Imagine the Enterprise, over again!

[MadMan1701A]

Morning, guys...

Got a few tweaks. I was wondering what the ship would look like, with cylindrical nacelles, inspired by the various ringed warpships. I also filled out the habitable area, and added a sunken area in the middle for my airlocks and stuff.

What do you guys think? I'm not sure if this works better, or not. Maybe I should have a hybrid of both engine designs?

-Ricky

 

[sojourner]

Not working for me. All I see is toilet paper rolls.

 

[MadMan1701A]

Yeah, I can see that.

Going to try something else.

-Ricky

 

[MadMan1701A]

I think this works better...

I think I like this version of the nacelles better than the first ones I had.

-Ricky

 

[Psion]

Not working for me. All I see is toilet paper rolls.

I think this works better...

I think I like this version of the nacelles better than the first ones I had.

-Ricky

I like this. It's interesting how your designs are starting to re-converge on the original ... especially those nacelles. You could probably justify giving the aft rings a smaller diameter and lend the warp nacelles a slight taper, too.

The area where the nacelle pylons meet the pylon from the "secondary hull" looks a little awkward. Why not join them all at that centerline hull? Or maybe if you thickened that area up with water tanks or storage areas with side-facing cargo hatches.

Also ... it's a common theme in Star Trek to put a bend in the nacelle pylons. Excelsior did it, Enterprise D did it, JJ's Enterprise bowed them, etc. But what, from an engineer's standpoint is the reason for that? Why not just make them straight and use less material and make them stronger?

 

[Christopher]

^Good point about the nacelle pylons. It makes most sense to have the three aft units extending on straight struts 120 degrees apart, extending from a common center module. And I agree, there should be more there than just a thin rod. I still think it'd make more sense to have that ventral "engineering hull" unit be on the centerline and have three nacelles extending out from it in a Y configuration, or maybe four in an X.

 

[Kaiser]

Looks good to me and very realistic and seemingly a actual caft in say 2050-2100's

 

[FatherRob]

Cool as it is to actually see them, leaving fuel tanks and reactors exposed like that is just asking for trouble. That says to Klingons and their ilk "Hit Me Here."

Here's the thing, though, another thing that Trek tends to overlook: A warp bubble is a pretty effective deflector shield. You're bending spacetime around you, so you can send pretty much anything onto a trajectory that misses you altogether. Realistic space combat wouldn't be anything like we're used to on Earth or anything like what's portrayed in onscreen fiction. ...

I've long been of the opinion that FTL combat would be impossible between ships that are generating a warp bubble. If you were slipping into an alternate dimension (i.e., Hyperspace as shown in B5) then I can get the idea of FTL combat. That's never been what Trek has depicted, however.

How can sensors that are trapped inside one FTL bubble sense another FTL bubble outside of its own? Likewise, how would a ship at sublight know that a FTL ship was inbound more than a split second before its arrival? The ship at sublight, even with active sensors, is still pinging (if you'll pardon the term) in realspace, at realtime... and such pinging isn't FTL. An incoming ship at warp 1 would arrive with zero notice. At most, a split second as its warp bubble dissipated.

It would make for some very interesting story constraints.

Rob+

 

[Psion]

Cool as it is to actually see them, leaving fuel tanks and reactors exposed like that is just asking for trouble. That says to Klingons and their ilk "Hit Me Here."

Here's the thing, though, another thing that Trek tends to overlook: A warp bubble is a pretty effective deflector shield. You're bending spacetime around you, so you can send pretty much anything onto a trajectory that misses you altogether. Realistic space combat wouldn't be anything like we're used to on Earth or anything like what's portrayed in onscreen fiction. ...

I've long been of the opinion that FTL combat would be impossible between ships that are generating a warp bubble. If you were slipping into an alternate dimension (i.e., Hyperspace as shown in B5) then I can get the idea of FTL combat. That's never been what Trek has depicted, however.

How can sensors that are trapped inside one FTL bubble sense another FTL bubble outside of its own? Likewise, how would a ship at sublight know that a FTL ship was inbound more than a split second before its arrival? The ship at sublight, even with active sensors, is still pinging (if you'll pardon the term) in realspace, at realtime... and such pinging isn't FTL. An incoming ship at warp 1 would arrive with zero notice. At most, a split second as its warp bubble dissipated.

