Here it is - no bloody "A", "B" "C" or "D"

[Tom Servo]

Well, the impulse engine placement has always been wrong, if you believe it is a thrust based drive system.

How so, precisely?

TGT

Dammit, I know if I try to answer this you are come back with about 15 links to sites that say it does work, and you're gonna kill me with it.

But my understanding, if the ship uses a thrust based system, and the vents on the back of the impulse housing on the back of the saucer is the thrust exhaust, then the thrust is not on the ships centerline, and would cause her to tumble end over end in space.

Now, one could say there are forcefields used in the impulse drive to vector the forces that are pushed out of it, and to vector the force when the ship wants to move in reverse.

Personally, I always thought it was a field drive and the ships used their RCS thrusters to change their direction. But thats just me.

 

[wamdue]

This was posted on the original source article's talkback section:


http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008...rek-first.html



I work for ILM.
The reason for the nacelles and the support struts is that the nacelles rotate to alter the direction of the impulse engines which are housed inside the nacelles.
In other words the nacelles vector the thrust from the impulse engines.
This is why they are lumpy at the connecting points as this houses the pivot mechanism which rotates the nacelles.
I hope this explains the nacelles and why the saucer is back,this to balance the thrust through the center of gravity of the ship thrustwise.

"It's like throwing gasoline on a fire."-Alan Rickman, GalaxyQuest

so one quick question, does this mean if they cant rotate the nacelles they cant go to wrap and are stuck in impulse? seems like a weakness to me.

Kirk: Mr Sulu, rotate the nacellles
Mr Sulu: Kirk you arnt the Captain you cant give orders
Captain Pike: its alright Sulu I said he good, just for the duration of this mission.
Mr Sulu: aye sir *pushes ship wide intercom button* All hands prepare for nacelluar rotation.

meanwhile in Engineering

Scottie: there has to be a better way of doing this, even Trip Tucker didnt have to mess around like this.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

All I can say is that when I look at those warp engines, I find myself asking "That thing got a Hemi?"

 

[Inquisitive]

I was looking at the picture again, but I cannot seem to figure out where the pivot point for the Nacelle is? Does the entire Nacelle along with the strut pivot, or just the Nacelle at the point at which it is connected to the Strut?

 

[ancient]

I was looking at the picture again, but I cannot seem to figure out where the pivot point for the Nacelle is? Does the entire Nacelle along with the strut pivot, or just the Nacelle at the point at which it is connected to the Strut?

This was already established long ago: the new nacelles lift up and spin like helicopter blades. The deflector dish spins to provide forward thrust. That's why it's shaped more like a turbine this time. This is how the ship takes off from San Francisco. Of course, the engine hull has to slide back a bit to make room before they do it.

It's called the OSPREY manuver.

The saucer also doubles as a saw-blade for cutting through enemy ships, I hear. How awesome is that?!

 

[trevanian]

I was looking at the picture again, but I cannot seem to figure out where the pivot point for the Nacelle is? Does the entire Nacelle along with the strut pivot, or just the Nacelle at the point at which it is connected to the Strut?

This was already established long ago: the new nacelles lift up and spin like helicopter blades. The deflector dish spins to provide forward thrust. That's why it's shaped more like a turbine this time. This is how the ship takes off from San Francisco. Of course, the engine hull has to slide back a bit to make room before they do it.

Gee, and I was beginning to think they built it in Iowa, then hired David Copperfield XXII to magic it into space.

 

[ancient]

I was looking at the picture again, but I cannot seem to figure out where the pivot point for the Nacelle is? Does the entire Nacelle along with the strut pivot, or just the Nacelle at the point at which it is connected to the Strut?

This was already established long ago: the new nacelles lift up and spin like helicopter blades. The deflector dish spins to provide forward thrust. That's why it's shaped more like a turbine this time. This is how the ship takes off from San Francisco. Of course, the engine hull has to slide back a bit to make room before they do it.

Gee, and I was beginning to think they built it in Iowa, then hired David Copperfield XXII to magic it into space.

That's not feasible.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

But my understanding, if the ship uses a thrust based system...

Which is how impulse functions according to Gene Roddenberry, at least aboard the original NCC-1701 and her Refit.

...and the vents on the back of the impulse housing on the back of the saucer is the thrust exhaust, then the thrust is not on the ships centerline, and would cause her to tumble end over end in space.

Ignoring the neck and pylons for a moment, if the mass of the warp nacelles (above the impulse nozzles) equals that of the secondary hull (below the impulse nozzles) then the impulse engines would be generating a thrust vector through the ship's center of mass as it must for optimum stability.

Now, one could say there are forcefields used in the impulse drive to vector the forces that are pushed out of it, and to vector the force when the ship wants to move in reverse.

Which is how I rationalized its operation in this thread.

Personally, I always thought it was a field drive and the ships used their RCS thrusters to change their direction. But thats just me.

Presumably a field drive would be able to change direction without expending reaction mass. On the other hand, if the impulse engines do function as (extremely powerful) rockets whose thrust can be vectored within a cone angle described by the aft tips of the warp nacelles and secondary hull then employing onboard momentum wheels and control moment gyros to quickly reorient the spacecraft in extreme situations (i.e., during space battles) would be substantially more fuel efficient.

