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?
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.
In Star Trek Beyond we saw tons and tons of lifeboats coming out of the secondary hull. Although that ship is far bigger, from another timeline and has outer-hull panels that move to expose various launchers (see: Into Darkness.) I guess the same could be retconned onto the classic movie ship should need ever arise.
The 1.5 deck ring at the peak of the saucer undercut feels to me like a good spot for a bunch of escape pods, but I don't have a similar intuitive sense of where escape pods should be revealed by ejecting hull panels for the engineering section (except, I guess, for directly under the midline docking ports).
I buy into the theory that Turbolift Cars are also escape pods, both in TOS and TMP. The extra "life pods" can supplement the Turbolift escape pods. YMMV
Please remember that being in the outmatches means at the very least months, of not years of waiting.
So, those postulate six months are way off.
In the TNG episode 'The Battle', shuttle craft make far more sense, especially as tugs. Especially when you consider that the amount of antimatter required by a warp shuttle craft is a great deal less, than what a Starship requires.
So, those postulate six months are way off.
In the TNG episode 'The Battle', shuttle craft make far more sense, especially as tugs. Especially when you consider that the amount of antimatter required by a warp shuttle craft is a great deal less, than what a Starship requires.
A) Shuttlecraft require far more storage space than escape pods, so carrying as many shuttles isn't practical.
B) They're designed for the needs of plot, not for granular reality.
Yes, obviously. Star Fleet sends its crews out, with out proper equipment.
Either you are serious about the job, or you shouldn't be out there.
Which means no cheap thrills.
This I understand excludes, a great many writers.
Better high quality writing than low quality writing.
In 'Enterprise', the supposed data consisted of only eighteen star systems, but nearly a century of data. If you want to maintain believability, then most problems should have been resolved, by the launch of the NX-01 Enterprise...
Which leads us to that limited database. Which leads us to the conclusion that the real reason amongst humans for the warp five delay was the accumulation of said database. So a limit of warp factor two becomes reasonable, as in "Why go to a great deal of expensive equipment, till we know for sure what is really needed out there?"
Another way to look at, is that with our real world technology changing so fast that Sol system based observation, would reveal most of what we would want to know. However, this 'stay at home' methodology is dangerous for it presumes that the right questions will be asked. Bad move. Larry Niven pointed this out in his novel 'Ringworld'. The pucker factor is supreme.
Either you are serious about the job, or you shouldn't be out there.
Which means no cheap thrills.
This I understand excludes, a great many writers.
Better high quality writing than low quality writing.
In 'Enterprise', the supposed data consisted of only eighteen star systems, but nearly a century of data. If you want to maintain believability, then most problems should have been resolved, by the launch of the NX-01 Enterprise...
Which leads us to that limited database. Which leads us to the conclusion that the real reason amongst humans for the warp five delay was the accumulation of said database. So a limit of warp factor two becomes reasonable, as in "Why go to a great deal of expensive equipment, till we know for sure what is really needed out there?"
Another way to look at, is that with our real world technology changing so fast that Sol system based observation, would reveal most of what we would want to know. However, this 'stay at home' methodology is dangerous for it presumes that the right questions will be asked. Bad move. Larry Niven pointed this out in his novel 'Ringworld'. The pucker factor is supreme.
Your "high quality writing" equates to a technical manual, not a television drama script.
Go read the original 'Ben Hurr' it is a very dense read.
Seeing an egress hatch would give us an idea of the size of the potential lifeboat/escape pod. By any chance, did Probert speculate on a description/size of a lifeboat?