Starship Platform Lifespans

[Vger23]

I have to admit that one of the things that makes me a little crazy with Star Trek, particularly with the modern era, is the inconsistent depiction of how lasting and durable various Starship classes / platforms are. Now, I know a lot of this is driven by production reasons. TNG re-used various designs and classes (Miranda, Oberth, Excelsior) to take advantage of existing studio models and save on budget. Modern Trek did it because the designers wanted to put their own spin and creativity on things. But, in-universe I am not sure it makes much sense.

In modern times, naval vessels and aircraft are built to last 50 or more years. In the United States, nuclear powered aircraft carriers are designed for 50 years of service. Fourth generation aircraft, like the F-15, F-16 and F-18 have been upgraded, re-purposed, and re-imagined so that they have remained useful since the late 1970's / early 1980's when they entered operation (and you could argue the F-14 could have been similarly upgraded and re-purposed). The B-52 bomber has been in service since 1955.

So, when I see platforms like the Excelsior class and Miranda class in service for 80 years in-universe, to me that makes sense. You'd expect these platforms to be designed with refit and reuse in mind. And, much onscreen evidence points to that. Bridge modules look different, even external modifications point to ships being updated or repurposed. The Constitution-class was around for a long time, and probably could have been continuously upgraded and developed (is the Constitution the F-14 Tomcat of the Trek universe??).

But, in more modern versions of Star Trek, it looks like the generation of Starships that belonged to the same generation as the Galaxy-class (Galaxy, Nebula, Sovereign, Intrepid, etc) are all extremely short-lived. Heck, Picard S3 implies that the Galaxy-class is completely outdated by this time, only 35 years after their initial launch. For a ship that was designed for extended missions of 10-12 years, this seems pretty ridiculous. And you barely (of ever) see Nebula, Intrepid, or Sovereign classes. Just 25 years prior to PIC, the Sovereign and Intrepid classes were brand new and represented the cutting-edge of Starship tech.

Instead, we've now had an endless stream of "Enterprises" with new letters (the -E lasted a few years until Worf somehow screwed that up, the -F is some random design from a video game, and the -G is a rename of the Titan from S3). And the Titan looks like a starship designed 3 generations ago.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I guess I'm admittedly a bit of a starship nerd, and this kind of stuff always drives me crazy.

 

[1001001]

Starship stuff goes in Trek Tech.

Moving now.

 

[knightgrace]

Here is a question: I will be using the Mann class for this. Is this particular design ever invalidated?

No.

With the McDonald-Douglas F-4 Phantom II multirole fighter why are they no longer built? Part of the answer is electronics. At some point in the 1980s, the amount of Aviation electronics that would be required to survive in the anticipated threat environment, made it too heavy. Go five years beyond that and it was no longer an issue. But the Phantom was designed not to do dog fighting. But missile fighting. So, its time was limited. Yes, you could put into one more efficient engines, giving better range....but bulking up wasn't the answer. Nor was excessive specifically required.

The Mann class, by later standards is small, wasn't designed for Duotronics, nor Phasers but could have been upgraded ad infinitum...

But how do we know that it wasn't?

We don't. We only see that the class goes from 2154 to 2192. But repeat classes could have been done.

But why should they be done?

The Federation must go through a great many ships per year and tried and true, are required.

 

[Unicron]

I have to admit that one of the things that makes me a little crazy with Star Trek, particularly with the modern era, is the inconsistent depiction of how lasting and durable various Starship classes / platforms are. Now, I know a lot of this is driven by production reasons. TNG re-used various designs and classes (Miranda, Oberth, Excelsior) to take advantage of existing studio models and save on budget. Modern Trek did it because the designers wanted to put their own spin and creativity on things. But, in-universe I am not sure it makes much sense.

