Landing Starships

[Timo]

The interesting thing here is that nothing in VOY actually establishes that the ship's abilities would be novel or rare. Indeed, no boast on her specs ever mentions this feature, and there's no dialogue even to the neutral effect that "our ship can land". Other types of boast abound, regarding speed or agility or bioneural computing or whatnot. Landing just plain happens.

The suggestion may be there. But "there" isn't in dialogue, plotlines or VFX. It lurks somewhere backstage.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

^ Well, we know it is supposed to be an at least somewhat rare maneuver, as neither Janeway nor Paris have ever done it before, as of the 37's. So apparently it is not standard fare for Starfleet graduates in their training programs. Chakotay also seems to regard landing as a rather extreme step. I think lines like these add to the suggestion.

 

[mike hill]

I don't have any evidence to support it, but my gut feeling is that starship landing is a very rare manoever.
I would guess that some sort of antigrav lifters would be needed, supported by (if present) a lifting body airframe? With greater antigrav power needed for greater mass?
TOS BOP is (I think) generally considered to be a smaller ship, and has some sort of lifting body shape. Klingon BOP too - smaller and wings (and as TVH canon).
Voyager is bigger (but still smallish for TNG era) with no real wings so probably power hungry antigravs?
YMMV

 

[Timo]

^ Well, we know it is supposed to be an at least somewhat rare maneuver, as neither Janeway nor Paris have ever done it before, as of the 37's. So apparently it is not standard fare for Starfleet graduates in their training programs. Chakotay also seems to regard landing as a rather extreme step. I think lines like these add to the suggestion.

Then again, Torres never says she wouldn't have landing experience - and she used to fly a ship that has wings, so Chakotay, too, probably is a veteran of landing a starship, albeit a small one.

We could easily argue that large starships land fairly seldom, as this is also what we see (not) happen. We could also argue that Starfleet believes in large ships over small ones, but this isn't really something our eyes would confirm: big ships are frequently seen in deep space, but we get our share of small ones and those are never indicated to be anomalous for their size.

Possibly Janeway just hasn't been aboard the right sort of ship, and Paris is a spring chicken. Whether the two have conducted simulated landings... Well, both seem to possess the necessary skill set. Probably they are just pointing out their lack of the genuine, One-Centimeter-High-Club membership experience, and possibly because it's worth pointing out - i.e. it's actually relatively rare!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Pre-Intrepid Class, when has anybody landed a vessel onto planet-side that isn't a shuttle?

 

[Galaxy Child]

The whole ship was never meant to land. There is a seperation plane between the saucer section and the dorsal neck to seperate the saucer section from the engineering hull.
From Memory Alpha: "During the 23rd century, hull segment separations were dangerous, last-resort maneuvers, used in the event of a catastrophic emergency. (TOS: "The Apple").
By the 24th century, separations were designed to be more routine, with some classes being designed with reconnection abilities. Both components contained essential systems, allowing each to be independently operable for extended periods."https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Saucer_separation
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Saucer_separation

 

[Henoch]

Pre-Intrepid Class, when has anybody landed a vessel onto planet-side that isn't a shuttle?

Sulu landed the Klingon BOP on both Vulcan and Earth...

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Sulu landed the Klingon BOP on both Vulcan and Earth...

Outside of Sulu landing a stolen Bird of Prey, who else in StarFleet has done that?

Whatever happened to that stolen Bird of Prey?

 

[at Quark's]

Possibly Janeway just hasn't been aboard the right sort of ship, and Paris is a spring chicken. Whether the two have conducted simulated landings... Well, both seem to possess the necessary skill set. Probably they are just pointing out their lack of the genuine, One-Centimeter-High-Club membership experience, and possibly because it's worth pointing out - i.e. it's actually relatively rare!
Timo Saloniemi

I agree that it doesn't constitute any proof at all, that's why I keep using the term suggestion. And yes, you can interpret it all in very different ways, though I personally tend to go for the explanation that seems most likely (and again, that's subjective).

