How big was the Enterprise?

[Shawnster]

Okay. Why hasn't it occurred to anybody that it may have to do with artificial gravity sources and the interaction with the warp field???
Especially with sudden changes in acceleration due to weapon impacts?

And no this isn't a new thought with me. I have been playing around with it, ever since I first saw this bbs - twenty years ago.

I must be weird.

Oh well what else is new...

How does that work? Why would it apply only to the TOS Enterprise bridge? How does this affect the rest of the ship? What would happen if the bridge was oriented straight on? Again, why would the negative affect affect only the bridge and not the rest of the decks?

 

[DaveyNY]

Yes.

Unless it's dinky.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

**slinks away in shame**

OH MY ....
That reminded me that I once dated a young lady that had a "dinky toy" fetish.

You don't want to know...

 

[DaveyNY]

I read ages ago that in actuality, the main bridge set was purposely adjusted by the production crew late in the building phase in order to be able to have the camera look past the Captain's chair (thus Shatner) whenever anyone entered from the turbolift.

They decided that having it right behind the chair, blocked the camera's view when a guest star entered.

 

[Dukhat]

OH MY ....
That reminded me that I once dated a young lady that had a "dinky toy" fetish.

You don't want to know...

Yes I do.

 

[HotRod]

OH MY ....
That reminded me that I once dated a young lady that had a "dinky toy" fetish.

You don't want to know...

 

[DaveyNY]

Yes I do.

Think a very expensive vehicle.., say a Rolls Royce, entering a tunnel over and over again, in the rain.


She was gorgeous, but more than a bit strange.
We got along quite well as long as I catered to her "proclivities" and she mine.

 

[Maurice]

I read ages ago that in actuality, the main bridge set was purposely adjusted by the production crew late in the building phase in order to be able to have the camera look past the Captain's chair (thus Shatner) whenever anyone entered from the turbolift.

They decided that having it right behind the chair, blocked the camera's view when a guest star entered.

Read where? There's a paucity of documentation about the sets.

 

[Warped9]

Actually many, many years ago I read the very same thing, that the bridge originally was supposed to have the turbolift directly aft of the command chair. But early on, before construction began for the first pilot, someone decided (possibly Roddenberry) the turbolift should be offset as it we would see it throughout production. They simply felt it would be more visually dramatic. And at this point the name of the Captain was still April or Pike.

I’m wondering if I read that in The Making of Star Trek.

 

[knightgrace]

How does that work? Why would it apply only to the TOS Enterprise bridge? How does this affect the rest of the ship? What would happen if the bridge was oriented straight on? Again, why would the negative affect affect only the bridge and not the rest of the decks?

A long time ago now in the early 2000s, I picked up a copy of the Journal Science. Published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the paper that was published in the particular issue of the Journal, there was an interesting paper on the use of genetic algorithms to design electronic circuitry by using a Field Programmable Gate Array device.
The idea, was to have a genetic algorithm design a circuit that would do a job, already known. Not digital! Analog. Non discrete. No clock.

The thing was that certain gates were turned on, but had no connection to the circuit that was active.

They removed them by turning those gates off.

The circuit no longer worked.

The only thing that I can come up with, is that Analog circuits are prone to environmental effects. This means that temperature, humidity, static charge, and so on affect the operation of the Analog circuit. The presence of the gates turned on had an effect - in other words no direct connection. If the circuit requires a non direct electromagnetic object to run properly then something else unexpected is going on.

So, the whole total design of a Constitution class is the warp drive. Everything must have an affect. The crew, food supplies and so on. Minor adjustments like someone going from the farthest point to the lower stern of the engineering hull, can be allowed.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

A long time ago now in the early 2000s, I picked up a copy of the Journal Science. Published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the paper that was published in the particular issue of the Journal, there was an interesting paper on the use of genetic algorithms to design electronic circuitry by using a Field Programmable Gate Array device.
The idea, was to have a genetic algorithm design a circuit that would do a job, already known. Not digital! Analog. Non discrete. No clock.

The thing was that certain gates were turned on, but had no connection to the circuit that was active.

They removed them by turning those gates off.

The circuit no longer worked.

The only thing that I can come up with, is that Analog circuits are prone to environmental effects. This means that temperature, humidity, static charge, and so on affect the operation of the Analog circuit. The presence of the gates turned on had an effect - in other words no direct connection. If the circuit requires a non direct electromagnetic object to run properly then something else unexpected is going on.