In modern times, naval vessels and aircraft are built to last 50 or more years. In the United States, nuclear powered aircraft carriers are designed for 50 years of service. Fourth generation aircraft, like the F-15, F-16 and F-18 have been upgraded, re-purposed, and re-imagined so that they have remained useful since the late 1970's / early 1980's when they entered operation (and you could argue the F-14 could have been similarly upgraded and re-purposed). The B-52 bomber has been in service since 1955.

So, when I see platforms like the Excelsior class and Miranda class in service for 80 years in-universe, to me that makes sense. You'd expect these platforms to be designed with refit and reuse in mind. And, much onscreen evidence points to that. Bridge modules look different, even external modifications point to ships being updated or repurposed. The Constitution-class was around for a long time, and probably could have been continuously upgraded and developed (is the Constitution the F-14 Tomcat of the Trek universe??).

I'm much the same. Given the degree of advanced technology we often see in Trek, I don't see any reason why some of the legacy designs wouldn't last as long as they have with basic refits and upgrades. The B-52 is an interesting case, in that it's lasted a very long time in service even though the actual production window was very small (a decade).

The Battletech RPG often has classes staying in service for long periods of time, often centuries, but that's only in regards to the basic design being introduced. Within that century-plus lifespan, you might have several dozen different models and variations.

The various wars in the series have had an impact in terms of which designs are available in which eras, and how advanced those models can be. The fall of the first Star League saw a lot of advanced technologies and vehicles disappear for a time, although some of the ones that survived better were those using more "basic" systems.

The Clans never lost the advanced League technology base, but their evolution has been somewhat stagnated by the fact that the warrior castes control Clan politics and resources given to the scientist castes. If a technology is viable but limited in its military applications, then the warriors might not be interested in pursuing it properly.

It might also be that with powers like the Klingon Empire, they suffered a major economic and environmental crisis in TUC when they lost Praxis. It was estimated the Empire would survive another 50 years if nothing was done, and perhaps even with slow help from the Federation that could have had an impact on how they use resources in TNG and later eras. It might be one reason they keep using older designs.

The production staff had a long history or reusing alien of the week ships for other episodes, sometimes better than others, so another possibility is there are "stock" ships that are common throughout the galaxy like the merchantman family and the Antares type freighters. Maybe some of the ships we see belonging to a specific race aren't necessarily designs they themselves built but could have acquired.

The FASA Trekverse did this sort of thing with the Orions, whose fleet was largely made up of a few original designs and a range of Klingon vessels, acquired legally and illegally. As well as a few Federation civilian ships they copied.

 

[DSG2k]

I have to admit that one of the things that makes me a little crazy with Star Trek, particularly with the modern era, is the inconsistent depiction of how lasting and durable various Starship classes / platforms are.

{...}

So, when I see platforms like the Excelsior class and Miranda class in service for 80 years in-universe, to me that makes sense.

{...}

But, in more modern versions of Star Trek, it looks like the generation of Starships that belonged to the same generation as the Galaxy-class (Galaxy, Nebula, Sovereign, Intrepid, etc) are all extremely short-lived. Heck, Picard S3 implies that the Galaxy-class is completely outdated by this time, only 35 years after their initial launch. For a ship that was designed for extended missions of 10-12 years, this seems pretty ridiculous.

I'm largely in perfect agreement. And, of course, it's also true that if you field an Excelsior replacement, you're more likely to send that replacement over an Excelsior for hazardous work. The ship might not be destroyed, but, over time, the stresses and strains might produce a retirement whereas the Excelsiors that were spared keep on trucking.

Also, Starfleet fields a wild number of classes, and we have little to no idea why. Each ship class is going to inevitably reflect a series of compromises, some of which might end up proving less advantageous than others.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

I suppose it's all in how you want to look at it, though.

The B-52 has remained in service for so long for a few reasons; I think two are relevant here: first, by the 1950s aircraft technology has become fairly stable, especially for large aircraft. There are no major changes to the technology until microprocessors come along in the 1970s. Sure, there are small, incremental changes in things like engine design and so on, but the aerodynamics are pretty well understood by the time those planes are built.

