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Obviously, it was Matt Jefferies' intent to imply that Earth Starfleet (there was no UFP mentioned early in the show) was using an extension of the existing navigation rules that humanity had been using since the mid-late 19th century:
It's been carried forward to the 23rd century but, I would assume there had been some changes since Starships tend to be far larger than aircraft and like aircraft, operate in multiple dimensions. Ocean-going ships basically operate in 2 dimensions (not accounting for submarines, of course).
“The way TOS did the lights was for visual flavor but a real system would need—as @blssdwlf indicates—to be informative from every viewing angle.”
That’s not accurate. Sensors as finely tuned as those portrayed in TOS could read small changes in the wavelengths of the light being broadcast. As I said above, in universe “The adjustable red (6200-7500Å) and green (5800-4900Å) frequencies, and the timing of the on-off cycles, would communicate whatever information was needed.” As a rigid body in three-dimensional, free space, the spacecraft only has six mechanical degrees of freedom of movement - three perpendicular axes by surging forward/backward, heaving up/down, and swaying left/right, combined with rotation about three perpendicular axes of yaw (normal), pitch (transverse), and roll (longitudinal). It would thus ostensibly only need six frequencies - ie three reds and three greens - to communicate three horizontal and three vertical changes. After a set time interval preceding and following a course change, it would return to its “straight on” pattern and frequency.
Fine tuning such a system even further, it would be possible if desired - by frequency and timing alone - to communicate relative heading through the 41000 some square degrees of the celestial sphere.
I'm pretty sure there is no debate about using sensors to determine ship orientation. If you're using sensors the computer just needs to know what is forward, port, and starboard on the target ship and certainly the red/green navigation light and a forward or up navigation light or sensor reflector would all that would be needed. My earlier point is specific to using navigation lights with visual-only observation and how the TOS Enterprise's implementation has issues if you were to look at it critically.
As for obstruction, the US FAA is rather permissive as to obstruction of position lights on aircraft, probably because obstruction beyond a certain point, within the range at which the lights must be viewable, wouldn’t result in a collision.
Obviously, it was Matt Jefferies' intent to imply that Earth Starfleet (there was no UFP mentioned early in the show) was using an extension of the existing navigation rules that humanity had been using since the mid-late 19th century:
It's been carried forward to the 23rd century but, I would assume there had been some changes since Starships tend to be far larger than aircraft and like aircraft, operate in multiple dimensions. Ocean-going ships basically operate in 2 dimensions (not accounting for submarines, of course).
True, ocean-going surface ships operate in 2 dimensions but in the same wikipedia article you linked to you'll also find that aircraft navigation lights are shown to limit the red-green navigation light visibility so they are not visible from the rear.
Obviously, it was Matt Jefferies' intent to imply that Earth Starfleet (there was no UFP mentioned early in the show) was using an extension of the existing navigation rules that humanity had been using since the mid-late 19th century:
It's been carried forward to the 23rd century but, I would assume there had been some changes since Starships tend to be far larger than aircraft and like aircraft, operate in multiple dimensions. Ocean-going ships basically operate in 2 dimensions (not accounting for submarines, of course).
Yes, and Jefferies’ prognostication has been borne out in practice as both Orbital ATK's Cygnus and the SpaceX Dragon and Dragon 2 have red and green orientation lights for use in docking to the ISS.
Yes, and Jefferies’ prognostication has been borne out in practice as both Orbital ATK's Cygnus and the SpaceX Dragon and Dragon 2 have red and green orientation lights for use in docking to the ISS.
And you'll notice that you can't see the red and green orientation lights on the other side of the Dragons. SpaceX has the red and green lights only visible on the docking sides of their ship.
And you'll notice that you can't see the red and green orientation lights on the other side of the Dragons. SpaceX has the red and green lights only visible on the docking sides of their ship.
And yet for what it us worth, construction of the 11-foot model was subcontracted by Richard Datin to Volmer Jensen, a famous and successful designer and builder of actual ultralight and amphibious aircraft. So one is left to wonder how both he and his pilot friend Jefferies got the lighting on the model so wrong.
You should also note that Cygnus has the red and green lights are only visible on the approach/docking side, just like your "Dragon Approaches" image you linked to earlier.
