The Terran Empire may've been "gung ho", but in the Prime universe the technology is still NEW, and while they'd had 90 years experience with Warp 1 technology, humanity was still in its infancy with Warp technology, just like nowadays we are still in our infancy with nuclear technology. Sure we know more now about nuclear tech than we did in the 1940's, but it's still New technology. And in Enterprise, sure Starfleet would've taken safety precautions, but they would not have been the same safety precautions that were in place 200 years later when the Defiant-class was launched, because Starfleet would have very little safety information to go on in the 2140's/2150's, compared to the 2370's. And dropping the engine into a seperate hull would've made more sense from both a health and safety perspective.
NX01 Refit
- Thread starter Cpt. Porthos
- Start date
The learning curve happens over time.
The ships up to the NX-class have single bodies with the warp cores inside. It might be either experience with the Warp Five engine causes them to move the newer cores to a secondary hull, or the next warp core design after it proves more likely to have issues than the Archer Warp Five core, and thus the extra safety of separation is installed during the refit of the NX-class and many later classes of starships.
The fluff from Drexler suggests that the new core was not as tested as the Archer Warp Five core and thus to be save and have the means to get the ship home, they added the secondary hull with the new core inside, while leaving the original warp core in place in the primary hull. Thus, if the new core failed, they could drop the secondary hull and later start up the old core to get at least some form of warp travel back to a Starfleet base. They would probably not be able to go at Warp 4 or 5 with the secondary hull gone since there extra pod thing on the back would have been ditched with the secondary hull, so they'd be limited to maybe warp 3 without it. It was supposedly there to help balance the warp field at higher speed and to compensate for some sort of time related effect (Drexler makes reference to a line from "The Cage" about breaking the "time barrier" with the newer ships like Pike's Enterprise).
The ships up to the NX-class have single bodies with the warp cores inside. It might be either experience with the Warp Five engine causes them to move the newer cores to a secondary hull, or the next warp core design after it proves more likely to have issues than the Archer Warp Five core, and thus the extra safety of separation is installed during the refit of the NX-class and many later classes of starships.
The fluff from Drexler suggests that the new core was not as tested as the Archer Warp Five core and thus to be save and have the means to get the ship home, they added the secondary hull with the new core inside, while leaving the original warp core in place in the primary hull. Thus, if the new core failed, they could drop the secondary hull and later start up the old core to get at least some form of warp travel back to a Starfleet base. They would probably not be able to go at Warp 4 or 5 with the secondary hull gone since there extra pod thing on the back would have been ditched with the secondary hull, so they'd be limited to maybe warp 3 without it. It was supposedly there to help balance the warp field at higher speed and to compensate for some sort of time related effect (Drexler makes reference to a line from "The Cage" about breaking the "time barrier" with the newer ships like Pike's Enterprise).
But you are also forgetting about the handling of the waste from the warp core. Even in the 24th century Starfleet was having difficulty with the storage of the warp waste, as we saw when the terrorists took over the D at during the barrios sweep. As the terrorist noted, warp waste is extremely volatile, when his companion tried to handle the container like a football.. And with the ship most of the time nowhere near a waste drop-off center, they need to have a place to properly and safely store it. And early Warp engines would not have processed the matter/anti-matter and deuterium slush as efficiently as the later 23rd and 24th century ships. So the NX ships would've produced a lot more waste than their 24th century counterparts. And as Scotty pointed out in "Star Trek IV" there was no way to recrystallize the dilithium crystals until he created the way on their trip through time required it, so there would've also been a place needed for used dilithium crystals that had more shielding and was a high hazard area that would require people to enter in radiation suits.
One would assume that those problems were not apparent or possibly didn't exist on the older warp drives, but became a large problems as they started going faster with higher consumption rates and larger warp cores.
This could be why the refit of the NX-class has a secondary hull, the larger warp core has other issues that the Archer core does not. Or the found the Archer core has long term problems and decided to move the cores to secondary hulls at that time.
However not all ships have secondary hulls. USS Reliant has no such external body for her warp core, and a many late 24th Century ships has been getting rid of or blending the secondary hull into the primary hull.
This could be why the refit of the NX-class has a secondary hull, the larger warp core has other issues that the Archer core does not. Or the found the Archer core has long term problems and decided to move the cores to secondary hulls at that time.
However not all ships have secondary hulls. USS Reliant has no such external body for her warp core, and a many late 24th Century ships has been getting rid of or blending the secondary hull into the primary hull.
Well this is why you have auxiliary vessels. Not only ships to resupply with torpedoes, anti-matter, personnel or dilithium, but also ones that pick up waste, or stations where it can be offloaded. There would be no reason to lug it around.
Which Starfleet did not have during Enterprise's first 3 years! During that time the Enterprise was Earth's only Warp 5 ship---there weren't even any civilian Earth ships that could go that fast. All the other Starfleet ships were Warp 3 or lower, and from what we saw, most civilian ships were limited to speeds between Warp 1 and Warp 2. Sure Starfleet might've contracted with a Vulcan carrier, but I doubt it. As far as Starbases go, from what we heard in Enterprise the farthest station from a Earth was Jupiter station.
They would have to have worked through the Vulcans, Denobulans or other aliens in the general vicinity. The Enterprise could not really operate outside the range of auxiliary supply craft or stations. They need anti-matter refueling, repair, dry bulk, personnel, etc. Most likely the Vulcans supplied the ship, but they may have found others along the way. These are issues that they would all have to face and as a result they could take advantage of each others resources. Surely if a Denobulan ship were in the vicinity of Earth and needed assistance or refueling, Earth authorities allow them to make use of Earth facilities.
How much actual waste is there from matter-antimatter annihilation? !:! should result in only energy or perhaps plasma, and that likely goes outside after going through the warp nacelles or impulse drives.
How much supply does Enterprise have to go without resupply? Certainly not enough for a five year mission, but at least a year or two since they didn't seem to be having issues prior to returning to Earth due to the Xindi attack.
How much supply does Enterprise have to go without resupply? Certainly not enough for a five year mission, but at least a year or two since they didn't seem to be having issues prior to returning to Earth due to the Xindi attack.
Well Enterprise visited Kreetasa, Tandar, Risa, Coridan, Mazar, and many more inhabited planets with obvious infrastructure in the first two seasons. If the crew needed supplies, they could have easily obtained them from there.
It looks ok,expect for the saucer
Probably done only for the 1:43 Kit Review Polar lights NX 01 Enterprise Refit
Way overpriced at our local Hobby Shop, and Micheal's
Way overpriced at our local Hobby Shop, and Micheal's
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