Second, there's no demand for a better heavy bomber. Arguably, the B-52's mission disappeared when the A-6 entered service in 1960. Almost certainly the B-52's mission disappeared when laser-guided precision bombs became a thing in the 1970s. A B-52 is all but useless against a near-peer or peer adversary. They're still around mostly because the American's haven't fought a near-peer adversary for a very long time. because "we're refitting existing platforms not buying new ones" makes good politics when seeking budgets, and because USAF identity is wrapped around the memory of the B-17 and the B-24. If massive strategic bombers actually had any use, we'd have seen the B-52 retired in the 1980s and replaced with something that took lessons from the 747.

On the other hand, the B-10 was arguably the best medium bomber in the world when it entered service in 1934. The USAAF was looking for a replacement before production was finished, and the replacement - the B-18 - was obsolete before it even entered production in 1936. The same story is repeated hundreds of times with interwar airplanes of all types. Technology was changing fast and aircraft couldn't be designed fast enough. The aircraft themselves were just as durable as anything else - a B-18 was used as a water-bomber until 1970 - but their active service careers ended before they were built.

So we can look at these two periods in aviation history and extrapolate onto what we see in Trek. "Movie" era ships feature a handful of designs that last forever. The TNG era features a large number of designs that last a comparatively short period of time, and are basically gone by the time of PIC.

To me, this suggests that the Movie era is a period of technological stability, at least in terms of hull designs and warp propulsion. No major breakthroughs are happening. There's probably internal changes - as noted, most of these ships have different bridge layouts and console designs, suggesting changes to the internal electronics - but there's no big changes that impact how the hull should be laid out or how the engines work. And so we have a long period of time where the ships don't change, at least from the outside.

And then something happens, there's a new understanding of how a starship should be built, and a period of experimentation ensues. We get a large number of new hull forms and layouts as designers and engineers try to find the new optimum configuration; we get rapid changes happening as new discoveries and understandings make ships obsolete before they're even built.

This also implies the economics of ship building changed, meaning the Federation can afford to build all these crazy variations and one-off ships just to see if they work better. (The Federation is only post-scarcity on an individual level.)

And a few decades later, things settle into the new configuration. Or, arguably, not - in some ways, post-TNG seems to have settled down into a new "handful" of starship designs, and in some ways it hasn't. It's hard to say how many of those ships are based on real developments and how many are "we invested a lot of time and resources into this, we're going to keep it going until it falls apart." Post-TNG isn't a thing I've really paid attention to, so I can't speak meaningfully to that.

Speaking solely for myself, rather than say "this totally made up thing is illogical, doing things that way makes no sense," I find it more interesting to say "this show is presenting something that doesn't make sense to me, but it's doing so consistently, so let's try and invent an explanation for why this is a good idea in-universe." Applying that philosophy to this situation, I conclude that technology stabilised and economics became rigid around the time Excelsior entered service. Then both things changed shortly before TNG started, and they hadn't settled down by the time DS9 ended.

I'm not trying to say you're enjoying the shows "wrongly," just offering a different perspective for your consideration.

 

[Tuskin38]

the B-52 fleet has also received regular 'refits' to its tech. Things such as new radar, cockpits refit with newer displays, stuff like that.

 

[Nerys Myk]

the B-52 fleet has also received regular 'refits' to its tech. Things such as new radar, cockpits refit with newer displays, stuff like that.

Beehives

 

[DSG2k]

To me, this suggests that the Movie era is a period of technological stability, at least in terms of hull designs and warp propulsion. No major breakthroughs are happening. There's probably internal changes - as noted, most of these ships have different bridge layouts and console designs, suggesting changes to the internal electronics - but there's no big changes that impact how the hull should be laid out or how the engines work. And so we have a long period of time where the ships don't change, at least from the outside.

And then something happens, there's a new understanding of how a starship should be built, and a period of experimentation ensues. We get a large number of new hull forms and layouts as designers and engineers try to find the new optimum configuration; we get rapid changes happening as new discoveries and understandings make ships obsolete before they're even built.