So, the whole total design of a Constitution class is the warp drive. Everything must have an affect. The crew, food supplies and so on. Minor adjustments like someone going from the farthest point to the lower stern of the engineering hull, can be allowed.

Not sure if that's over my head or just very baked.

 

[David cgc]

The way it's expressed is a bit odd, but the idea of seemingly-unrelated components causing interference in complex systems is a sound one. For instance, I was just reading an article talking about what, specifically, your cellphone might be doing if you leave it active during a flight (remember back in the mid-2000s, when you could tell when someone around you was about to get a call because any nearby speaker would start buzzing and crackling a moment before the phone rang? That stopped when cell phones switched to different radios, but it's still a concern in some areas, or when modern phones fall back to the older communication method because they can't get a connection.

So, yes, it's possible something that something as seemingly stupid as moving the viewscreen off the centerline of the ship fixed some problem during NX-1700's shakedown cruise, and that's just the way things were from then on.

 

[Tallguy]

I admit there are weirder things. (I forget the exact details but there was an airplane that if you painted the wrong side of the elevators first it would crash. I want to say Bonanzas.) But I'm not buying it on such a scale as rotating the whole bridge. And only for the 1701.

Now if they had been really ballsy some nerd could have made the NX-01 off center for some such reason "It interferes with the floody-loop interfacers" . Then the 1701 could have been following tradition.

 

[Qonundrum]

Pretty dang big. Those universe hole-tearin' nacelles say a lot!

 

[Commander Troi]

The 11' model was hung from the ceiling in the 70s.

Last I heard, it was still on display in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall on the first floor, which is right across from the entrance.

I'll be in DC in a few weeks and hope to go to Air & Space, so I'll let you know.

 

[HotRod]

Pretty dang big. Those universe hole-tearin' nacelles say a lot!

I find that size difference rather ridiculous. I'd say the size charts look much better with a 225m NX-01, a 442m Constitution, and a 642m Galaxy. Makes the Galaxy seem less ridiculously huge.

 

[Tallguy]

Makes the Galaxy seem less ridiculously huge.

That is the established size the Galaxy Class, right? So how does that make the Galaxy less huge? By saying that the Constitution was more huge? They're more than 100 years apart. And presumably had different jobs (even though one wouldn't know by watching lots of TNG). The Galaxy makes less sense if she doesn't follow her original mission that would almost NEVER take her home. Which TNG did not follow.

I also don't understand why people think the Galaxy is oversized based on how little space is taken up with people. Even given spacious living quarters and community spaces, most of the ship should be taken up with the stuff it needs to do its job, right?

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Found it. Back when TNG was being developed, the SFX department came up with this image of the Enterprise-D overlaid on top of the Paramount lot to give an idea of how big the Galaxy-class was.​

 

[Tallguy]

Found it. Back when TNG was being developed, the SFX department came up with this image of the Enterprise-D overlaid on top of the Paramount lot to give an idea of how big the Galaxy-class was.​

Re: TOS - Since we know that none of this stuff actually lines up, why don't we go with how big they SAID it was? Other than while they were making the pilot they were pretty consistent over three seasons to say it's about 1000 feet long.

Then they made TMP. And they said it was 1000' long.

When they wanted to show you how big the ship was? They put it next to an aircraft carrier. And to show you how MUCH bigger the Galaxy was? As you can see they put it over the studio. They KNEW the ballpark sizes that they were going for.

What does a 1500 foot Enterprise look like next to a modern aircraft carrier? (My understanding is that the Gerald Ford isn't much lengthier than the nuclear carrier Enterprise.) It's about a time and half as long, right?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Found it. Back when TNG was being developed, the SFX department came up with this image of the Enterprise-D overlaid on top of the Paramount lot to give an idea of how big the Galaxy-class was.​

This Paramount map doesn't even show the full absurdity of making a spaceship so big. The Enterprise-D has 42 decks. If you separate them out and add up all the floor space, the combined area must be ridiculous. It goes way beyond this map.

It's much more than you'd need, and I don't think they realized that when they were designing it. They came up with a shape they liked, and then a big number for its length, and it was "established" and set in stone before they grasped what it would mean.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

It depends what you need. If you need to evacuate a colony or transport cargo or run a bunch of holodecks you need a lot of space. If you want turbolifts to run on curving rollercoaster tracks or fly across huge open cityscapes you need it to be even bigger.