Star Trek - Solar Concept

[DRACO]

Description from my DA:

so I thought it might be neat to create a concept for a Starfleet vessel with some design lineage from the satellites we use today, then I thought a Trek ship with solar panels, that would be different...

but why could a starship in even Kirks era need solar panels? a small amount of matter and anti-matter would provide the energy of many such solar ships... the federation would have to desperate for resources to do this... so it would seem the concept was a bit redundant...

but then I realized, I've been looking at it from the wrong angle, instead of looking at it from an engineering point of view, I should try a diplomatic one, what does the federation do when it needs to aid a developing culture without the risk of advanced technology falling into the hands of those who would use it to harm?

send in these, very passive, able to produce energy without the risk of being turned into a weapon...

don't have a name for the class though

 

[MadMan1701A]

Whoa, this is really neat.

Where do you envision the Warp Nacelles going? Possibly one below the centerline, and one above?

Nevermind, I just read that it was impulse only.

But, how does it get to the developing culture? I supposed it could be towed in by another ship...

 

[Arkady]

Whoa, this is really neat.

Where do you envision the Warp Nacelles going? Possibly one below the centerline, and one above?

Nevermind, I just read that it was impulse only.

But, how does it get to the developing culture? I supposed it could be towed in by another ship...

An array or microwave power sats could be towed in a cargo pod and placed more easily that building a whole ship for the purpose, IMO.

And that's not counting that the Federation usually doesn't intervene or make their prescence known to developing cultures in the first place if they can possibly help it.

my .02

 

[DRACO]

Whoa, this is really neat.

Where do you envision the Warp Nacelles going? Possibly one below the centerline, and one above?

Nevermind, I just read that it was impulse only.

But, how does it get to the developing culture? I supposed it could be towed in by another ship...

thanks

well, if it had warp engines, it would most likely use antimatter, which would not only make it easily acquirable (they'd could steal it), a warp engine could put out more power than this would collect anyway.... , and once it's there, i probably won't be going to far...

and if you look closely, those things on the top (and bottom) are just the side view of the panels, there's 3 sets on each side , 12 total

so yeah, it would have to be towed....

I'm not sure about towing a ship at warp, but we've have seen it if I remember correctly...

An array or microwave power sats could be towed in a cargo pod and placed more easily that building a whole ship for the purpose, IMO.

And that's not counting that the Federation usually doesn't intervene or make their prescence known to developing cultures in the first place if they can possibly help it.

my .02

true, and that would have the benefit of being more versatile.... but then what about power transfer, less ships means less connections, but... that probably wouldn't be a problem...

true, bit what if another culture interfered, took what they wanted and left the other culture for dead? or what if a culture, already aware of the Federation, had some kind of catastrophic failure to their energy production facilities and needed assistance, just for awhile.... it unlikely that they would be widely used, but they could be used in special situations, we already have solar panels, I would imagine that by the 23rd and 24th centuries, they'd be easily produced if one needed them, so it's a proposal...

and I just wanted to put solar panels on a trek ship, ok!

 

[USS Jack Riley]

Other option is that it is a post first contact culture and the Federation is slowly assisting the culture into full integration with as a member world with the Federation without leveling the culture's economic and social structure. Sort of an extension of the Prime Directive, except designed to do no harm to newly contacted cultures (I think Picard mentioned that something like that happened between the Federation and the Klingons leading to generations of problems. Of course ST: Ent shanged that, but I digress....).

YMMV