EDIT: You might also notice that on departure, the red and green lights are off at the 2:30 mark...
Oh, and they are not my rules. Just to repeat in case this is forgotten, the OP posted a video that leans into aircraft/water navigation light setup and I commented that the way the red and green lights are setup on the TOS Enterprise has problems if evaluated critically.
And yet for what it us worth, construction of the 11-foot model was subcontracted by Richard Datin to Volmer Jensen, a famous and successful designer and builder of actual ultralight and amphibious aircraft. So one is left to wonder how both he and his pilot friend Jefferies got the lighting on the model so wrong.
I've already shown that the red and green light setup on the 11' model can be visually misinterpreted as either approaching or departing so it is not a good setup. You would need additional dedicated navigation lights to determine direction. Also, it is entirely possible that Datin and Jensen didn't have time to think about how the lights would work in space. They probably built it for the TV audience and kept it simple.
EDIT: One more cool video from 4 years ago... At the 1:30 mark you can watch the SpaceX Cargo Dragon's departure that the Trunk module is running with white navigation lights in place of the red and green lights as it backs away to a specific distance and then switches to red and green navigation lights once it is clear. On the more recent SpaceX Dragon departures the Capsule module has red and green lights only visible from the front and while departing they stay on as red and green.
Obviously, it was Matt Jefferies' intent to imply that Earth Starfleet (there was no UFP mentioned early in the show) was using an extension of the existing navigation rules that humanity had been using since the mid-late 19th century:
It's been carried forward to the 23rd century but, I would assume there had been some changes since Starships tend to be far larger than aircraft and like aircraft, operate in multiple dimensions. Ocean-going ships basically operate in 2 dimensions (not accounting for submarines, of course).
It seems to establish a standardized Navigational Blinkey regulation that the:
- Dorsal Center Lights are "White"
- Ventral Center Lights are "Yellow"
But what about "Turn Signals" in space?
If we ever get to the point where Astro Mobiles are common in space, so common to a similar point where it's as commonas the modern day AutoMobiles on our roads.
We would need "General Amber Turn Signal" rules, adapted for 3D space Manuevering.
I was thinking you would need 4x Sets of Amber Lights like on a AutoMobile, 2x Fore, 2x Aft.
Both Pairs of Fore & Aft sets mounted on the Ventral & Dorsal sides.
And you blink each set in the general vector you want to navigate towards.
e.g. for Amber Turn Signal Blinkeys
Turn L = Fore Port-Side Only (Ventral & Dorsal Amber Turn Blinkeys)
Turn R = Fore StarBoard-Side Only (Ventral & Dorsal Amber Turn Blinkeys)
Strafe L = Fore & Aft Port-Side Only (Ventral & Dorsal Amber Turn Blinkeys)
Strafe R = Fore & Aft Star-Board Only (Ventral & Dorsal Amber Turn Blinkeys)
Pitch Up = Fore: Port & StarBoard Only (Dorsal ONLY Amber Turn Blinkeys) +
_________ Aft: Port & StarBoard Only (Ventral ONLY Amber Turn Blinkeys)
Pitch Dn = Fore Port & StarBoard Only (Ventral ONLY Amber Turn Blinkeys) +
_________ Aft: Port & StarBoard Only (Dorsal ONLY Amber Turn Blinkeys)
Lift Up = Fore & Aft, Port & StarBoard Only (Dorsal Amber Turn Blinkeys)
Lower Dn = Fore & Aft, Port & StarBoard Only (Ventral Amber Turn Blinkeys)
BackUp = Aft Port & StarBoard Only (Dorsal & Ventral Amber Turn Blinkeys)
etc.
Do we need Emergency Hazard Lights in space?
I vote for a Holographic Projection of the ISO Standard Hazard Signal Symbol.
Have the floating Hologrpahic tip of the Arrow be projected directly below on the Ventral side with the tip pointing at the center point of the vessel on the Ventral side.
On the Dorsal side, 180° flip the tip of the Arrow to be projected to point towards the center point of the vessel on the Dorsal side.
Have the Two Concentric Triangles slowly rotate in opposite directions of each other with the Dorsal & Ventral sets have opposite spins of each other so anybody in 3D space that doesn't have working Radio COMMs Link of any form (Subspace, Hyper Subspace, Regular Space) can get a signal out to let people know that you're in trouble and that you need help.
