Shuttlecraft

[Trekfan12]

I was thinking about shuttlecrafts. I was watching a DS9 ep last night. Bashir and Kira were thrown into the mirror universe together. And I also saw a TNG ep where Wesley and Captain Picard were in a shuttle together. I was thinking about the design of shuttlecrafts and had some questions.

What are their range? I mean how far can they travel in space from the main ship to their destination? I was also wondering about how they are equipped? Do they have beds or bio beds in case of a medical problem. I was thinking they could have beds like murphy type bed. Ones that were hidden in the walls and could be opened when needed to save on space. I saw they have replicators, but it just seemed to me they weren't great at outrunning hostiles.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Runabouts are essentially mini-starships so have longer range and greater capabilities than a standard shuttle (as well as interchangeable modules for specific missions), so they could go some distance and last for several weeks on their own. As for shuttles, their capabilities should be somewhat limited (for frell sake none of the interiors have included a Head!), with low warp speed (though pods are restricted to impulse) and weaponry being optional extras on some types.

Of course there are no hard and fast rules about what shuttles can do, as more often than not they fall into the category of "able to / not able to do whatever the plot demands".

 

[uniderth]

Range would be limited primarily by life support capability regardless of speed. An without regard to occupants a shuttle would be capable of drifting indefinitely regardless of the deltaV of the engines.

 

[Tracy Trek]

In the 24th century shows (TNG, DS9, VOY) the shuttlecrafts had transporters.

 

[NaughtyTrekkie]

don't like warp capable shuttles.
firslyt because I prefer warp systems to stay a really complicated thing which need costant survellaince of experts.
secondly because they'd be useless

 

[NaughtyTrekkie]

In the 24th century shows (TNG, DS9, VOY) the shuttlecrafts had transporters.

and still no bathrooms

 

[The Old Mixer]

The TNG Technical Manual gives specs for the shuttles that were used in the show...that's as close to canon as you're going to get offscreen.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The capabilities of shuttles are decided by the writer of the moment. Sometimes they're warp capable (most have obvious warp nacelles, a shuttle followed the Enterprise at warp in "The Menagerie", other times they're explicitly not (later TOS tech publications)

So if you want them to have fold-out beds, why not?

 

[MacLeod]

As others have said their capabilites are rather depend on the plot. But from a realestic point of view perhaps they would be best suited for use between neighbouring star systems. i.e Earth to Alpha Centauri

 

[uniderth]

So if you want them to have fold-out beds, why not?

As long as they mysteriously disappear in all succeeding episodes and are never seen again. That way we'll have something to debate in the future.

 

[Timo]

Some specs for shuttles used as auxiliaries to a starship (excluding certain bigger craft that had other roles):

Highest speed quoted: warp 4 for the unseen "Type 9" in VOY "Resolutions"
Longest duration of mission quoted: weeks, in an offhand remark to the past in VOY "Drone"
Largest number of people aboard: seven, in TOS "The Galileo Seven"
Lowest number of seating aboard: one, in TNG "The Mind's Eye" (for a craft that carried three in TNG "Power Play")
Longest distance covered: never established in identifiable units (interstellar A to B never happens on screen, say)

There may be faster special shuttles - perhaps the bigger or sleeker ones go faster, perhaps red ones do. But nothing past warp 4 is ever quoted. The only shuttle specifically established to be incapable of warp is the Type 15 pod from TNG ("Time Squared"), although even that one might have been a case of damage rather than design specs.

There are larger special shuttles, such as the Academy barges from the first Abrams movie that could accommodate dozens. The shuttle from TAS "Slaver Weapon" was also very large for the mere three heroes aboard, but never seen aboard the Enterprise. Her smooth interior initially features a table and a chair in the middle, but later these disappear. Solid proof of fold-away furniture right there?

