My TOS Shuttlecraft...

[Cary L. Brown]

Well, I know this isn't a democracy... but I vote for the larger design! My reasoning is simple, if hard to support... I just thought about which one I'd rather fly in if I had the choice. The one where I could stand up once is a while is my definite choice!

For that matter, looking at the saucer scale section Tallguy posted, I'm even more convinced that the ship needs to be longer... is this where the 1080' vs 947' argument (which I've never heard before but I think makes sense based upon what I'm seeing!) is coming from?

Yeah, the "everything is scaled up by 10%" line I just sort of threw away earlier is seeming to be remarkably accurate... yikes...

As for the 10' ceilings... hmmm... I think that I'd be inclined to go for an 8' floor-to-ceiling height, with a 1' floor thickness and a 1' ceiling thickness... meaning that for a "topmost" deck, you'd have 1' between the interior and the exterior, for a "bottommost" deck you'd have 1' between the interior and the exterior, and for interior decks, you'd have 2' between one ceiling and the next higher floor. This is consistent with what we've seen on-screen, I think, overall.

Why do I get the impression that this has already been argued to death, though?

 

[Tallguy]

Cary L. Brown said:Why do I get the impression that this has already been argued to death, though?

Because it has.

If this were 1972, it would be no problem to float about with the size of things (like the Enterprise). Unfortunately, everything from the Enterprise-class refit in TMP forward has been based on the 947' figure given in TMoST. I'm not arguing those merits one way or another, I'm just saying what has happened.

 

[Warped9]

Tallguy said:

Cary L. Brown said:Why do I get the impression that this has already been argued to death, though?

Because it has.

If this were 1972, it would be no problem to float about with the size of things (like the Enterprise). Unfortunately, everything from the Enterprise-class refit in TMP forward has been based on the 947' figure given in TMoST. I'm not arguing those merits one way or another, I'm just saying what has happened.

Except the refit E's size has never been concretely established onscreen either.

 

[AlexR]

Warped9 said:

Tallguy said:
If this were 1972, it would be no problem to float about with the size of things (like the Enterprise). Unfortunately, everything from the Enterprise-class refit in TMP forward has been based on the 947' figure given in TMoST. I'm not arguing those merits one way or another, I'm just saying what has happened.

Except the refit E's size has never been concretely established onscreen either.

For me, I always go with the question, when contemplating a change of this nature, is whether what's gained is worth what's lost. Given the sheer volume of material over the past nearly 40 years that's all been predicated on the established dimensions of the original Enterprise, is making a change to accommodate over-high pseudo-ceilings on a TV series set worth it? <shrug> I just don't find it so.

The numbers basically hold together, and the tweaks necessary to work within them are minor. I don't see any compelling argument for changing them now, this late in the game.

But that's just MHO.

Best,
Alex

 

[Cary L. Brown]

AlexR said:

Warped9 said:

Tallguy said:
If this were 1972, it would be no problem to float about with the size of things (like the Enterprise). Unfortunately, everything from the Enterprise-class refit in TMP forward has been based on the 947' figure given in TMoST. I'm not arguing those merits one way or another, I'm just saying what has happened.

Except the refit E's size has never been concretely established onscreen either.

For me, I always go with the question, when contemplating a change of this nature, is whether what's gained is worth what's lost. Given the sheer volume of material over the past nearly 40 years that's all been predicated on the established dimensions of the original Enterprise, is making a change to accommodate over-high pseudo-ceilings on a TV series set worth it? <shrug> I just don't find it so.

The numbers basically hold together, and the tweaks necessary to work within them are minor. I don't see any compelling argument for changing them now, this late in the game.

But that's just MHO.

Best,
Alex

Well, it's clear that the decks on a "real" ship would not need to be 10'. But then again, it's also true that homes with 8' ceilings tend to be a bit claustrophobic. It's also VERY clear (and established by on-screen information) that the decks are more than a few inches from floor down to next deck ceiling... at least a couple of feet. There are TOS scenes which explicitly showed this (though you could argue, I suppose, that these were anomalies). Homes with 9' ceilings are considered preferable... and in those cases you CAN still go outside regularly, unlike on a starship. So, 10' may seem "over-high," but until we've had people living in tin cans for years at a time, and know the full psychological effects of this, we can't say that there MIGHT not be a valid reason for tall ceilings beyond TV-based camera-framing requirements.

My 2-cents...

 

[MGagen]

Cary L. Brown said:
It's also VERY clear (and established by on-screen information) that the decks are more than a few inches from floor down to next deck ceiling... at least a couple of feet. There are TOS scenes which explicitly showed this (though you could argue, I suppose, that these were anomalies).