This would be a standard feature of most StarShips by the 26th Century with fully independent Hazard Signal Holographic Projectors & Battery Units to power them for quite a while.
Of course the Holograms will not have Structural Force Fields and can be easily flown through to save on power consumption.
Are you saying that in neither of your images the white ventral light below the red/green is visible? And the red/green lights on the saucer sides are also not visible? Only the dorsal lights are visible? You have the other lights included and on in these images?
Are you saying that in neither of your images the white ventral light below the red/green is visible? And the red/green lights on the saucer sides are also not visible? Only the dorsal lights are visible? You have the other lights included and on in these images?
I have the white ventral lights below the red/green lights turned on and in both images the saucer will obstruct those white lights from view.
If you have a physical model of the Enterprise you can rotate that around and see that in order for both the red/green lights and the ventral white lights below them to be visible at the same time from the front you will need the saucer level with you. If the saucer is pitched up or down a bit then one set of lights will get obscured.
EDIT: Added some images to help visualize.
LEFT: Saucer head-on so you can see both the dorsal red-green and ventral white navigation lights.
MIDDLE and RIGHT: Can be misinterpreted as either approaching or departing.
Another example: this time with the strobe light near the shuttlebay doors on the engineering hull visible. Can be misinterpreted as approaching or departing...
I have the white ventral lights below the red/green lights turned on and in both images the saucer will obstruct those white lights from view.
If you have a physical model of the Enterprise you can rotate that around and see that in order for both the red/green lights and the ventral white lights below them to be visible at the same time from the front you will need the saucer level with you. If the saucer is pitched up or down a bit then one set of lights will get obscured.
EDIT: Added some images to help visualize.
LEFT: Saucer head-on so you can see both the dorsal red-green and ventral white navigation lights.
MIDDLE and RIGHT: Can be misinterpreted as either approaching or departing.
Another example: this time with the strobe light near the shuttlebay doors on the engineering hull visible. Can be misinterpreted as approaching or departing...
The problem with your images is that your stern views do not have the landing lights or homing beacon on the hangar/fantail illuminated. In addition, there are red/green position lights just forward of the homing beacon. All of these would clearly indicate that the ship was being seen from behind.
The problem with your images is that your stern views do not have the landing lights or homing beacon on the hangar/fantail illuminated. In addition, there are red/green position lights just forward of the homing beacon. All of these would clearly indicate that the ship was being seen from behind.
I reviewed the entirety of Tallguy's FX collection and the rear dome light, fantail landing aids, etc are not consistently on. There are a few episodes where the rear dome light blinks but there are some that it is off. So therefore I did not include them as part of the Enterprise's navigation lights.
Why is it not a problem with the design? The fantail landing aids are for shuttlecraft and not the ship's navigation light system. None of the dome's on the ship has been tied to the navigation lights as far as I know. The only navigation lights we are sure of are the red/green lights, ventral white lights on the saucer and the p/s strobes on the aft part of the engineering hull.
If the design had the red/green lights not visible from the aft like how real-life navigation systems are designed then it would solve the ambiguity of it approaching/departing under the situations I showed earlier. That is why it has problems if you look at it critically. Otherwise, in-universe those lights are probably for computers to figure out the orientation and not for people's eyes, IMHO. YMMV.
LEFT: Saucer head-on so you can see both the dorsal red-green and ventral white navigation lights.
MIDDLE and RIGHT: Can be misinterpreted as either approaching or departing.
Another example: this time with the strobe light near the shuttlebay doors on the engineering hull visible. Can be misinterpreted as approaching or departing...
There are red and green lights just forward of the homing beacon on the top of the secondary hull, in addition to a great, big, honking HOMING BEACON. There are landing lights arrayed across the transom. Whomever designed it (we know who) and whomever built it (we know that too) covered the bases as to what could be done filming the model. If filmed upside down and from behind, like a cheap wh$#e, then it would be OBVIOUS from what side and what orientation we were seeing the ship.
If a SFX team failed to turn on all the lights the designers and builders - who were pilots and aircraft designers -provided, that is a flaw in execution, not design.
