John Eaves sketches on the Riverside Shipyards
- Thread starter Ryan Thomas Riddle
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Cool. Im probably the only one with this idea, but I like the idea of building starships on terra firma. Good shots.
Nifty!
I found it interesting, though that the first photo (marked "here is the first reference photo found that started the yard architecture for the designs") is actually of the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco.
I saw a good point made, when someone mentioned it makes sense to build them on Earth if the materials are coming from Earth. If they are, the materials would have to be lifted up to space dock anyway, so why not just wait until the finished product.
I'm particularly fond of the turntable design because it includes a means of getting to a launching pad.
That is a good point. It always cracks me up when people say "but it's so much easier to build things in space!" Yeah, tell that to the astronauts who have to worry about losing parts in zero gee, fighting the Newtownian reaction to every turn of a screw.
Personally, I think having ships built on the ground is perfectly consistent with canon. The Enterprise D, after all, was constructed at the Utopia Planetia Shipyards on Mars, according to the ship's plaque. Why would they name an orbital shipyard after a prominent land feature on Mars?
You're not alone. I really like the idea of building the ships on land.
Utopia Plantia was in orbit. They showed a holodeck simulation of it in "Booby Trap" in TNG where Geordi is in the drafting room overlooking the spacedock where a Galaxy class ship is under construction.
Because the ground operations are based there and/or the orbital station is in geo-lock over that area?
Personally building in space makes a lot more sense to me, esp. considering the designs of these ships and the immense sizes. Building them anywhere BUT space is silly.
We actually saw Voyager under construction at Utopia Planitia in that episode with Braxton and the USS Relativity. This included a long shot of all the different drydocks with various classes of UFP starships under different levels of construction.
I remember watching a program about how the USS Harry Truman was constructed,and how they built the ship in drydock at the General Dynamics dock,got the basic outside modules finished ,then towed the shell to the Naval shipyard for final outfitting of catapults,engines,wires,etc.
I'd imagine that's how the Enterprise would be built,although it would be a lot cooler to put the impulse engines in and 'fly' the incomplete ship into orbit for final touches.That's a sketch I'd like to see.
I'd imagine that's how the Enterprise would be built,although it would be a lot cooler to put the impulse engines in and 'fly' the incomplete ship into orbit for final touches.That's a sketch I'd like to see.
Well that explains why I don't remember it, I've blocked the aforementioned episodes from my mind.
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