Are you referring to the infamous and unnecessary inter-deck crawlways? These are the fruit of later series. I don't think anything like that was shown in TOS. If you have an example, I'd appreciate knowing about it.

The actual set measurements are somewhat surprising, too. Yes, the total height of the wall flats was 10'-0", but they were built that high to ensure that the camera would never see over them and into the upper reaches of the soundstage. It is hardly a case for the "real" deck spacing to be so high. The sets of course had no ceilings since they needed to be open to admit the lighting. When you get down to the level where the actors actually interacted with the set a different picture emerges: The doors were only 6'-6" tall. The red overhead area in the corridors which featured the crossbeam supports began a mere 7'-3" above floor level. This is more like a cramp ocean-going vessel.

I'm more in the camp of figuring the decks themselves are relatively thin (they have advanced materials) and that the overhead area seen in corridors with the beam like structures mask from our view all the sparking wires and ductwork that is forever falling on peoples heads every time the Romulans attack. Maintenence is an easy matter: Lift a deck panel and reach down from above, or stand on an antigrav platform and work from below. There's simply no need for an interdeck crawlway or any wasted space.

When you look at it this way, there's no problem fitting the proper number of decks into the ship -- at least if you stick with the number of decks her designer intended for her...

M.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

MGagen said:Are you referring to the infamous and unnecessary inter-deck crawlways?

Nope. There was only one "jeffries tube" on the original series, and this was designed to represent an access tunnel going up one of the warp nacelle pylons.

These are the fruit of later series.

True. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I don't think anything like that was shown in TOS. If you have an example, I'd appreciate knowing about it.

I'd have to pull out my DVD set and watch for a while to be 100% certain that this is the episode I'm thinking of... but if memory serves, ther's a scene in Charlie X where charlie is checking out the ship, and there's a tech handing a pipe (or something pipelike in any case) through an opening in the floor to someone in a lower deckspace. The distance from that floor to the ceiling of the next-lower deck was clearly more than just a few inches.

Interestingly, this episode also demonstrated another issue with the ship designs we've seen, where a single pencil line is supposed to represent a wall. Charlie causes the outside wall of the brig to disappear, and the wall thickness is about a foot and a half or so. This is consistent with all the other sets as well, by the way. The walls are packed with hardware of various types, both structural components and ship's systems. Which is, really, what you'd expect, I think.

I'm 99% sure that the "floor-to-ceiling" scene is Charlie X. But if I'm wrong, someone please correct me. I'm too damned busy typing to watch the DVD right now! ;-)

 

[AlexR]

Cary L. Brown said:
I'd have to pull out my DVD set and watch for a while to be 100% certain that this is the episode I'm thinking of... but if memory serves, ther's a scene in Charlie X where charlie is checking out the ship, and there's a tech handing a pipe (or something pipelike in any case) through an opening in the floor to someone in a lower deckspace. The distance from that floor to the ceiling of the next-lower deck was clearly more than just a few inches.

Looked like a foot or so to me, which is what I always assumed that structure to be.

Interestingly, this episode also demonstrated another issue with the ship designs we've seen, where a single pencil line is supposed to represent a wall. Charlie causes the outside wall of the brig to disappear, and the wall thickness is about a foot and a half or so. This is consistent with all the other sets as well, by the way. The walls are packed with hardware of various types, both structural components and ship's systems. Which is, really, what you'd expect, I think.

To me, that wall thickness looked, more or less, six inches or so. Yup, it's packed tight with hardware, as one might expect, but it sure wasn't a foot and a half thick.

Best,
Alex

 

[MGagen]

I just found that scene and the deck itself actually looks pretty thin (1/2 - 3/4"). Attached to it is what looks like heating ductwork. Given that the hole is covered by a grate very similar to a heating register I think we are looking at a ventilation conduit.

This seems more likely than that it is a solid, foot-thick deck. What would be the purpose of that? They have materials and technologies we haven't dreamed of yet. Today, we don't build aircraft carriers with solid foot-thick decks throughout them. Why would a more advanced society need to resort to that if we don't today?

M.

 

[Captain Robert April]

That Jefferies tube was moved around quite a bit, so not only do I not think it represented any kind of access to the nacelles (the Enterprise folks came to the same conclusion when making "IaMD"), I think the intent was that there was plenty of those tubes scattered throughout the ship, at critical junctures of the ship's power systems, so that they could be easily accessed in an emergency (like when the transporter keeps shorting out and you really really need to beam the captain off of the ship that's about to go boom in a big way...or when the ship's computer has gone nuts and you need to find a sneaky way to cut the power, but that only works if the computer hasn't already figured out a counter strategy...)

