Size Of The New Enterprise (large images)

[Dar70]

Yeah, I know and I agree. It's just hard to swallow, OK, man.

It's like my mom just died and my dad is here telling me he already found me a new, great, hot sexy young mom who's going to make it all better.

I want to like my new mom, but I still miss my old mom because she was so great.

I loved this new movie, I did, look at/read my review.

Just some of this is having a hard time going down and digesting.



Trekker, forgot mother's day.

Sounds like you may be having a little change of heart Trekker. I know you still like the movie but maybe not as much as before. Is it wearing off a little for you now???

 

[Trekker4747]

Nope, I still loved it. But even after watching it I had a hard time "swallowing" the idea that this is a new universe.

At the same time, however, I'm not drinking a Kool-Aid that's making me think every change made is great and awesome and I also think that making this ship "so big" strikes me as silly.

I'm just able to both really love this movie and also rip it apart.

I can accept it being an alternate universe/whatever but understanding some of the changes is just making me scratch my head.

Still, this movie is an awesome, fun, ride and will likely get me to buy a Blu-Ray player when it's released on DVD.

 

[jswhitten]

When did they say the Constitution ships were delayed for a decade? Did I miss that in the film?

They didn't say that, but we're going by the (non-canon) chronology that has Enterprise built around 2245 based on Gene Roddenberry's suggestion that the ship was 20 years old at the time of TOS (2265).

We do know that Spock served with Captain Pike for over 11 years in the prime universe, and that he was Pike's science officer on Enterprise in 2254 or so (13 years prior to "The Menagerie") so all we know for sure is that the 2258 launch was at least 4 years late.

 

[Lt. Trull]

I can explain it so that you can ALL understand it....

STARSHIP ENVY...

the Kelvin saw a SEVEN mile long starship and everybody exclaimed....
OMG their thing is bigger then my thing....

SO... now... the Enterprise is a bigger thing also...
does that explain it....

 

[jswhitten]

I don't buy jswhitten's explanation because I don't see any structures, military or civilian, doubling suddenly in size and far more than that in volume and tonnage without extraordinary breakthroughs in engineering. I don't believe that in oldTrek these sophisticated vessels were as they were simply because no one thought it was important to make them bigger.

We don't really know that nu-Enterprise is much bigger than every other starship of the time. Federation shipyards may have been cranking out kilometer+ long cargo ships and tankers for 50 years by the time of the Kelvin incident. They could easily have the engineering knowledge necessary to build a ship that size, if they had a good reason to pour the resources into it.

 

[Maxillius]

Re: Size Of The New Enterprise

the nuE has a crew complement of 1100 according to the official site. the E-D had a total of 1,014 people on board; crew AND civilian dependents/bar staff. logically, the nuE has got to be at least E-D size if not bigger.

And how big do you think the U.S.S. Nimitz is given its crew complement of 2115? I think there's room to fudge things a bit.

OK, but the Nimitz wasn't designed to be completely independent from external refuel or resupply for 5 years. I'll grant that 1100 people would mostly have to be bunked up on NuEnterprise, but where are the cargo bays? Science labs? Armories? Recreation/training facilities? Perhaps I'm not fully understanding the volume of the saucer section, but I don't think there's enough room.

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Size Of The New Enterprise

the nuE has a crew complement of 1100 according to the official site. the E-D had a total of 1,014 people on board; crew AND civilian dependents/bar staff. logically, the nuE has got to be at least E-D size if not bigger.

And how big do you think the U.S.S. Nimitz is given its crew complement of 2115? I think there's room to fudge things a bit.

OK, but the Nimitz wasn't designed to be completely independent from external refuel or resupply for 5 years. I'll grant that 1100 people would mostly have to be bunked up on NuEnterprise, but where are the cargo bays? Science labs? Armories? Recreation/training facilities? Perhaps I'm not fully understanding the volume of the saucer section, but I don't think there's enough room.

I think you're misunnderstanding the need for supplies and "fuel" on starships.

Firstly, they can stop on virtually any Class-M planet and get food.

Secondly, they can probably synthesize a lot of food from basic matter components. (The "food slots" in the rec-room were supposed to be simple early replicators.)

Thridly, fuel is abudant. For "matter" all they need to do is scoop up some hydrogen -which is what the bussard collectors are for. They can get hydrogren anywhete in the universe (hydrogen being the most abudant substance in it) and they can synthesize antimatter from hydrogren.