This also implies the economics of ship building changed, meaning the Federation can afford to build all these crazy variations and one-off ships just to see if they work better. (The Federation is only post-scarcity on an individual level.)

And a few decades later, things settle into the new configuration. Or, arguably, not - in some ways, post-TNG seems to have settled down into a new "handful" of starship designs, and in some ways it hasn't. It's hard to say how many of those ships are based on real developments and how many are "we invested a lot of time and resources into this, we're going to keep it going until it falls apart."

That's pretty much the take I once had, also, in Starships and Continuity of Style:

Starships and Continuity of Style

T he Star Trek Original Universe was fantastic for many reasons, but not the least of them was an effort at stylistic consistency with the s...

weblog.st-v-sw.net

"In other words, starship design experienced some sudden and as yet unexplained changes in the late 2350s or early 2360s, just as the Galaxy Class was appearing."

"In universe, these sudden changes and going off in different directions seems like chaos. This level of scattery-ness is the sort of thing one finds at the start of an industry, when all the kinks haven't been worked out, rather than a mature field, unless something drastic has changed. Once a bit of chaos is introduced, a variety of discarded ideas can come out to play. But what, really, could the chaos be, and why would so many ship systems and design cues get changed?"

Even the Galaxy style, with her rather difficult hull angles in the lower saucer (e.g. Deck 11 and 12), could be construed as representative of some change major enough to warrant sleeker, but volumetrically less efficient, design.

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[Tuskin38]

Beehives

this is why pitot and engine covers are important.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

this is why pitot and engine covers are important.

That applies to any major openings for Aircraft.

 

[Ithekro]

It would seem the Galaxy-class era ships technology matured during the 2370s. The oldest ships we see involved in Frontier Day in 2501 are Akira, Defiant, and Sovereign class starships, with maybe some old heavily refit Excelsior II-class ships.

 

[Unicron]

I suppose it's all in how you want to look at it, though.

The B-52 has remained in service for so long for a few reasons; I think two are relevant here: first, by the 1950s aircraft technology has become fairly stable, especially for large aircraft. There are no major changes to the technology until microprocessors come along in the 1970s. Sure, there are small, incremental changes in things like engine design and so on, but the aerodynamics are pretty well understood by the time those planes are built.

Second, there's no demand for a better heavy bomber. Arguably, the B-52's mission disappeared when the A-6 entered service in 1960. Almost certainly the B-52's mission disappeared when laser-guided precision bombs became a thing in the 1970s. A B-52 is all but useless against a near-peer or peer adversary. They're still around mostly because the American's haven't fought a near-peer adversary for a very long time. because "we're refitting existing platforms not buying new ones" makes good politics when seeking budgets, and because USAF identity is wrapped around the memory of the B-17 and the B-24. If massive strategic bombers actually had any use, we'd have seen the B-52 retired in the 1980s and replaced with something that took lessons from the 747.

On the other hand, the B-10 was arguably the best medium bomber in the world when it entered service in 1934. The USAAF was looking for a replacement before production was finished, and the replacement - the B-18 - was obsolete before it even entered production in 1936. The same story is repeated hundreds of times with interwar airplanes of all types. Technology was changing fast and aircraft couldn't be designed fast enough. The aircraft themselves were just as durable as anything else - a B-18 was used as a water-bomber until 1970 - but their active service careers ended before they were built.

So we can look at these two periods in aviation history and extrapolate onto what we see in Trek. "Movie" era ships feature a handful of designs that last forever. The TNG era features a large number of designs that last a comparatively short period of time, and are basically gone by the time of PIC.

To me, this suggests that the Movie era is a period of technological stability, at least in terms of hull designs and warp propulsion. No major breakthroughs are happening. There's probably internal changes - as noted, most of these ships have different bridge layouts and console designs, suggesting changes to the internal electronics - but there's no big changes that impact how the hull should be laid out or how the engines work. And so we have a long period of time where the ships don't change, at least from the outside.