 

[AlexR]

MGagen said:
This seems more likely than that it is a solid, foot-thick deck. What would be the purpose of that? They have materials and technologies we haven't dreamed of yet. Today, we don't build aircraft carriers with solid foot-thick decks throughout them. Why would a more advanced society need to resort to that if we don't today?

Oh, I never assumed the deck itself was a foot-thick slab of metal. I figured that the same space would include, along with floor and ceiling structures and internal buttressing, lighting fixture attachments, power lines, ventilation conduits, grav plating, etc.

Best,
Alex

 

[Warped9]

I don't really have a problem with a 1080' ship if need be. Yet so far folks like aridas, CRA and others seemed to have made a 947' ship work. The only real question for me remains with the shuttlecraft and consequently the hangar deck to house them. My FINAL size for my shuttlecraft has come to 26.75' and I ain't changin' it anymore. From here on I'm concentrating on getting the renderings completed as well as the handful of photomanips I want to include in the set a la Never Seen TOS Scenes style. The plans will be done in 1/24 scale and 11x17 for printing and the photomaniips the same so they could be printed and displayed if so wished.

A 31 ft. shuttlecraft in itself is a reasonable idea, but you run into the very practical problem that the ship's design isn't really meant for this scale. The main problem (besides fitting it into the hangar bay) is that at that scale it's rather awkward in terms of ease of entry and exit for personnel. It might not matter in a fictional world, but if applying real world considerations then it becomes problematical. A 31 ft. shuttlecraft would have to be of a different design to allow ease of entry and exit.

Another idea I'm considering is elaborating on the idea we saw in TOS that the shuttlecraft interiors were adaptable for different missions. I'm considering doing some renderings to reflect that.

Standard variant. (this is the Galileo and Columbus)
Extended survey variant (similar to what was seen in "The Immunity Syndrome")
Extended range variant (actually this is the Class H version, the Copernicus and Magellan)
Medical support variant (for transporting sick and injured whenever the transporter is unavailable or cannot be used)


When I'm done I'm thinking of offering them on CD for something like maybe 10 bucks. And since the Canadian loomie and the U.S. greenback are so close now I'd likely offer it on par in either currency. If you think about it I'd be covering little more than the shipping since it's dirt cheap to buy CD's and I can burn them myself. And I think it goes without saying that you couldn't buy such a set of plans and pics in hardcopy for near that, particularly if it came from Pocket or even Ballentine. I remember buying the FJ blueprints and tech manual when they came out in the mid '70s and that was near $15 Canadian then. You can believe it would easily be at least three times that today.

Note, though, that there are a handful of kindred like minded souls about here that will be getting a set gratis for their greatly appreciated help. You'll know who you are when you get a little surprise package via email.

 

[MGagen]

AlexR said:
Oh, I never assumed the deck itself was a foot-thick slab of metal. I figured that the same space would include, along with floor and ceiling structures and internal buttressing, lighting fixture attachments, power lines, ventilation conduits, grav plating, etc.

I figure those components are mostly exposed and visible to the deck beneath, running between and through the cross-members we saw in the corridors. All that sparking copper wiring and 50s-era heating duct tubing we see dropping into the corridors when the ship takes a hit has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?

M.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ Works for me.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

AlexR said:

MGagen said:
This seems more likely than that it is a solid, foot-thick deck. What would be the purpose of that? They have materials and technologies we haven't dreamed of yet. Today, we don't build aircraft carriers with solid foot-thick decks throughout them. Why would a more advanced society need to resort to that if we don't today?

Oh, I never assumed the deck itself was a foot-thick slab of metal. I figured that the same space would include, along with floor and ceiling structures and internal buttressing, lighting fixture attachments, power lines, ventilation conduits, grav plating, etc.

Best,
Alex

EXACTLY!

The assumption that the floor is just a plate is, I think, a symptom that people only see a surface and don't really bother to visualize what's behind that surface.

Also, it's crucial to bear in mind that we're not talking about building a structure that can carry the weight of an actor, we're talking about building a CORE ELEMENT OF THE SHIP'S STRUCTURE. In other words, if you hit the ship with some massive stresses, the walls and the decks are the part of the ship which is carrying the majority of this load.

Nobody's saying, or implying, that there's some 1' to 3' thick slab of solid material. Rather, that you've got a mechanical structure there, made up of beams, trusses, plates, etc... with all variety of plumbing and wiring, and all variety of mechanisms, stowed in the gaps... and that this structure just HAPPENS to have a floor on one side of it and a ceiling on the other side.