Water and air can easily be recycled.

So they don't need quite as much space as you might think for foodstuffs and "fuel."

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It's all a fantasy. We don't "know" anything about their make-believe technology and can decide anything we want. No rules, no challenge to it - just opinions about nothing at all.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Re: Size Of The New Enterprise

And how big do you think the U.S.S. Nimitz is given its crew complement of 2115? I think there's room to fudge things a bit.

OK, but the Nimitz wasn't designed to be completely independent from external refuel or resupply for 5 years. I'll grant that 1100 people would mostly have to be bunked up on NuEnterprise, but where are the cargo bays? Science labs? Armories? Recreation/training facilities? Perhaps I'm not fully understanding the volume of the saucer section, but I don't think there's enough room.

I think you're misunnderstanding the need for supplies and "fuel" on starships.

Firstly, they can stop on virtually any Class-M planet and get food.

Secondly, they can probably synthesize a lot of food from basic matter components. (The "food slots" in the rec-room were supposed to be simple early replicators.)

Thridly, fuel is abudant. For "matter" all they need to do is scoop up some hydrogen -which is what the bussard collectors are for. They can get hydrogren anywhete in the universe (hydrogen being the most abudant substance in it) and they can synthesize antimatter from hydrogren.

Water and air can easily be recycled.

So they don't need quite as much space as you might think for foodstuffs and "fuel."

Oh yes you do. You can't just "whistle it up" when you need it.

That class M-planet's life you're planning on eating? It may be toxic or allergic to Earth humans.

Likewise you can't just fill the tanks with any old hydrogen atoms. You have to refine out the deuterium you need.

Water? "OK everybody go to the latrine at 1030 hours so we can reprocess enought water for the mess hall at lunchtime!"

Oxygen? You expect them to breathe in shifts? No. At any one moment you have part of the atmosphere in the environment, part being reclaimed and reconditioned, and part in storage for reintroduction and as a reserve.

NO recycling system is 100% efficient, and ALWAYS requires a stock of material to be recycled to begin with. So you ARE going to need tanks of water, of air, of deuterium, and stocks of raw materials for the parts fabricators and protien resequencers.

 

[Gepard]

Re: Size Of The New Enterprise

^Yeah. There's a really good reason that real-world spacecraft concepts tend to be gigantic scaffolding structures filled with tanks and pipes, with a tiny crew module attached to one end.

 

[badgertale]

Re: Size Of The New Enterprise

The slits on the back of the bridge:

I don't know what these slits are (observation room windows?), but they seem to be on the same level as the bridge viewscreen window. As we know the bridge is always somewhat higher due to the dome, these should be one deck high.

I don't think that structure contains the bridge. My wife and I are seeing it again this weekend and I'll look again, but I'm pretty sure the bridge is a couple of decks below that.

Spoiler: why I think that

Don't we see a continuous shot that pulls back from the bridge set and out the main window/viewer revealing that window to be in the base of the front of the teardrop?

I thought the same thing until I saw the movie the second time. It is just a funky view/pov. Weird, I know. It seems like Abrams wanted a funky pull out from the bridge...except that it was presented to us completely upside down.

 

[Longinus]

Had they just done a honest reboot, Galaxy sized Connie would be okay. However, that's not what they did, or at least they said they didn't. So doubling the ship length is indeed a problem.

Furthermore, it is rather silly and lazy to just basically take a TMP saucer with most of it's details unchanged, and double the diameter.

 

[Franklin]

Amazing. Even after the movie comes out, the size of the Enterprise is undetermined and debated. Fifteen pages worth.

The last shots of the ship in the movie pull out from the viewscreen-window on the bridge. We know from the movie that window is about the height of a person (because Spock was standing directly in front of it at one point). Using that for scale (the window is approximately 6 feet tall), it shouldn't be hard to scale the rest of the ship fairly accurately. At least enough to know whether it's closer to 1000 feet long or 3000.
Then, compare that with the scale of the refit Enterprise as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy walked across its primary hull in TMP.
Wouldn't that give an answer?

I also don't think it's a coincidence that 947 meters is about 3100 feet. The guy in the article who said the Enterprise was 3000 feet long may have incorrectly assumed that the 947 feet conventionally taken as the length of TOS Enterprise was actually 947 meters. Hey, people do that.