Transporters were never regularly used in any of the TV series shuttles, and seemed to be emergency-only gear (say, the sleek craft in VOY, never identified by its intended designation Type 12, had transporters for evacuation, as seen in "Day of Honor", but those never saw plot-resolving or mundane orbit-to-surface use). They were mounted invisibly, so there's no telling which craft had them and which did not. The only visible traditional transporter mount was in the shuttle of ST:Insurrection (never identified by its currently popular designation Type 11). Showers or toilets were never shown or commented on. The TOS craft Type 7 from TNG at least had interior doors separating a potential private sanitation closet, and the aforementioned big TAS craft had curtains dividing the interior; other internal divisions have only separated the cockpit from a space that does not feature a visible toilet or shower, and the separations have generally been transparent (forcefields in VOY, strip curtains in the 2009 movie, semi-opaque doors in ST:Into Darkness).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[eyeresist]

The shuttle became ridiculously overpowered. Capable of interstellar travel, weaponised and heavily shielded, with their own transporter pads. They basically rendered starships obsolete except for transporting large numbers of passengers. (I was going to say "and cargo", but they could probably rig some system where the shuttle pulls the cargo behind it.)

 

[Timo]

Nevertheless, the only onscreen shuttles shown making interstellar journeys were the TOS ones; that ability was sort of edited out from the TNG era craft (despite some of those explicitly having warp drive at least).

Although to be fair, the only actual cases of interstellar A-to-B in TOS were highly nonstandard situations: a magnetic storm of some sort giving a boost in "The Galileo Seven", a theft by a very long-lived person allowing for long transit in "Let That Be". The other missions were all arguably of the A-to-ship or ship-to-B type, with no significant distances covered before the voyage ended one way or another.

TNG only featured one shuttle explicitly at warp - the unseen Shuttle 13 from "Skin of Evil", only visible as an unidentifiable pile of wreckage on the planet. That shuttle, of unknown size, may have been more like a runabout. Her mission did sound like interstellar A-to-B, although we can't be certain. Perhaps the "Slaver Weapon" shuttle had similar abilities again only thanks to her large size?

I don't see the objection to "weaponizing" - small boats have always been adopted/adapted for the carrying of weaponry, sometimes of excessively heavy types. Ditto with helicopters, the other shuttlecraft inspiration. I'd love to see a clearer division to gunships and regular shuttles, though.

As for "heavy" shielding, only VOY seems to offer us shuttles capable of resisting the guns of big ships. And the opponents of the VOY heroes tended to be primitive and/or puny. Again echoes of the past, with a ship's launch shrugging off poison darts and arrows while the Maxim gun or Marine musketeer team at the forecastle mows down the natives.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[eyeresist]

Nevertheless, the only onscreen shuttles shown making interstellar journeys were the TOS ones; that ability was sort of edited out from the TNG era craft

Really? In DS9 I remember the shuttles flying from the station fairly deep into the Delta Quadrant.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm pretty sure at one point or another, DS9's runabouts went from the station to Earth, Ferenginar, Kronos, Cardassia and anywhere else they needed to be in the space of a scene break.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I'm pretty sure at one point or another, DS9's runabouts went from the station to Earth, Ferenginar, Kronos, Cardassia and anywhere else they needed to be in the space of a scene break.

While I have my issues with Star Trek's use of shuttles (less so runabouts/Delta Flyer, more so the impulse-only shuttlepods) I think it safe to say that unless a time factor is specifically stated then a trip probably hours or even days (though how you would do that without a bed or a head I don't know?)

However as I discussed on a previous thread, travel times to seem to reduced from what they should take given stated values. For instance, at Warp 4 the trip between DS9 and Cardassia should taken about a week, trips to Ferenginar about three months and Earth about 2.5. Whereas DS9-Cardassia appears to take half-a-day at most in a runabout and the longer trips only a few days (indicating a speed in excess of Warp 9 by official figures).

 

[F. King Daniel]

Voyager's shuttle exceeded warp 9 if I remember correctly before it's transwarp drive was engaged in "Threshold", so high-speed shuttles may have some precedence.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Voyager's shuttle exceeded warp 9 if I remember correctly before it's transwarp drive was engaged in "Threshold", so high-speed shuttles may have some precedence.

True, which is why the higher (implied) speeds shown don't bug me as much as the fact that even with the higher speeds, they are still implied to stay in those cramped conditions for hours or days without a potty break (I personally can't go more 3 or 4 hours myself!)

 

[NaughtyTrekkie]

True, which is why the higher (implied) speeds shown don't bug me as much as the fact that even with the higher speeds, they are still implied to stay in those cramped conditions for hours or days without a potty break (I personally can't go more 3 or 4 hours myself!)

space diapers

 

[eyeresist]

I'm pretty sure there would be toilets on board.

Well, not really, as no-one seems to use toilets in the future.