It would make for some very interesting story constraints.

Rob+

Perhaps this is an advantage of photon torpedoes. If we accept that they have an on-board warp generator, it might be possible for the warp fields between the target ship and the torpedo to merge.

As for sensors, that requires Trek's unique concept of "subspace" wherein signals can be propagated at FTL velocities. As it is, with a more "realistic" view of FTL using the Alcubierre warp engine, there's none of that yet.

One possibility would be for a capital ship to maintain swarms of automated sensor buoys at a few light-minute's distance. If the Alcubierre drive is at all visible in normal space, one of these might see an incoming vessel at warp speed and be able to report back using wormhole communication.

 

[Christopher]

How can sensors that are trapped inside one FTL bubble sense another FTL bubble outside of its own? Likewise, how would a ship at sublight know that a FTL ship was inbound more than a split second before its arrival? The ship at sublight, even with active sensors, is still pinging (if you'll pardon the term) in realspace, at realtime... and such pinging isn't FTL. An incoming ship at warp 1 would arrive with zero notice. At most, a split second as its warp bubble dissipated.

That's supposed to be the idea behind the Picard Maneuver in TNG's "The Battle" -- that the Stargazer jumped briefly to warp so that it appeared in a second position before the light from its disappearance from the first position reached the Ferengi's sensors, so they saw it in two places at once for a moment and got confused. But aside from that, Trek has always assumed that sensors can operate FTL, even instantaneously across dozens of parsecs. Many's the time we've heard "long-range sensors" reporting on things happening in other star systems in real time. So the Picard Maneuver couldn't actually work unless the Ferengi's long-range sensors had been damaged. (I had a rough go of explaining it away when I depicted the "Battle of Maxia" in my novel The Buried Age.)

Now, the really tricky bit is explaining how phasers can leap between different warp bubbles. The TNG Tech Manual handwaved that photon torpedoes have a mini-drive thingy that lets them carry a bit of the warp bubble with them, as it were, so as to sustain FTL flight for a finite length of time, but a phaser beam should be stuck at sublight the moment it leaves the warp field boundary. So it shouldn't be possible for ships at warp to fire phasers at each other. In my books I've used a handwave about ships needing to "synchronize" their warp fields, and implied that they have to bring the fields into contact for phasers to pass between them, but it's a blatant fudge and doesn't always hold together well.

 

[MadMan1701A]

Thanks guys.

Not working for me. All I see is toilet paper rolls.

I think this works better...

I think I like this version of the nacelles better than the first ones I had.

-Ricky

I like this. It's interesting how your designs are starting to re-converge on the original ... especially those nacelles. You could probably justify giving the aft rings a smaller diameter and lend the warp nacelles a slight taper, too.

The area where the nacelle pylons meet the pylon from the "secondary hull" looks a little awkward. Why not join them all at that centerline hull? Or maybe if you thickened that area up with water tanks or storage areas with side-facing cargo hatches.

Also ... it's a common theme in Star Trek to put a bend in the nacelle pylons. Excelsior did it, Enterprise D did it, JJ's Enterprise bowed them, etc. But what, from an engineer's standpoint is the reason for that? Why not just make them straight and use less material and make them stronger?

Thanks. That's exactly what I was trying to do. I really want this to be recognizable as the Enterprise, but operate totally differently.

^Good point about the nacelle pylons. It makes most sense to have the three aft units extending on straight struts 120 degrees apart, extending from a common center module. And I agree, there should be more there than just a thin rod. I still think it'd make more sense to have that ventral "engineering hull" unit be on the centerline and have three nacelles extending out from it in a Y configuration, or maybe four in an X.

Well, the reactors are going to stay on the bottom, since I only want the 2 nacelles. But, I do like you guys' suggestion of the strait pylons... It balances that part out much better, and looks a lot more sturdy.

Better? Worse?

I agree with you guys too, about the combat and FTL sensors. I think it would be interesting to make the ship blind while in Warp. It would really add to the sense of anticipation right before you came out of Warp somewhere, you couldn't be certain exactly what would be there.