Same thing with the walls. I'm not suggesting that you'd have these thick walls just to waste space, or because it would look "cool." You'd need them to be that way because you get the best mechanical strength this way... the greater the aspect ratio of an object (ie, the ratio of height to thickness in this case), the more likely that the object in question is to buckle under strain. This is why you never see, as an example a radio tower made up of a single long solid section, but rather you see something made up of a distributed trusswork. The same mass, but tremendously greater strength.

Of course, having these structures also gives you an ideal location for, as mentioned before, running all variety of distributed systems (power, water, air), for distributed storage of consumables (air/water/whatever)... whatever hardware you have need of, the odds are that it would be installed in these structurally-necessarily-thick structures.

That's the key thing to remember when you consider this. We're not talking about surfaces. We're talking about STRUCTURES. The main purpose of these structures is to carry mechanical loads. The main loading seen by this isn't the weight of men walking on the floors, it's the ship getting rocked by a photo torpedo hit, or doing some harsh maneuvering, or slingshoting around the sun, or whatever... something that could hold up under the average actor's weight isn't necessarily going to be sufficient for the sort of loads that you'd see in "real" usage.

The more distributed the structure is... the stronger the vessel will be, the more resistent to damage, and so on.

This is why I reject the thin floors/thin walls argument. The fact that TOS set design left a significant wall thickness... that TNG design philosophy carried this along... and so on... and that we've NEVER seen anything to demonstrate that there IS a thin wall, or thin floor, anyplace (am I forgetting something?)...

Then again, it's all fictional... so you don't have to agree with me!

 

[Warped9]

^^ It's also in line with this thinking that I like the idea of a double hulled shuttlecraft that allows space for the required systems and mechanicals: environmental support systems, artificial gravity and inertial systems, shields, sensors, etc. It also makes sense safety wise in the event the outer hull is breached in some manner. Seeing the thin skinned shuttles we've see in much of Trek never made much sense to me at all. Mind you when you see the Galileo's hatch open it really does seem as if there's some appreciable thickness there although not as substantial as I will have in my version.

Part of the reason for this is the shape of the interior. Whether it be a 7ft. or 5.75ft. interior the walls will still not reach out to those of the exterior hull because the exterior's poroportions are more rectangular than the interior's. An interior that allows for standing upright would allow just about enough room for a small airlock chamber between the interior and exterior hulls. My 5.75ft. ceiling doesn't allow near that amount of space, but it's still a ways to the outer hull. And if I widen the interior too much then it no even remotely resembles the interior we saw onscreen.

I will try to fill some of that 'tween hulls space with mechanicals and perhaps something suggesting the ship's structural framework. It's a bit time consuming since I've never done something quite like this before and I want it to look at least somewhat convincing.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Warped, you might want to look this over... it might give you a few ideas...

http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/structures/structuraldesign.html

 

[Captain Robert April]

^Fascinating...

 

[MGagen]

I look at that airliner section view in the link you posted and I see the deck depicted as a thin surface anchored atop cross beams that look not unlike what we see over the corridors of the TOS Enterprise. Please note that since there is no need for the hold below to have a finished ceiling, it doesn't -- this saves weight and materials. The same would hold for utilitarian areas of the TOS-E. The cabins would have a ceiling like you propose, but areas that don't need it would not.

I think your argument goes astray when you discount the structure you can plainly see with your eyes in the corridors. Your interpretation would have a deck, then interior bracing structure with piping and wiring, then a finished ceiling, then more visible bracing structure. This just doesn't make sense. You end up with way too much wasted space. It seems a pretty weak criterion for judging the ship too small to contain the needed decks.

M.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

MGagen said:
I look at that airliner section view in the link you posted and I see the deck depicted as a thin surface anchored atop cross beams that look not unlike what we see over the corridors of the TOS Enterprise. Please note that since there is no need for the hold below to have a finished ceiling, it doesn't -- this saves weight and materials. The same would hold for utilitarian areas of the TOS-E. The cabins would have a ceiling like you propose, but areas that don't need it would not.

I think your argument goes astray when you discount the structure you can plainly see with your eyes in the corridors. Your interpretation would have a deck, then interior bracing structure with piping and wiring, then a finished ceiling, then more visible bracing structure. This just doesn't make sense. You end up with way too much wasted space. It seems a pretty weak criterion for judging the ship too small to contain the needed decks.

M.

Uh... I wasn't providing that view as part of the "interior of the Enterprise" element of this thread. Warped mentioned doing a mechanical-detail-view of the shuttlecraft, but said he wasn't sure how best to do it. So I provided this as a potential resource re: that.

I don't associate the construction of a small jet like this to the construction of the Enterprise, but I DO associate it with the construction of the Galileo...

Clearer?