can't test a warp drive on Earth...It's DANGEROUS just bringing down that much anti matter and matter. How are you going to test an impulse engine on Earth? What exactly is going to hold that engine down and what happens if it fails?!
So you're just going to put it all together on Earth not ever knowing if it works as well as the sims say it would and then when it doesn't (Like in the motion picture) you have to take it all apart? It's crazy....
Well I hadn't thought about the hull plating going on last but it makes perfect sense. And you are preaching to the converted on the other issues. Maybe the hull registration union won't work in space? The scene as shown in the movie was silly.
As far as warp testing goes, it must be possible to test at least small scale warp fields in a lab or building the first warp engine in First Contact would have been impossible. However, you would not want to build a massive, time-consuming ship and then simply install engines that had not been tested fully at all levels into the completed ship like snapping lego together. You would also need to make sure that the superstructure and its structural integrity field can survive warp field stresses. I can think of no reason to complete the ship, including its engines and then lower it to Earth where you have to maintain anti-grav fields and heavy duty scaffolding just to stop it falling over.
However, I can see that the saucer section, which is designed to land could be built on Earth and taken into space to have its impulse engine fitted and tested.
Saquist
Commodore
Don't get me started on that movie
They literally launched something as Heavy as the Space shuttle on the back of Rocket designed to carry a WarHead that could fit in a large living room.
The Space Flight Chronology did it right with the first test by the military. Berman didn't have the budget for all that entailed though.
Indeed. But you wouldn't need to test it at all levels. Like max warp. Testing usually merely entails matching simulated outputs at low levels. But even that is too dangerous for Earth. The question is...can we use another power source to test the coils alignment? From Star Trek IV we're told that the Planet gets almost all of it's energy from the sun.
Continuously without interruption.
That's one of the parts these guys don't understand. That's just a way of saying the facility has to be perfect. It can never fail in power. That's a pretty tall order...IMAGINE what would have happened if all those ships yards in orbit were on the ground in Star Trek IV when the Probe zapped all the power away?
All the Breen would have to do is hit them with the energy dampners and every ship yard with a ship in it would be useless rubble.
Defintely.
The saucer section has a low center of gravity and could easily support it's own weight and balance without assistance. Same goes for the Intrepid class which also has a low center of gravity...but even these ships need a hanger for the construction on earth...and that's just too much to go through.
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No real spacecraft in history has EVER been built this way.
Not to me, especially since most starships will have a pressure vessel designed to contain atmosphere and environment and the outer hull plating will be a protective external shell against the environment, radiation, weapons fire, etc. Jeffries original idea--mostly followed throughout trek--is that once the pressure vessel is sound, you can install everything else INSIDE the ship in a shirtsleeve environment and never have to go EVA except when something really weird happens. That suggests that everything that makes the ship "go" can be accessed from inside the pressure vessel without ever needing to go outside the ship. That being the case, the pressure vessel and hull plating would be the FIRST thing completed and everything else added later during shipfitting.
Indeed, it was suggested that some ships--the Galaxy class, for example--leave huge parts of their internal structure completely empty to be converted into different facilities as their mission requires. Like a modern day city, they are constantly under construction even in deep space.
That's what we currently do with rocket engines. They do static testing of the engine separately from the rocket and then install it later on the actual rocket. Only the FIRST rocket actually performs a test flight; after that, it's assumed the basic design is sound and you only do testing on successive upgrades.
For impulse and warp engines, I would assume a known working engine is installed in the nacelles and impulse pile and then tested and checked out in the shakedown cruise. It's only a problem when you're installing a brand new engine (TMP) that has been static fired but never tested on an actual starship before.
That is, again, what the shakedown cruise is for.
That's why you would build the structure and hull on Earth and then RAISE it into orbit for the first and last time ever to have its engines fitted and tested.
But the saucer is a separate ship. Why would you want to build the engineering hull and saucer together when one is designed to get into space on its own and the other isn't. Wasting scaffolding and anti-grav energy to hold the thing up when the saucer doesn't even need to be there is silly.
I agree that the engines and warp core would probably be fitted and tested in space. But then why attach the nacelles on Earth?
As I keep saying, I have no major issue with parts of the ship being built on Earth. All I'm saying that showing the full superstructure fitted together and held up by scaffolding in rural Iowa is silly.
Saquist
Commodore
No spacecraft in history has ever been so large.
Unfortunately Federation ships have never been said to have a "pressure hulls", They have structural weaknesses such as windows and shuttle bay doors spread through out the hull that readily show that there is no inter space or division of hulls between space and the inside environment. There is also no indication that starships are separated into large compartments like subs are such as the Engine room, Control room, torpedo rooms and Battery rooms that have limited number water tight doors to isolate damage.
Internal designs seen on screen including Defiant and Constitution never show a significant separation of hulls at all. Just because the sub concept was adopted for starships doesn't mean they are constructed like subs.
Is it? We've never seen it separated at any time in TOS or the TMP movies. It could very well be tightly integrated with the secondary hull in such a way that it cannot operate independently except to still be semi-habitable if the other half of the ship is blown away somehow.
Probably because NEITHER are designed to get into space on their own?
Because the complicated work of installing and testing the warp drive and its various subsystems would probably be performed by the ship's chief engineer using his own personnel inside the nacelles themselves. They therefore will have been built, pressurized and reinforced long before the engines themselves are actually installed.
Except the superstructure isn't held up by scaffolding. It holds its shape perfectly fine ON ITS OWN. The scaffolding is only there to keep the ship off the ground, and then only for the convenience of the workers. If you were to knock out a couple of those support columns the ship would probably roll off and fall to the ground; it would come to rest, probably undamaged, leaning on its side and the workers would have to come and prop it back up again in order to finish construction.
Considering the kind of pounding these ships are designed to take, even with shields and other systems in place, I don't believe for an instant that the ship couldn't support its own weight under a modest 1G. This is a ship that has to withstand the pull of black holes, neutron stars, the stresses of FTL flight, bombardment from photon torpedoes, disruptor blasts... you really believe it could take all of that but couldn't survive being dropped from a height of fifty meters?