Also liking the sensor ideas... sounds just like the ones SeaQuest had.

-Ricky

 

[Psion]

Much better.

Seaquest definitely flitted around between my ears while I was talking about swarms of sensor drones. The Seaquest's "whiskers" were a cool concept. Only I'm thinking of something made from programmable matter using nth-generation 3D printers to produce something like DARPA's "SmartDust" or "utility fog" concepts. Sensor drones deployed on a massive scale that look more like a rapidly expanding haze than machines when released. Simply moving through such a cloud would be enough to reveal the presence of another ship. If there's any solution to FTL communications (a variation on entanglement, wormholes, whatever), these things could be enormously useful for detecting the approach of other ships.

Now ... that deflector ring around the sphere: How about if something continues forward from the sphere and actually completes the forward part of the ring's arc so that the rest of the ring is like a giant parenthesis. The port and starboard arcs of the ring then connect to the main hull fore and aft of the sphere, along with some girder work possibly filling in the empty space within.

 

[publiusr]

If I were to do a FTL spacecraft, a saucer that you deposit that becomes a base all its own makes sense. Adam's sketched of a saucer with structures that grow out of the top make a lot of sense to me.

The bridge cluster was a mess of dishes, antennae, etc.

What is more, is that unlike a sphere, a saucer won't roll around, and its broad base can support a launching pad.

I have this feeling that if FTL is ever doable--you really don't want to use field effect near a large body after all. You deposit the saucer on a life bearing world, have the main bus fly around the system seeding it.

When finished, the saucer becomes a launching pad, and good old rockets are still used. A small craft with samples is launched--it would look a lot like this: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33500.msg1134769#msg1134769

This serves as a bridge on the way in.

This docks with the warp ship as it coasts by, and at a proper distance from the planet it warps out again.

SSTO craft of small size may actually be harder to do than FTL...

 

[Ensign Ro-]

This is a very cool idea and thought process behind this re-imagining. Loving your concept and design. And, although I completely understand and agree with the comments made concerning the pylons, I must admit that your original design for them was more aesthetically pleasing and offered a certain streamlined flow to your design. I realize you're going for a "realistic" engineering approach, but I just preferred the angled pylons on this particular design. Just my opinion, of course. And I'm loving watching this develop. Excellent work.

 

[darrenw]

I think this works better...

I think I like this version of the nacelles better than the first ones I had.

-Ricky

not bad desgin through i am thinking about where crew members will be sleeping and working wheres gravity for that or does it rotating inside give gravity and also if you making a ship desgin for this century heres list to think about

1. wheres gravity is it rotating centrifuge force

2. warp drive is under development

3. theres no antimatter and matter reactor yet but that might be under development

4. wheres radiators keep engines cold

5. used our current tech to see what starship would look like today using radiators and rotating centrifuge areas and propulsion systems like ion drives and fusion engines it be nice to see what ship or starship would look like in 21st century

 

[sojourner]

Those are nice ideas, but outside the scope of this project.

 

[darrenw]

their just ideas its about time our goverment and nasa builds a spaceship or starship to use it for missions in our solar system but have rotating centrifuge inside hull great gravity and have ion engines or fusion engines etc sounds a idea

 

[sojourner]

their just ideas its about time our goverment and nasa builds a spaceship or starship to use it for missions in our solar system but have rotating centrifuge inside hull great gravity and have ion engines or fusion engines etc sounds a idea

We still have a hard time getting to orbit. We're not even close to building a "starship" to travel the solar system. Ion engines are too slow for manned craft and fusion engines don't exist yet.

 

[Maxillius]

After seeing all these designs, I'm imagining something still different. It's based on the IXS ship, but imagine it evolving 200 years. Since it's been said that coming out of warp inside a solar system has the side effect of projecting whatever detritus the ship has collected on its FTL journey, I can imagine a regulation prohibiting the use of warp fields inside a star system during peacetime, so my idea calls for a detachable ship, much like the saucer sections do in the ships we're used to seeing, except the entire ship detaches from the rings. I'm thinking of telescoping struts and power couplings that would allow the ship to slide right out, leaving the rings on the edge of the system so the ship can proceed safely toward the habitable areas of the systems it visits.

