In the David Kimble Cutaway Illustrations for the Refit Enterprise, and briefly glimpsed as a door panel in The Motion Picture, we see that the Refit Enterprise has gained Lifeboat Stations for its crew. Now, while I know there is a rough illustration of it in "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise", I was wondering if anyone (including Kimble, Probert, or anyone who worked on physical/ cg models of the Refit Enterprise) actually worked out the dimensions of the pods, their potential crew capacity (or in the case of Probert, their intended crew capacity), and number of pods the Enterprise could/ was intended to carry?
Refit Enterprise Lifeboat Dimensions
- Thread starter Cae Lumis
- Start date
There are detailed diagrams of the pods in Lora Johnson's Mr Scott's Guide, which I think are the basis of the ones you can sneak past on the Roddenberry Archive (Click!)interactive tour.
I don't think there were enough of the pods for the whole crew as envisioned, so the fan-published Starfleet Officer Requirements also gave her inflatable lifeboats:
I don't think there were enough of the pods for the whole crew as envisioned, so the fan-published Starfleet Officer Requirements also gave her inflatable lifeboats:
I can buy that there may be inflatable life pods, but that "bubble" doesn't work for me. I'm just imagining a bunch of people in 0G bouncing around against the sides and one another! 
It should probably have a bit more structure, even if it's inflatable structure (like a life raft or one of those inflatable tents).
It should probably have a bit more structure, even if it's inflatable structure (like a life raft or one of those inflatable tents).It probably does. Ask the author.
Bernard...
Bernard...
No, I don’t think anyone really thought out the lifeboats/escape pods—the was just a little detail on the matte painting or set to give a little more sense of the ship’s functionality and not something worked out in-depth. Lora Johnson’s version is small—one person only, cubes of about 5.1 feet/1.6 meters on each side with the passenger compartment inside oriented diagonally. She went with the old idea that the ship’s main “escape pod” was the saucer section, with the engineering section lifeboats being a real last-ditch, can’t get out until the last-second measure for people stuck in the lower decks, so only enough lifeboat capacity for a fraction of the crew.
Mid-24th century starships seem to have a larger array of lifeboats. Possibly as a reaction to various starship losses in the 23rd century. The NX-class appears to have had a large number of lifeboats, but they would not yet have the saucer as the lifeboat option that early on.