Star Trek:The Motion Picture(1979) events happen in what year?

[JonnyQuest037]

I prefer to think of it as 2279, because no one ages ten years in three.

Tell that to the U.S. President. I could imagine being a Starfleet Captain leading to similar stresses.

 

[BillJ]

how can the Enterprise not log a star hour for 2.5 years but it only drydocked in 2269 or 2270?

The ship may have been retired, which is why it was used as a testbed for new tech. Who knows? It may have spent some time at Qualor II.

 

[LocutusCrusher]

I prefer to think of it as 2279, because no one ages ten years in three.

Yet, look at them in WoK.

 

[Kor]

I think the questionable notion that TMP took place about two years after the five-year mission came from the Okudas' "Chronology" book. Realistically, it was a stretch to draw that assumption just from Kirk's line about being Chief of Operations for two and a half years, as has been pointed out already.

Prior to that, Mr. Scott's Guide to the Universe placed the events of TMP about five years after the five-year mission.

Robert Wise's viewpoint is all well and good, and quite realistic. But that doesn't make it official.

... how can the Enterprise not log a star hour for 2.5 years but it only drydocked in 2269 or 2270?

Well, Decker's line was actually that Kirk hadn't logged a single star hour in two and a half years, not the Enterprise.

EDIT: I can indeed edit my post, after all.

So, another strike against TMP not taking place only a couple years after TOS is that "Chapel's an MD now." I can't imagine that she could have enrolled in medical school, done all the coursework and completed a residency in just a couple years. And I don't know how realistic it would be for her to have done all the coursework during the five-year mission through distance learning while working full time as a Starfleet nurse.

Kor

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

I don't know how realistic it would be for her to have done all the coursework during the five-year mission through distance learning while working full time as a Starfleet nurse.

IIRC, according to the Phase II writers' guide that's exactly what she did.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I don't know how realistic it would be for her to have done all the coursework during the five-year mission through distance learning while working full time as a Starfleet nurse.

IIRC, according to the Phase II writers' guide that's exactly what she did.

Kirk says to Chapel in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?":

KIRK: I understand you gave up a career in bio-research to sign aboard a starship.

So it's possible that Chapel was very close to the end of her doctorate studies when she signed aboard the Enterprise in the hopes of finding her fiancé Roger Korby. There may not have been very much left for her to do between TOS and TMP.

 

[Timo]

The movie has Decker saying that Voyager 6 disappeared "over" 300 years prior to the events. ITRW, the first Voyager (Voyager 2) was launched in 1977. 2278 would be the first year to cut it, then. Granted, the US space program of Star Trek achieved more, and possibly faster, than the real-world one... But we lack good data on the "faster" for anything preceding the DY-100 interplanetary ships.

As for Kirk spending five years "out there", this is a feat that uniquely qualifies him to command the Enterprise, despite his handicap of excessive rank and other engagements. Thousands of officers on Earth must have clocked five years in space, and dozens of them would be qualified to command the new Enterprise. So Kirk can't be counting years - he must be counting special years. And "out there, dealing with NOMAD" certainly would make him uniquely qualified, as opposed to a skipper who has guarded the Klingon border for twelve years or successfully protected ore shipments from Omicron III for fifteen.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

I think the fact that every member of Kirk's five year mission senior staff only went up one rank works against it having been a decade.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And you're making an assumption that the rank structure & organization of the 23rd century Starfleet is more or less the same as our present-day Navy. Considering how much larger Starfleet must be than the U.S. Navy by several orders of magnitude, that seems unlikely to me.

Starfleet itself may be larger, but its rank structure isn't.

(Don't get me started on Babylon 5 ranks, though. )