As for the ship itself, I'm picturing 5 rings, 1000 ft inner diameter, 1100 ft outer diameter, 200 ft wide, ship's overall length 2000 ft. No part of the ship core extends beyond the rings, but its length is a result of the need to fit the ship inside the rings with sufficient clearance for the telescoping struts and the warp field itself. I'm assuming biological contact with the bubble is harmful here. The ship core, as a result of its need to fit inside the rings, is a smooth cylinder apart from the ring struts which telescope down to 1/2 their working length then fold against the hull when in sublight mode. Sublight engines are situated at the back (naturally), engineering between the sublight engines and warp reactor, the shuttle tubes at the front, and the bridge in a pop-up room (ala Stargate: Universe's Destiny) right behind the shuttle storage room on the first level. The bridge pops up when the ship detaches from the rings. Beneath the bridge is the flight control deck for shuttle operations and the cargo bay. Between the bridge, flight deck, cargo bay and engineering spaces are the crew habitat, labs, quarters, brig, etc.

There are 18 shuttles, each shuttle can carry 20 in an emergency situation or a mission crew of 6-10 and there are 6 shuttle tubes. All tubes can launch simultaneously but each tube can only launch one shuttle at a time. The ship has a crew of 360 so everyone can get out in case of an emergency. Shuttles are parked and stored in a position that allows them to be rapidly filled and launched, thus shuttles must come aboard backwards because there is no space aboard ship to turn around. The shuttles are designed to fly in either direction in space and flight controls are not dependent on direction. The shuttles are multipurpose in design and are cylindrical in shape. An aero field is projected when planetfall is necessary that projects a rigid forcefield in the shape of whatever the pilot wants to emulate. The default shape is a simple transparent ovoid, though the field can change opacity and shape with varying degrees of complexity. Care must be taken in shape selection because it will affect handling in atmosphere.

If anyone wants to try their hand at rendering that, have at it ^.^

 

[Christopher]

Since it's been said that coming out of warp inside a solar system has the side effect of projecting whatever detritus the ship has collected on its FTL journey, I can imagine a regulation prohibiting the use of warp fields inside a star system during peacetime, so my idea calls for a detachable ship, much like the saucer sections do in the ships we're used to seeing, except the entire ship detaches from the rings. I'm thinking of telescoping struts and power couplings that would allow the ship to slide right out, leaving the rings on the edge of the system so the ship can proceed safely toward the habitable areas of the systems it visits.

That's a nice idea, except it should be pointed out that in space, a collision hazard is more a matter of direction than distance. There's no atmosphere to slow things down, so the particles will maintain their velocity and intensity over just about any distance.

So maybe the safe thing to do would be to overshoot the populated portion of a star system and come out of warp pointing away from it (while making sure you weren't pointing at any other inhabited system you knew of), then loop around and come in at sublight.

Come to think of it, though, I believe the particles would not be particularly hazardous to inhabited planets. After all, Earth gets bombarded by relativistic particles all the time -- cosmic rays -- and they're safely absorbed by the atmosphere. Not to mention all the meteoroids and bolides that burn up in the atmosphere on a regular basis. The atmosphere is a pretty effective deflector shield for the planet. So this would really only be a danger to other ships and stations, which are much smaller targets and much less likely (though not impossible) to be hit accidentally.

I'm assuming biological contact with the bubble is harmful here.

Well, yeah, since the edge of the warp bubble is a really severe gravity gradient. "Harmful" would be putting it mildly.

...and the bridge in a pop-up room (ala Stargate: Universe's Destiny) right behind the shuttle storage room on the first level. The bridge pops up when the ship detaches from the rings.

Why does it need to pop up? Having a bridge on the top of a ship is a custom from old naval vessels where the commanders needed to have a high vantage point to see what was going on, but it's just an affectation for a spaceship, and a very unwise one, since putting the command center on the surface of the ship makes it vulnerable to attack, radiation, meteoroid impacts, etc. As long as you've got sensors and viewscreens, there's no good reason to expose your command center like that. Heck, even submarines use periscopes. Ideally the vital areas like the bridge should be fairly deep inside the ship.