Peripherally related, but I just saw this interesting thread on Mastodon about anti-collision lights on buildings. The way the system is designed, every individual building's lights should flash at the same time, but offset from any other building, so pilots can distinguish the shape better. If lights are blinking together, then everything in between them is solid. If they're blinking at different times, you're seeing two different buildings and there's a gap.
In olden days, the lights would all be wired up to one oscillator controlling them in the building's electrical room. Later, lights were designed that synchronized off of a short-range radio transmitter, so they just needed to be connected to power and didn't need to be wired into a timer. Now, the lights have a GPS receiver, which allows to keep time perfectly with no additional central controller in the building. The trouble is, while the lights can be reset to any arbitrary interval and base (the 1 and 3 instead of the 2 and 4, say), most people don't bother and just plug them in out of the box, so now city skylines have dozens of buildings whose anti-collision lights are all blinking in synch with each other, making it harder to distinguish individual structures.
New technology foiling an existing standard unintentionally reminded me of something I've been considering on this thread, which is that the standard may just need to be revised to work in a Star Trek world. Planes and boats correspond to a fairly fixed shape, and are usually oriented in the same way, both things you can't count on with Starfleet-style ships. There are at least three more easily-distinguished colors that could be used to give more information, yellow, blue, and white.
Or, just blacking out the aft half of the red and green dome lights would solve all the problems.
There are red and green lights just forward of the homing beacon on the top of the secondary hull, in addition to a great, big, honking HOMING BEACON. There are landing lights arrayed across the transom. Whomever designed it (we know who) and whomever built it (we know that too) covered the bases as to what could be done filming the model. If filmed upside down and from behind, like a cheap wh$#e, then it would be OBVIOUS from what side and what orientation we were seeing the ship.
If a SFX team failed to turn on all the lights the designers and builders - who were pilots and aircraft designers -provided, that is a flaw in execution, not design.
Are you so sure about the "designers and builders covered the bases" argument? The red and green lights just forward of the dome on the secondary hull are not present in the early versions of the Enterprise. The red and green lights on the saucer dorsal was originally limited to the small outboard lights while the big ones we see strobing later on were not red and green. There was a white strobe light on the forward rim of the saucer that wasn't consistently used and the ventral saucer white navigation lights were originally further back on the saucer instead of later moved forward to be underneath the red and green lights. So I'd argue that the designers and builders were still experimenting with the look of the navigation lights but not the functionality as they had time to bring it inline with real-life navigation systems and did not.
Also since you called that secondary hull dome a "homing beacon" it should be indicative that it was not considered a part of the navigation light system and more part of the shuttle landing system - ditto with the landing lights on the fantail.
Peripherally related, but I just saw this interesting thread on Mastodon about anti-collision lights on buildings. The way the system is designed, every individual building's lights should flash at the same time, but offset from any other building, so pilots can distinguish the shape better. If lights are blinking together, then everything in between them is solid. If they're blinking at different times, you're seeing two different buildings and there's a gap.
In olden days, the lights would all be wired up to one oscillator controlling them in the building's electrical room. Later, lights were designed that synchronized off of a short-range radio transmitter, so they just needed to be connected to power and didn't need to be wired into a timer. Now, the lights have a GPS receiver, which allows to keep time perfectly with no additional central controller in the building. The trouble is, while the lights can be reset to any arbitrary interval and base (the 1 and 3 instead of the 2 and 4, say), most people don't bother and just plug them in out of the box, so now city skylines have dozens of buildings whose anti-collision lights are all blinking in synch with each other, making it harder to distinguish individual structures.
New technology foiling an existing standard unintentionally reminded me of something I've been considering on this thread, which is that the standard may just need to be revised to work in a Star Trek world. Planes and boats correspond to a fairly fixed shape, and are usually oriented in the same way, both things you can't count on with Starfleet-style ships. There are at least three more easily-distinguished colors that could be used to give more information, yellow, blue, and white.
Or, just blacking out the aft half of the red and green dome lights would solve all the problems.
Considering the red and green lights on the saucer blink along with the lower white lights on the saucer what if there are no navigation lights on the Enterprise? What if all this time these lights were just anti-collision lights? Then orientation of the Enterprise doesn't matter...
There is a practical, real world reason for using white lights on the lower saucer: Filming the model in reverse for those times we see the port side of the ship. Certainly easier if you don't have to worry about the red and green.