 

[Guartho]

Re: Size Of The New Enterprise

The slits on the back of the bridge:

I don't know what these slits are (observation room windows?), but they seem to be on the same level as the bridge viewscreen window. As we know the bridge is always somewhat higher due to the dome, these should be one deck high.

I don't think that structure contains the bridge. My wife and I are seeing it again this weekend and I'll look again, but I'm pretty sure the bridge is a couple of decks below that.

Spoiler: why I think that

Don't we see a continuous shot that pulls back from the bridge set and out the main window/viewer revealing that window to be in the base of the front of the teardrop?

I thought the same thing until I saw the movie the second time. It is just a funky view/pov. Weird, I know. It seems like Abrams wanted a funky pull out from the bridge...except that it was presented to us completely upside down.

That tears it. I now have to see it again. I'll inform the wife.

 

[Drewmax]

I just read a source from ILM Supervisor Bruce Holcom where he stated that the Enterprise is 600 metres in total length, here is the article - http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/Reinventing-Star-Treks-VFX_10905.html

I am inclined to agree with his estimations since he was the supervisor behind the team which constructed the CGI model. The Bad Robot Prodcution estimate of 725 metres doesn't seem remotely accurate nor the incredibly ludicrous size spouted by the Post Magazine article of 900 metres. I agree with those who argue that the ship cannot be between 700 or 900 metres in length due to the inconsistent proportion visuals on screen.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yeah, I know and I agree. It's just hard to swallow, OK, man.

It's like my mom just died and my dad is here telling me he already found me a new, great, hot sexy young mom who's going to make it all better.

I want to like my new mom, but I still miss my old mom because she was so great.

I know how this is going to sound, but right now, I basically feel like your dad. Except that Mom isn't dead, she's just locked up in a nursing home with retrograde amnesia so she still thinks it's 2003 and can't form new memories. So if you want to go live with Mom, you're welcome to do so, I won't stop you. I love her too, I still have those home videos we shot together... but my new wife has 450 meter tits that go "zing" and I'm going to enjoy every minute of this.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Furthermore, it is rather silly and lazy to just basically take a TMP saucer with most of it's details unchanged, and double the diameter.

What are you talking about? All of the DETAILS were changed completely. The impulse engine, the deflection crystal, the lack of cargo hatches, the sensor pallets, the phasers, the bridge... hell the bottom of the saucer isn't even concave.

 

[Major Chord]

Re: Size Of The New Enterprise

Game over? This image comes from Bad Robot Productions (i.e., the people who made the frickin' movie) and indicates a length of 725.35 meters (2,380 feet).

I certainly wouldn't trust this diagram...given the fact that it labels the new Ent as the "NCC-1701A". Just my opinion though. A ship in the 600 meter or smaller range seems to fit for me, although, I'd be just as happy with a ship the size of the original. Perhaps in the next movie, we'll get some shots that compare it to an object of known size.

 

[Longinus]

Furthermore, it is rather silly and lazy to just basically take a TMP saucer with most of it's details unchanged, and double the diameter.

What are you talking about? All of the DETAILS were changed completely. The impulse engine, the deflection crystal, the lack of cargo hatches, the sensor pallets, the phasers, the bridge... hell the bottom of the saucer isn't even concave.

Windows and phaser banks for example are very similar than those of the refit.

 

[Sector 7]

Any number is reasonable we've seen ships much larger than 2500 feet, and this IS a different timeline...as for the Enterprise...she's big!

Enterprise's big, yeah yeah yeah... it's not small, no no no...

Nope, I still loved it. But even after watching it I had a hard time "swallowing" the idea that this is a new universe.

At the same time, however, I'm not drinking a Kool-Aid that's making me think every change made is great and awesome and I also think that making this ship "so big" strikes me as silly.

I'm just able to both really love this movie and also rip it apart.

I can accept it being an alternate universe/whatever but understanding some of the changes is just making me scratch my head.

Still, this movie is an awesome, fun, ride and will likely get me to buy a Blu-Ray player when it's released on DVD.

I like your analogy. I appreciate your honesty about why you feel the way you do. It is also nice that you are not trashing anyone else personally for the way they feel.
In time your feelings may change, and so may others' feelings about the movie.