Yes, in a nutshell. Shuttlecraft without warp capability are flat out useless in any practical sense.
Even moving just within a solar system at sublight is too damned slow to be anywhere useful.
Shuttlecraft Questions
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Even moving just within a solar system at sublight is too damned slow to be anywhere useful.
Can you imagine spending, at the least, several weeks in that tiny compartment? Think CAPRICORN ONE sending astronauts to Mars by chemical engines in an Apollo capsule.
Meanwhile the documentation on the SPACE: 1999 Eagle shows that its fusion rockets are good for 0.25 c. Starfleet must be able to do better than that. Heck, the photon torpedoes can do better than that!
Commissioner Nancy was sent to Epsilon Canaris Three to prevent a war, perhaps the two (or more) factions didn't want a starship anywhere close to the planet.
So the Enterprise stayed outside of the system, and the shuttle was sent in to make the pickup.
The Troglites thought the government of Ardana was going to have the Enterprise attack them, possibly as retaliation for the actions of "The Disruptors". A heavily armed ship appearing in a zone of unrest certainly can cause agitation amoungst certain parties.
Yeah, I was especially thinking of The Menagerie as you stated, CorporalCaptain. I get a weird reaction, though, to the shuttle pursuit scene. I always thought - instead of how fast the shuttle is - is why the Enterprise is going so slow?)
Well, in that case, there is the obvious: the Enterprise is going so slow in order that Spock can be caught. The charade of the trial has to take up as much time as possible, after all, and dragging out his arrest doesn't hurt.
Even if we suppose that shuttlecraft lack warp drive, though, we have got some scraps of dialogue suggesting faster-than-light travel on impulse. Yes, those were probably editing mistakes, but after all, why not take the more interesting supposition that if you really applied impulse power to its fullest, you might achieve as much as warp six?
I like your suggestion best. Perhaps the shuttles would use up 'fuel' and have less range than the big ships.
Especially since the Romulans in 'Balance of Terror' only had impulse power.
It would take anyone decades to travel around the galaxy at sublight speed. The Enterprise would have easily overtaken them to the neutral Zone.
What good would that have done? Stopping an invisible ship at the border would have been impossible. What Kirk needed to do was hang on to whatever contact he had with the hard-to-spot enemy, at point blank range, and that takes the speed of the enemy right out of the equation.
Only if you have transporters for surface-to-orbit jobs. And TOS starts out by stating that you generally don't; you get evil twins and salt-sucking monsters aboard if you rely on the teleportation system.
Depends on how fast sublight we're talking about. Half a cee would do very nicely for interplanetary trips - but the starship can do those, so the shuttle would supposedly be utilized for something completely different anyway.
TOS created the shuttlecraft in order to strand a bunch of characters away from the mothership. But TOS never sent the characters on long errands in a shuttlecraft - it introduced plot twists that turned very short errands into long adventures. So we really don't have a storyline where Starfleet would willingly use Class F shuttlecraft for travel from A to B, unless either A or B is a starship and the distance between the two is negligible.
Timo Saloniemi
Only if you have transporters for surface-to-orbit jobs. And TOS starts out by stating that you generally don't; you get evil twins and salt-sucking monsters aboard if you rely on the teleportation system.
Depends on how fast sublight we're talking about. Half a cee would do very nicely for interplanetary trips - but the starship can do those, so the shuttle would supposedly be utilized for something completely different anyway.
TOS created the shuttlecraft in order to strand a bunch of characters away from the mothership. But TOS never sent the characters on long errands in a shuttlecraft - it introduced plot twists that turned very short errands into long adventures. So we really don't have a storyline where Starfleet would willingly use Class F shuttlecraft for travel from A to B, unless either A or B is a starship and the distance between the two is negligible.
Timo Saloniemi
You need to take into consideration how our heroes use "the galaxy." Often it seems to be "our chunk of the milky way," or "the area around the Federation."
Not "the milky way."
I know you were being intentionally flippant, but the shape-shifting, salt-sucking monster could still get on board without the transporter.
Above you posted an example that contradicts this statement—namely "The Galileo Seven." I have to agree with ZapBrannigan. Perhaps the writers did not intend the shuttles to be warp-capable, but the specifics of various stories demand that they must be. You can shuffle the variables all you like, such as maybe the shuttles can maintain a low warp for a very limited period of time, or maybe they cannot sustain a "continuous" warp but instead skip along in small jumps. If not, many stories need serious technobabble to explain them.
Regarding "Metamorphosis," why would Cochrane—the discoverer of space warp—be the least bit impressed by the shuttle if it were not warp capable?
COCHRANE: Hey, that's a nice ship. Simple and clean.
There's also this exchange between Kirk and Spock in the teaser:
SPOCK: Heading directly toward us at warp speed.
KIRK: Staying right with us.
Yes. Works for me.
I'm sorry, who even said shuttles are not warp capable in the first place?
I think its been suggested that the TOS shuttle is a bit small to contain a Warp engine.
And yet those look exactly like warp nacelles on the shuttle, a miniature version of the type on the Enterprise.
I think its been shown the shuttles must be capable of FTL.
Whether a shuttle has a baby Warp engine hidden inside or impulse engines are capable of FTL I don't know.
In 'Let This Be Your Last Battlefield' didn't Lokai use a shuttle to escape Bele's clutches? I can't see how he could have ended up in between Solar systems if shuttles were travelling less than the speed of light.
Whether a shuttle has a baby Warp engine hidden inside or impulse engines are capable of FTL I don't know.
In 'Let This Be Your Last Battlefield' didn't Lokai use a shuttle to escape Bele's clutches? I can't see how he could have ended up in between Solar systems if shuttles were travelling less than the speed of light.
I think the line settles the matter: the Companion could not "stay right with" the shuttle with the entity's acknowledged warp speed unless the shuttle was travelling at that speed, too.
One thing that I'm sure influenced my low-velocity assumption was the 'shuttlecraft music', you know the one. It has sort of a meandering, 'hiking-the-trail' flavor to it.
The shuttlecraft is basically Star Trek's flying sub. I wonder if Irwin Allen had been Trek's producer, if the crew would have donned spiffy jackets for shuttle voyages?
The shuttlecraft is basically Star Trek's flying sub. I wonder if Irwin Allen had been Trek's producer, if the crew would have donned spiffy jackets for shuttle voyages?
One thing that I'm sure influenced my low-velocity assumption was the 'shuttlecraft music', you know the one. It has sort of a meandering, 'hiking-the-trail' flavor to it.
The shuttlecraft is basically Star Trek's flying sub. I wonder if Irwin Allen had been Trek's producer, if the crew would have donned spiffy jackets for shuttle voyages?
Allen would have the 1701 crew jumping into the "toy" every week--and that's how he treated the Flying Sub--like his toy. From there, the practicality of the transporters would be ignored, just to see the stars do the "Seaview rock 'n' Roll" in a shuttle with explosions spraying everyone.
Its a good thing there was no alternate universe where Allen somehow ended up producing TOS. I can see it now--Dr. Smith screaming through the Enterprise halls wearing his go-go boots....
If we count TAS (and I do), the shuttle Copernicus from "The Slaver Weapon" is obviously FTL.
That, and Carter Winston's private spacecraft. If it's the same one that we see in the Enterprise hangar in "Mudd's Passion", then it's not appreciably larger than the standard shuttles (whereas the Copernicus was runabout-sized, and possibly never was carried aboard the hero starship).
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
The registry number of the Copernicus was NCC-1701/12. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be one of the Enterprise's shuttles.