TGT

 

[cultcross]

I suspect that this post over at EW is really just our old friend StarTrek11 plowing new and fertile soil.

My thoughts exactly, it's even his grammar/posting style, along with claiming he 'works at ILM'
100 quatloos says it's the same guy.

 

[Psion]

Oh, by Roddenberry's constipated corpse, I hope this is a hoax!

 

[Inquisitive]

Oh, by Roddenberry's constipated corpse, I hope this is a hoax!

Like I said earlier, if you look at the picture there just is not any conceivable way for the Nacelles to rotate.

 

[MANT!]

Let me get an expert...

Me bairns..Me poor bairns....



Seriously, it looks awkward to me... perhaps it'll grow on me...

 

[Enterpriserules]

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd107/bootsboy02/al3d_08_1024x768.jpg

This is the refit E. The original refit and the best!


[You're in the wrong thread; this one's about the movie (ST:XI) Enterprise. You're also stretching the page with an oversized image. Converting it to a link. - M']

 

[Ghostface1701]

This was posted on the original source article's talkback section:


http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008...rek-first.html



I work for ILM.
The reason for the nacelles and the support struts is that the nacelles rotate to alter the direction of the impulse engines which are housed inside the nacelles.
In other words the nacelles vector the thrust from the impulse engines.
This is why they are lumpy at the connecting points as this houses the pivot mechanism which rotates the nacelles.
I hope this explains the nacelles and why the saucer is back,this to balance the thrust through the center of gravity of the ship thrustwise.

Sorry, but this is HORSESHIT. I've seen the impulse engines in one of the clips earlier this week. They're in their usual place, at the back of the saucer.

What I'm still concerned about, nacelle-wise, it that I saw some production art that showed the fins at the back of the nacelles split in sections, with blue energy coming out. Maybe this was another ship, or maybe it's an idea that wasn't used. If it is in the film, I can't wait to see the reaction to that

 

[Corran Horn]

I cannot believe how irrational some of the responses to this ship are.

Perhaps you don't understand that the discussion is more about aesthetics than engineering.

---------------

Which makes even *less* sense since aesthetics are about a millions times more subjective than engineering.

 

[Tom Servo]

This was posted on the original source article's talkback section:


http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008...rek-first.html



I work for ILM.
The reason for the nacelles and the support struts is that the nacelles rotate to alter the direction of the impulse engines which are housed inside the nacelles.
In other words the nacelles vector the thrust from the impulse engines.
This is why they are lumpy at the connecting points as this houses the pivot mechanism which rotates the nacelles.
I hope this explains the nacelles and why the saucer is back,this to balance the thrust through the center of gravity of the ship thrustwise.

Sorry, but this is HORSESHIT. I've seen the impulse engines in one of the clips earlier this week. They're in their usual place, at the back of the saucer.

What I'm still concerned about, nacelle-wise, it that I saw some production art that showed the fins at the back of the nacelles split in sections, with blue energy coming out. Maybe this was another ship, or maybe it's an idea that wasn't used. If it is in the film, I can't wait to see the reaction to that

THANK YOU SIR!!! Phew...

 

[Neumann]

I certainly doubt that such starship would have vectoring nacelles, even voyagers moving nacelles made no sense... We can change the shape of space but we must move physically our nacelles to get it to work... :-S

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I cannot believe how irrational some of the responses to this ship are.

Perhaps you don't understand that the discussion is more about aesthetics than engineering.

---------------

Which makes even *less* sense since aesthetics are about a millions times more subjective than engineering.

However, the subjectivity would explain the irrationality of the responses.

 

[Devon]

Cool! I didn't mean to get anything stirred by reposting that. In the event it was accurate or something I just wanted to relay it. Apologies if it's inaccurate after all!

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Ignoring the neck and pylons for a moment, if the mass of the warp nacelles (above the impulse nozzles) equals that of the secondary hull (below the impulse nozzles) then the impulse engines would be generating a thrust vector through the ship's center of mass as it must for optimum stability.

Just one quick comment... I know you get this, but it needs clarification for the non-techy-types. You're oversimplifying.

You're not really talking about the masses being equal, you're talking about the moments of inertia being equal. This has to do with the total mass, and the distribution of that mass relative to the line-of-action of the thrust system.

For a simplified way of looking at it... you'd (figuratively) slice the ship in half, side to side (ie, along a horizontal plane) along the impulse thrust vector. Since the ship is symmetrical side-to-side, you need not do it laterally, but if the ship was assymmetrical laterally, you'd need to do this both ways.

Now... find the center-of-gravity of the lowermost half, and the center-of-gravity of the uppermost half. Calculate the mass of each section, and the distance of the center-of-gravity of each section from the plane along which you're sectioning the ship.

The total sectional mass times the distance from the sectioning plane must be the same for both regions, or else the ship will spin when thrust is applied rather than traveling in a straight line.

Now... the secondary hull is mostly empty volume (lots of living spaces, corridors, etc), while the nacelles are going to be much more dense. The volume of the nacelles, combined, is greater than that of the secondary hull as well. So it actually seems highly likely that the TOS ship is perfectly balanced for thrust from the existing impulse engine location.