Size of the Nova

[C.E. Evans]

Years ago, I wrote a fanfic in which my hero ship just happened to be a Nova-class ship. I placed her around 165 meters in length, which was less than half the length of an Intrepid-class in my series. I definitely based it on an idea that science vessels were generally small and lacked a lot of the extra space a cruiser or larger ship might have because they tended to be specialized, single-purpose vessels.

But I also had it that the Nova-class was originally intended to be a larger ship when it was initially conceived, but it had been scaled down. That left the door open for a larger cruiser variant of the Nova-class to be one day introduced like the USS Rhode Island.

 

[Tenacity]

galaxy class are flying starbases, and there would be long duration science ships (space station with warp drive).

inbetween there could be the nova class. investigate a few abnormalities.

given it's sice, it could land pretty casually.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Ah, but you're forgetting between decks. That 6.4 meters is for the ENTIRE deck, not just the walking space

Why would the decks be anything other than walking space? The only reason those "decks" are even there is so people have something to walk on; that is the literal definition of the word "decks" in naval parlance and modern architecture. It's just a vast horizontal surface somewhere within the hull where you can put stuff and things.

There is nothing "below" or "between" decks, a "deck" is just the planar surface that things walk/sit on. If you have a room on Deck 5 with a ten foot ceiling, then at 6.4 meters that means you've got a whole extra feet of space between the ceiling of that room and the deck above it. Which, to me, seems a little excessive, as it would mean that more than half the internal volume of the ship is totally inaccessible to the crew except through crawlspaces and jeffries tubes.

OTOH, given the access corridors we saw in Star Trek V, and the the fact that the Enterprise A and Excelsior both had drop-down pressure doors in their corridors (as does the engine room on the original Enterprise and the Enterprise D) this might not be too far fetched. It SEEMS like a lot of wasted space, but none of us know enough about starship design to say that that space isn't needed for something.

The 4.6 would give almost a full meter above and below, meaning 1.6 meter between living area

But again, there's no space "between decks," pretty much by definition. The stuff "between decks" is whatever is above one deck and below the next one and that's it.

 

[Timo]

FWIW, every starship out of Rick Sternbach's pen was supposed to have adhered to the idea of decks being indicated not just by porthole rows but also lines of the deflector grid. Not that we'd need to agree with the idea, or with any idea not explicated on screen, but there's nothing to suggest we should not, either, what with Rick having been so consistent about it.

Rick's decks are higher than the set interiors from floor to ceiling, and we accept this in one of the two ships where his exterior design is combined with on-camera interiors (the Voyager). Not accepting it in the other one of the two (the Nova) would be a bit odd.

But clearly having Jeffries Tubes above the ceiling panels or below the deck plates isn't universal in Starfleet, and e.g. NX-01, NCC-1701-D and NCC-1701-E explicitly had their Jeffries Tubes at floor level (walking height) or waist level (crawling height) vs. the usual corridors. The Defiant in turn explicitly has ceiling Tubes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The Defiant in turn explicitly has ceiling Tubes.

In "The Adversary" when the crew are sweeping the ship, Kira and the Bolian open a horizontal Jefferies tube access on deck level.

 

[Timo]

Ah, true - so when Sisko travels the same tubes and we see the vertical part of the network, we basically learn that all the horizontal tubes are at waist level because they are separated by one set-height-ful of ladderway...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tensen01]

Why would the decks be anything other than walking space? The only reason those "decks" are even there is so people have something to walk on; that is the literal definition of the word "decks" in naval parlance and modern architecture. It's just a vast horizontal surface somewhere within the hull where you can put stuff and things.

There is nothing "below" or "between" decks, a "deck" is just the planar surface that things walk/sit on. If you have a room on Deck 5 with a ten foot ceiling, then at 6.4 meters that means you've got a whole extra feet of space between the ceiling of that room and the deck above it. Which, to me, seems a little excessive, as it would mean that more than half the internal volume of the ship is totally inaccessible to the crew except through crawlspaces and jeffries tubes.

OTOH, given the access corridors we saw in Star Trek V, and the the fact that the Enterprise A and Excelsior both had drop-down pressure doors in their corridors (as does the engine room on the original Enterprise and the Enterprise D) this might not be too far fetched. It SEEMS like a lot of wasted space, but none of us know enough about starship design to say that that space isn't needed for something.

But again, there's no space "between decks," pretty much by definition. The stuff "between decks" is whatever is above one deck and below the next one and that's it.

Pedantry at it's finest. You knew exactly what I meant. the fact that you were able to "correct" me shows that. I was going by the common usage in Star Trek.