How big was the Enterprise?

[HotRod]

I don't have an appropriately scaled TOS Enterprise, but I did put my 1/1000 scale Discoprise next to my 1/1000 scale Voyager. The 442m length of the Enterprise does look great next to a 343m Voyager. Makes Voyager come off as sleek and advanced next to the older, more cumbersome Enterprise. Like putting a modern Destroyer next to an Iowa Class Battleship.

 

[Shawnster]

We didn't have Klingon ships in S1 and S2?

Nope. Not before the remaster. Always conveniently off screen ort just a glowing blob.

 

[Warped9]

My idea what a Klingon scoutship could have looked like in “Errand Of Mercy” in S1.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Nope. Not before the remaster. Always conveniently off screen ort just a glowing blob.

Why are so many starships just glowing blobs on this show?

 

[blssdwlf]

Why are so many starships just glowing blobs on this show?

Not everything glowed and only a small number were blobs. The Klingon Battlecruiser, Romulan BOP and Eymorg Ion Ship didn't glow

But the Klingon scout glowed (and it was angular and not a blob) in "Friday's Child" presumably because she was shielded and trying to look intimidating. The Orion warship in "Journey to Babel" was overloading her engines to beat the Enterprise and glowed. Mudd's J-Class stopped glowing when he burned his engines out. The space cruiser Aurora from "The Way to Eden" started glowing when she overloaded her engines.

So maybe ships glowed when they were outputting alot of energy as a form of heat dissipation ?

 

[Dukhat]

The DS9 Tech Manual puts it at 511m, which is probably still too small.

The DS9 Tech manual is notorious for having all kinds of incorrect ship lengths.

 

[Char Kais]

Different Enterprise but this guy made some interesting calculations about the usable floor space of the Enterprise D

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[scotpens]

The Enterprise is big enough so that the saucer is two decks tall and it can't fit inside a Star Destroyer's hangar bay.

I assume you mean the Enterprise's saucer is two decks tall at its outer edge. According to TMOST and the Franz Joseph plans, the saucer is 11 decks thick through the middle.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I assume you mean the Enterprise's saucer is two decks tall at its outer edge. According to TMOST and the Franz Joseph plans, the saucer is 11 decks thick through the middle.

Yeah, that's what I mean. It seemed obvious when I was typing the words but less obvious now that I'm reading them.

 

[Daedalus]

Since we're on those particular subject, I've read multiple times that the Cage Enterprise is supposed to be 150m long. I've yet to find a resources for it, but this piece of information is often accompanied by the deflector dish being reduced in size to make the ship seen bigger in the main run of TOS episodes.

Fact or nonsense?

 

[FredH]

My idea what a Klingon scoutship could have looked like in “Errand Of Mercy” in S1.

Entirely fair, though I always pictured it (after the mid-80s) as being a Bird of Prey.

 

[Warped9]

Entirely fair, though I always pictured it (after the mid-80s) as being a Bird of Prey.

My project is based on the notion of considering only what was available (in terms of influence) at the time the show was being produced and what could be constructed with relative ease back then with the resources at hand. No retconning. That includes designing things as Matt Jefferies would have designed them and to fit the aesthetic of the show.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Since we're on those particular subject, I've read multiple times that the Cage Enterprise is supposed to be 150m long. I've yet to find a resources for it, but this piece of information is often accompanied by the deflector dish being reduced in size to make the ship seen bigger in the main run of TOS episodes.

Fact or nonsense?

It's a fact that the ship was originally going to be smaller, with Pike's crew of 203 instead of 430. Even the smaller Enterprise was, and remains, far beyond the dreams of NASA, so really, they thought they were starting big.

When they decided the Enterprise should be twice as big, for storytelling flexibility, they cut down the height of the bridge dome by half, to show that one deck's height is that much less now, compared to the overall hull. It made the Connie sleeker and better looking, but of course fx shots from the pilots made it all the way through the third season.

 

[UssGlenn]

I think 600+ metres is a nice size for the ship personally.

I have the TOS Ent at 442m here and the Ent-B at about 612m

 

[HotRod]

I have the TOS Ent at 442m here and the Ent-B at about 612m

That's perfect.

 

[Dukhat]

I have the TOS Ent at 442m here and the Ent-B at about 612m

Why does the Enterprise-B have the same bridge module as the Enterprise-A? That skews the scale considerably. (It also looks like fan-made art while the others are official.) I think it should be even larger than what is depicted here, at least 700m long.

 

[Daedalus]

It's a fact that the ship was originally going to be smaller, with Pike's crew of 203 instead of 430. Even the smaller Enterprise was, and remains, far beyond the dreams of NASA, so really, they thought they were starting big.

When they decided the Enterprise should be twice as big, for storytelling flexibility, they cut down the height of the bridge dome by half, to show that one deck's height is that much less now, compared to the overall hull. It made the Connie sleeker and better looking, but of course fx shots from the pilots made it all the way through the third season.

Thanks for the clarification. I presume the fx shots were largely used for the ISS Enterprise?

I have the TOS Ent at 442m here and the Ent-B at about 612m

I'm not a big fan of size changes for the sake of interiors, as it's an unending rabbit hole of headaches, but the size of the Excelsior matches well with the reused shots of a Enterprise D/Excelsior class rendezvous seen in TNG countless times.

Ex Astris Scientia - Size of the Excelsior Class

How the USS Excelsior may have to be bigger than we thought

www.ex-astris-scientia.org

Some of those pictures exist here.

 

[blssdwlf]

Thanks for the clarification. I presume the fx shots were largely used for the ISS Enterprise?

The tall bridge / pilot version shows up in various episodes as catalogued here:

http://www.trekplace.com/tosfxcatalog.html

 

[Henoch]

From the front/aft she has some major Voyager vibes

Exactly my thought, too.

As for number of decks of the TOS-E, I head-canon the following Court Martial dialog to imply there are 23 decks:

SPOCK: B deck, in or near Engineering.
KIRK: Seal off B deck, sections 18Y through 23D.

Another reference is in COTEOF where the following dialog may give the saucer height at 11 decks:

Captain's log, supplemental entry. Two drops of cordrazine can save a man's life. A hundred times that amount has just accidentally been pumped into Doctor McCoy's body. In a strange, wild frenzy, he has fled the ship's Bridge. All connecting decks have been placed on alert. We have no way of knowing if the madness is permanent or temporary, or in what direction it will drive McCoy.
...
KIRK: Continue alert, decks four through eleven.

The connecting decks to the Bridge (if deck 1) are decks 2 thru at least deck 11. Apparently, the security alert was called off on decks 2 and 3, probably due to their small size inside the top blister.

Both of these ideas match the ship's description in TMOST where it says the saucer has 11 decks and the engineering hull has 16 decks. If we assume the engineering hull includes the dorsal and it starts with deck 8, then there are 23 decks.

At ~8 foot decks, it looks a lot like Franz Joseph's Enterprise. At ~10 foot decks, it looks a lot like Drexler's Enterprise.

 

[mb22]

I recall this cutaway poster from around the late 1980s: