How many shuttlecraft did the Enterprise have?

[Captain Robert April]

I guess I just would have liked a line in the script stating why there are no shuttlecrafts available in "Enemy Within" and then the episode would have played out the way it did with no shuttlecraft used.

Conditions on the surface would've made landing a shuttle dicey at best, plus the terrain provided no nearby landing sites, meaning that even if they could put the shuttlecraft down in one piece, a rescue party would have to move out from the shuttle in those horrific conditions to find the landing party and lead them back, maybe even carry them back, and then hope the shuttle can take back off without being slammed into a hill by the winds.

Now, while sending down a shuttlecraft before conditions got so wild may have been feasible, when you factor in all that time where they couldn't figure out what was wrong with the transporter in the first place, or how long it would take to fix it, and Kirk's overall indecisiveness, and by the time it was clear that the transporter wasn't going to be operational in time, sending down a shuttlecraft was no longer an option. And considering how fast the weather deteriorated, that window of opportunity was pretty narrow.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I kind of like Warped9's idea that there was a problem with the hangar bay doors. Nice, simple solution that had never occured to me before.

 

[Warped9]

CRA's reasoning is also quite good regarding atmospheric conditions deteriorating to a point where shuttlecraft use could be very hazardous. I would think, though, that they'd have to be even more hazardous than what some rescue choppers fly in.

 

[Timo]

This could account for why, in the "Galileo 7" only one shuttle was sent out to search for the Galileo, and with all that medicine on board there may not have been enough room to assemble the others?

Let's remember that the whole emergency came from a shuttlecraft being unable to survive in the vicinity of the Murasaki phenomenon in the first place. Why risk sending multiple shuttlecraft? Sending just one after the already lost specimen would still be defensible; after that one was lost, too, Kirk would cut his losses and leave. But sending three or six would be reckless.

why Kirk and company didn't just use a phaser to vaporize the door to engineering in "The Naked Time" and worry about replacing it later?

Umm, what? The episode already showed it was difficult and tedious work to cut through the wall material of the ship - blasting the entire door would no doubt have taken significantly longer than blasting the much smaller locking mechanism within the wall.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

This could account for why, in the "Galileo 7" only one shuttle was sent out to search for the Galileo, and with all that medicine on board there may not have been enough room to assemble the others?

Let's remember that the whole emergency came from a shuttlecraft being unable to survive in the vicinity of the Murasaki phenomenon in the first place. Why risk sending multiple shuttlecraft? Sending just one after the already lost specimen would still be defensible; after that one was lost, too, Kirk would cut his losses and leave. But sending three or six would be reckless.

More reckless than beaming down landing parties "blind" and having casualties? Kirk had to make the search pattern between the Enterprise and the Copernicus less effective to cover more surface area because he was on a deadline. If he had more shuttles he would've used them to save his friends, IMO.

 

[kkozoriz1]

You don't send out search planes into the middle of a storm. You don't go into a collapsed mine if there's danger of more collapses. You could find yourself with two lost parties rather than one.

As far a beaming down parties blind, perhaps the sensors told them there was humanoid lifesigns but they couldn't tell if it was the landing party or natives? The ambush showed the danger of that.

 

[blssdwlf]

You don't send out search planes into the middle of a storm. You don't go into a collapsed mine if there's danger of more collapses. You could find yourself with two lost parties rather than one.

That argument doesn't work very well since Kirk immediately launches the shuttle Columbus (nix the don't send out search planes in the middle of a storm) and there were not further problems with Columbus for the duration of the search.

 

[Warped9]

You don't send out search planes into the middle of a storm. You don't go into a collapsed mine if there's danger of more collapses. You could find yourself with two lost parties rather than one.

That argument doesn't work very well since Kirk immediately launches the shuttle Columbus (nix the don't send out search planes in the middle of a storm) and there were not further problems with Columbus for the duration of the search.

We're assuming Columbus didn't have any difficulties, but it's possible they could have experienced something that gave Kirk pause to launch more than one shuttlecraft. Thing is they didn't show us anything except the craft launching and returning.

 

[blssdwlf]

You don't send out search planes into the middle of a storm. You don't go into a collapsed mine if there's danger of more collapses. You could find yourself with two lost parties rather than one.

That argument doesn't work very well since Kirk immediately launches the shuttle Columbus (nix the don't send out search planes in the middle of a storm) and there were not further problems with Columbus for the duration of the search.

We're assuming Columbus didn't have any difficulties, but it's possible they could have experienced something that gave Kirk pause to launch more than one shuttlecraft. Thing is they didn't show us anything except the craft launching and returning.

That's possible - however Columbus searched with the Enterprise for at least 24 hours, perhaps more (but less than 2 days) and made at least one return before the last 24 hours and was resent immediately out again. If there were any problems with launching further shuttles there was no indication.

The best conclusion that can be drawn is that there were no further shuttles aboard, IMHO.

A secondary argument could be made that the other shuttles were damaged, but so were the transporters and they went out of their way to talk about the transporters in dialogue.

Like "The Enemy Within", this won't have any definite answers though

 

[ahkyahnan]

Regarding the number of shuttles aboard Enterprise, I've also always guessed as Warped9 has that there were maybe 4 in the Galileo size range, and the other 3...or however many other numbers there might be...were smaller workbee/inspection pod type vehicles.

As to the line about all 4 shuttlecraft still being aboard Exeter, I've always rationalized that as only referring to the larger shuttles that would make the most reasonable lifeboats. If those 4 are still there, one could reasonably assume I guess that all the workbees are there too, 'cause why would you choose a workbee over a full-size shuttlecraft if available to make your escape? Also a workbee size vehicle might not be officially classified as a "shuttlecraft" so again the line might've only referred to the Galileo style vehicles and not necessarily every craft aboard.

Then again, there may be no such thing as a 'standard complement' of shuttlecraft to begin with. Depending on their particular mission or current role in the fleet at any given time, some ships may have 7 vehicles of various sizes, some only 4, and others more. Even if the Exeter is also a Constitution class ship, it wouldn't necessarily have to have the exact same number of craft or crew.

Mark

 

[TIN_MAN]

Let's remember that the whole emergency came from a shuttlecraft being unable to survive in the vicinity of the Murasaki phenomenon in the first place. Why risk sending multiple shuttlecraft? Sending just one after the already lost specimen would still be defensible; after that one was lost, too, Kirk would cut his losses and leave. But sending three or six would be reckless.

This makes sense, but this...

Umm, what? The episode already showed it was difficult and tedious work to cut through the wall material of the ship - blasting the entire door would no doubt have taken significantly longer than blasting the much smaller locking mechanism within the wall.

Sorry, this makes no sense to me whatsoever. We've seen that phasers can vaporise almost anything, walls, people, eguipment, mugatus etc. etc. Why would blasting a hole in a door be any different? Evil kirk's phaser didn't have a problem making a nice big hole in the conduit in "The Enemy Within", unless youre assuming doors and walls on the ship are made of some super phaser proof material?

The reason Scotty took so long to cut through the wall was not because it was phaser resistant, but because he was being careful not to fry and fuse the mechanism behind it! But this begs the other question I raised, why don't all the doors have access panels, not unlike the one beside the viewport seen in "The Mark of Gideon" whereby manual overide can be affected, at least by senior officers authorised to do so?

You and I usually see eye to eye on things, but I don't think you quite thought this one through?

But the real point is, as I said, such "realisms" would have spoiled the drama of the situation.

 

[Warped9]

In the end my approach is to go by the evidence given and not worry about evidence not given. There's nothing one way or another in "The Enemy Within" or "The Galileo Seven" to contradict what we later learn in the series. In "The Galileo Seven" we can only accept/assume that only the Columbus was utilized for some unspecified reason. We can only speculate because the Columbus was indeed the only other shuttlecraft launched or others were as well only they didn't see fit or think to mention it. The Columbus may or may not have encountered some sort of difficulty only they overlooked mentioning it.

Onscreen evidence should take primacy over printed references, and the most solid evidence onscreen is in "The Omega Glory." More than four Class F shuttlecraft as standard complement is conjecture based only on a reference in TMoST. But looking at it credibly there's only so much room for storage within the secondary hull and it's unlikely that most of it would be devoted to shuttlecraft storage. The notion that the shuttlecraft can be disassembled like a kit car has no evidence to support it onscreen or off---it's pure conjecture.

The subtext throughout TOS is that the transporter handles the bulk of embarking and debarking transport. Indeed this approach remains throughout the other series (except ENT which is another story). The shuttlecraft are oldstyle backups for when the transporter isn't suitable or available. They also serve to extend the ship's flexibility and range of operation in specific circumstances.

The numbering system is open to interpretation in much the same way as speculating about the Constellation's NCC-1017 registry.

 

[Nero's Shadow]

I'm sticking with the four that warped9 has produced with the info given by TOS.? Looking and studying the info given from different sources from starfleet tech manual researched by franz Joseph and here,s a run down on a worse case situation.

1.Four 6 person transporters in primary hull.

2.Four 22 person emergency transporters in the primary hull.

3.Primary hull saucer separation possible holding half the crew in a emergency.

So in my conclusion a constitution class starship would only need possible four shuttles to use in emergency holding up to possible ten crew per shuttle. ?

 

[Nero's Shadow]

I'm sticking with the four that warped9 has produced with the info given by TOS.? Looking and studying the info given from different sources from starfleet tech manual researched by franz Joseph and here,s a run down on a worse case situation.

1.Four 6 person transporters in primary hull.

2.Four 22 person emergency transporters in the primary hull.

3.Primary hull saucer separation possible holding half the crew in a emergency.

So in my conclusion a constitution class starship would only need possible four shuttles to use in emergency holding up to possible ten crew per shuttle. ?

So 152 crew members could escape to a planet that supported life using transporters and the four shuttles with 298 crew members in the primary hull if it needed to separate in a emergency .?

So four shuttles would be perfect for each ship . !!!!!

 

[Warped9]

^^ Or all the transporters used four times and you've offloaded everyone. Of course, that would assume a case of extreme emergency. In such an event the 22-person transports could be utilized to offload everyone of about five transports each.

 

[Wingsley]

^^ Assuming there actually were 22-person evacuation transporters, and also assuming your starship is currently within transportation range of a suitable planet at the time of the emergency.

Of course, none of this touches the notion that there are still shuttlecraft "kits" waiting in storage to be assembled and activated. Once the first four shuttlecrafts have departed, more could be taken out of storage and activated as needed. Then it's simply a matter of how many "kits" would be in storage. Presumably, a collapsed "kit" would occupy a fraction of the space of a fully functioning shuttlecraft.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

I don't know. I just keep getting the image of the owl being asked this question and he's going one...two...three....*CRUNCH*... Three.

 

[Warped9]

Of course, none of this touches the notion that there are still shuttlecraft "kits" waiting in storage to be assembled and activated. Once the first four shuttlecrafts have departed, more could be taken out of storage and activated as needed. Then it's simply a matter of how many "kits" would be in storage. Presumably, a collapsed "kit" would occupy a fraction of the space of a fully functioning shuttlecraft.

It's an assumption because there's nothing in the series or in print to support or even suggest it. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it is just an assumption with no supporting evidence.

And following that logic then if all the assembled shuttlecraft were away in "The Enemy Within" and "The Galileo Seven" then why not just assemble another one or two out of storage?

 

[Nerys Myk]

^^ Assuming there actually were 22-person evacuation transporters, and also assuming your starship is currently within transportation range of a suitable planet at the time of the emergency.

Of course, none of this touches the notion that there are still shuttlecraft "kits" waiting in storage to be assembled and activated. Once the first four shuttlecrafts have departed, more could be taken out of storage and activated as needed. Then it's simply a matter of how many "kits" would be in storage. Presumably, a collapsed "kit" would occupy a fraction of the space of a fully functioning shuttlecraft.

They're shaped like boxes for a reason.

 

[Nero's Shadow]

Talking of shuttles I thought we should have a pic of my shuttlecraft . ?

I'm going to do all four that warped9 has designed including the Copernicus