My take on a TOS Era Shuttle

[Patrickivan]

I like the early shuttle concepts that had the warp nacelles (or what looked like them) above the ship, so I decided to take the TOS shuttle and give it a similar configuration.

I made the shuttle a little larger, and made the nacelles larger simply because I always thought the ones on the series shuttle were a little to dainty. It's not that I don't think the technology wouldn't allow for a small nacelles, it's just that I wanted to make it stand out as being a bigger shuttle then the TOS type.

I also liked the explanation that the nacelles had to be kept away from the ship due to the hazzards associated with the engines, and that's why mine are so far away.

There is a washroom in the compartment ahead of the warp reactor. This compartment is also the room to access the warp and impulse systems.

The mid-section on this shuttle is geared specifically to science support missions. The systems are completely swappable and therefore can be configured to meet specific mission requirement.

I look forward to your comments!

For scale, I included some of the uniforms from the Uniform chart created by Ben Potter.

 

[Eric Cheung]

I like the redundant pylons. I wonder if you could have them pivot and and then retract into the ceiling of the shuttle for when it cruises into the shuttlebay, lands, etc.

It reminds me a bit of the Chaffee from DS9.

 

[SonicRanger]

How well does it fit in a Connie shuttlebay? Or shuttle maintenance bay?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Not bad, not bad. I do have a couple of suggestions, though...

1) The pylon-to-engine attachment looks awkward to me. There are two paths you might want to try. First... the "jog-attachment" with a little bend, to allow the pylon to intersect the nacelle along a radial line. Or... and this is rarer but I've always like it... the "wing and pod" approach, where the pylon actually extends beyond the nacelle and the nacelle is "overslung" in some form of cradle. I just really don't care for the "tangential attachment" approach you've got here. It leads to a weak interface, mechanically, and a real pain routing "plumbing and wiring" through the interface as well.

2) The impulse exhaust should be moved up... WAY up. Remember, thrust needs to act through the center-of-mass of the object if you want it to fly in a straight line. So either the exhaust should be at the very top of the main hull (even slightly ABOVE it, perhaps!) or you'd need additional thrust ports on each nacelle, aft-facing... which is actually an even better approach, since you can then steer by altering thrust output rather than by vectoring thrust. (Or... perhaps... if you went with the "wings" style, you could have smaller impulse engines at the tips of the wings, beyond the attachment point of the "overslung" nacelles?)

Other things to consider... this will work perfectly fine as design if it's landing on a nice, smooth, flat surface (a hangar deck or a paved surface) but maybe not so well on real terrain. I'd consider having the feet extend a little further... at least a couple of feet... to compensate for natural variations in the flatness of terrain.

Since deflector dishes are "magic," there's no "real" argument against having the dish inside the nose, but since we've never seen that before, I'd be inclined to either leave it out entirely, put it (in a smaller size) behind on a "grill" (like the TOS shuttle had, but maybe a bit larger?) or have it be a "fold out" device.

Anyway, just my thoughts... take 'em or leave 'em.

I like the early shuttle concepts that had the warp nacelles (or what looked like them) above the ship, so I decided to take the TOS shuttle and give it a similar configuration.

I made the shuttle a little larger, and made the nacelles larger simply because I always thought the ones on the series shuttle were a little to dainty. It's not that I don't think the technology wouldn't allow for a small nacelles, it's just that I wanted to make it stand out as being a bigger shuttle then the TOS type.

I also liked the explanation that the nacelles had to be kept away from the ship due to the hazzards associated with the engines, and that's why mine are so far away.

There is a washroom in the compartment ahead of the warp reactor. This compartment is also the room to access the warp and impulse systems.

The mid-section on this shuttle is geared specifically to science support missions. The systems are completely swappable and therefore can be configured to meet specific mission requirement.

I look forward to your comments!

For scale, I included some of the uniforms from the Uniform chart created by Ben Potter.

 

[Patrickivan]

I've made some changes as per Cary's suggestions, and added some size information.

Cary, I like your suggestion of a pod on wing type nacelle. Was this what you had in mind? This actually reduced the width of the shuttle and seems to balance it out more, as well as lowers the centre of gravity.

I've added retractable landing pads that will pivot on slightly uneven terrain, however this shuttle simply isn't meant to land on anything too crazy. I wanted to keep with large pads to spread out the weight should the ground be soft, or become soft (eg the shuttle lands when it's cold, the sun comes out and the ground thaws slightly- I've had this problem with trailers).

I've also added a type of grill, to facilitate the use of the main deflector. The configuration of the deflector inside the shuttle does not really have to be dish shaped.

Eric, I am not too fond of moving parts in Star Trek. If it moves, it can break, so I like my stuff to remain simple, and in the spirit of TOS, I've kept it that way on this shuttle. So perhaps Cary's suggestion is a compromise to yours.

As for if the shuttle will fit into a shuttle bay, I suppose it depends what blueprints you subscribe to

I've also illustrated some changes through the use of 'cut-outs'. The impulse engines are higher, and there's some rudimentary front landing pad guts showing.

 

[BolianAuthor]

I have to say I love this design a lot... both variants.

 

[Captain X]

I think the first version is better, though I think you should enlargen the forward pylons, move them back further, and lose the smaller aft pylons.

ETA: I should note that I like how you've placed the nacelles up high, rather than down low as pretty much every shuttle has had them. They may be sturdy enough for it, but at the same time it always bothered me that the engine nacelles would be used as the landing struts, especially considering that the shuttle might come in hard.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I prefer the compact design m'self. Sits better asthetically with me brain, and looks more stable as well.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I've made some changes as per Cary's suggestions, and added some size information.

Cary, I like your suggestion of a pod on wing type nacelle. Was this what you had in mind? This actually reduced the width of the shuttle and seems to balance it out more, as well as lowers the centre of gravity.

Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I was suggesting. It looks practical... and you can even envision the ship, during maintenance, having its nacelles swapped out, huh?

I've added retractable landing pads that will pivot on slightly uneven terrain, however this shuttle simply isn't meant to land on anything too crazy. I wanted to keep with large pads to spread out the weight should the ground be soft, or become soft (eg the shuttle lands when it's cold, the sun comes out and the ground thaws slightly- I've had this problem with trailers).

Again, pretty much what I was thinking.

I've also added a type of grill, to facilitate the use of the main deflector. The configuration of the deflector inside the shuttle does not really have to be dish shaped.

Works for me.

I also noticed the location of the impulse engine... which (along with the lowered nacelles) seems to "fit" much more nicely.

AFAIC, this is "good enough" now, and if it were me, I'd start getting deeper into detailing (but then, I'm the sort who'd design the entire internal framework, run all the plumbing, etc... I tend to get carried away sometimes!)

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