Paris being a spring chicken -- I don't know. The man has a short service record in Starfleet, but he's the pilot of the thing, without having anything more than a field commission, so he must possess qualifications / experience / skills superior to most other Starfleet personnel, or at least superior to those that don't already serve the ship in another capacity (for all we know Tuvok would be even better, but more needed as tactical officer/chief of security). But the man is a bit of an enigma anyway. In early season he's set up as the fast action boy that doesn't understand too much of more abstract theories (see Parallax), yet he is the closest thing to a backup for the EMH they have (before Kes volunteers), and then he suddenly claims to be a SF academy major graduate in astrophysics --not exactly the most accessible subject-- and understanding esoteric concepts such as the coaxial warp drive, that Chakotay apparently has never even heard about... I can't fail to think that that kind of background would have served them very well, back in Parallax....

 

[Takeru]

Pre-Intrepid Class, when has anybody landed a vessel onto planet-side that isn't a shuttle?

All the time on DS9, the runabouts aren't shuttles.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

All the time on DS9, the runabouts aren't shuttles.

You know what I was referring to. =D

RunAbouts are just Shuttles with growth hormone meets RV Camper + winnebago.

 

[Timo]

In "The Battle", we heard of the Ferengi hiding in a crater of a moon, in a ship capable of defeating a Constellation. It sort of set the expectations, but we saw nothing; learned nothing specific about the size of the ship, the size of the moon, or the required tech; and never in TNG got a comparable Starfleet performance, even as a verbal reference.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Henoch]

Whatever happened to that stolen Bird of Prey?

Last time I saw it, it was sinking to the bottom of San Francisco Bay. I assume the environmentalists would petition to remove it; Klingon Trash.

 

[Mytran]

I've read (though I can't recall were) that the intention to land the ship was there from the very beginning of Star Trek.

My understanding is that Matt Jefferies' idea at one point was that the ship would arrive in system whole, then the saucer would separate and the saucer would go investigate planets in the system. The big triangles on the lower side of the saucer were originally landing gear. But then it was realized that the budget would not allow the visual effects required for routinely landing the ship on screen, so the transporter was imagined.

So those big triangles are the remains of starship landing from the very beginning.

--Alex

You probably read it in the original series bible. There's a copy of it in PDF form here, although you have to flip through a later, revised version of the bible first
http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_TOS_Writer's_Guide.pdf

On PDF page 48 (the second p.15) there is the following passage:

WHAT ABOUT THE SHIP'S MAIN SAUCER-LIKE SECTION?
This is the portion of the shop in which we will be and which we will use most. It contains at the very top the ship's bridge and general operation facilities. This "saucer" is approximately twenty stories thick at its widest spot, containing also primary ship's departments, living accommodations, recreational facilities, laboratories, and is in fact a completely self-sustaining unit which can detach itself from the galaxy drive units and operate on atomic impulse power for short-range solar system exploration.​

The bible also has a section on the transporter room which suggests that the idea of the saucer landing on planets got nixxed fairly early in the creation process.
However, the T-room is absent from the original series pitch:
http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_Pitch.pdf

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Last time I saw it, it was sinking to the bottom of San Francisco Bay. I assume the environmentalists would petition to remove it; Klingon Trash.

I would assume StarFleet would recover it, dissect it for all it's secrets.

That would explain how Admiral Pressmen and Starfleet were able to make a Phase Cloak if they derived the tech off of normal cloak.

 

[Henoch]

WHAT ABOUT THE SHIP'S MAIN SAUCER-LIKE SECTION?
This is the portion of the shop in which we will be and which we will use most. It contains at the very top the ship's bridge and general operation facilities. This "saucer" is approximately twenty stories thick at its widest spot, containing also primary ship's departments, living accommodations, recreational facilities, laboratories, and is in fact a completely self-sustaining unit which can detach itself from the galaxy drive units and operate on atomic impulse power for short-range solar system exploration.

If we retcon the early episode deck numbering by ~11/20 where decks 12 (Kirk's Quarters), 9, and 14 were given, then those decks would become ~7, 5, and ~8 keeping the action in the saucer. (I guess GR finally got his 20 story thick saucer in TNG; GR: "wait, what do mean it's only 15 decks? Well then, the next ship will be 20 thick. No? 19! Damn you hacks).