And then something happens, there's a new understanding of how a starship should be built, and a period of experimentation ensues. We get a large number of new hull forms and layouts as designers and engineers try to find the new optimum configuration; we get rapid changes happening as new discoveries and understandings make ships obsolete before they're even built.

This also implies the economics of ship building changed, meaning the Federation can afford to build all these crazy variations and one-off ships just to see if they work better. (The Federation is only post-scarcity on an individual level.)

I think these are very good points, as well. To return to Battletech as an example, one of the designs that was popular with the Star League Defense Force was the Mercury. It was a light mech designed primarily for scouting and support, and it had a highly innovative, semi-modular system that made it much easier to repair and maintain than many other mechs. It was produced under an exclusive contract for the SLDF and was thought to be extinct after the Exodus, when the known surviving units went with the fleet. ComStar cached a number of them as well but would keep that hidden from the Great Houses for years.

After the SLDF left on the Exodus and some of them evolved into the Clans, they made some impressive technological breakthroughs that provided some advantages the League never had. The Mercury became the basis for omnimechs and omnivehicles, in which weaponry and equipment is entirely modular and can be swapped. Now instead of needing a group of distinct mechs for a given mission, you could have variants of the same mech that would be easier to repair and modify as needed. Omnimechs quickly became the favored technology in Clan militiaries, with vintage SLDF units being relegated to second line and reserve status.

Omni technology gave the Clans a huge advantage when they iniitally returned and tried (unsuccesfully) to defeat the Great Houses that had formerly supported the Star League, who had lost a lot of old technology and were only beginning to recover some of it when the Clan juggernaut hit. The Houses did quickly begin to adapt omni technology from battlefield salvage, but it took some time to recover enough of an advanced industrial base to significantly close the gap with Clan equipment. The first House omnimechs had a number of deficiencies compared to their counterparts.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

the B-52 fleet has also received regular 'refits' to its tech. Things such as new radar, cockpits refit with newer displays, stuff like that.

True, and that example is useful to explain the longevity of the Excelsior and Miranda hulls, but doesn't help with the plethora of TNG-era hulls.

 

[Tuskin38]

but doesn't help with the plethora of TNG-era hulls.

Merchandising

Or probably not, since most of those ships didn't get physical models until Eaglemoss came around.

 

[B.J.]

the B-52 fleet has also received regular 'refits' to its tech. Things such as new radar, cockpits refit with newer displays, stuff like that.

True, and that example is useful to explain the longevity of the Excelsior and Miranda hulls, but doesn't help with the plethora of TNG-era hulls.

Well, it kinda does. The B-52 received upgrades to extend its lifespan, but there have been many platforms that didn't get those upgrades for one reason or another. The B-58 Hustler, for example, was introduced 5 years after the B-52, but was only in service for just under 10 years, mainly due to operational cost and various other problems (likely also because of changing needs). The B-32 Dominator, of which 118 were built, was put into operation in January 1945 and retired in August! Obvious as to why that one was retired, but still a bit odd to retire brand-new aircraft.

So to put this in Trek terms, maybe the TNG-era classes had problems, or perhaps they had specific roles that were no longer useful for whatever reason. Or maybe they're mostly way out on the frontier where we don't see them often. Lots of different reasons we can think of as to why they're not around and the Excelsiors and Mirandas are.

 

[Tim Walker]

I have to wonder if some of the ships we saw only once (at Wolf 359) were one-off test beds/prototypes. Ships such as Freedom, Challenger, Springfield.... Testing technologies that would be later included in the Galaxy class.

After testing completed, I can imagine these ships being used as gophers.

Eventually, the technologies that worked well would be combined in a proof of concept vessel, the U.S.S. New Orleans.

 

[Tim Walker]

Transitional design. In the interwar years there was a shift from biplanes to monoplanes, and a shift towards metal construction. In the case of this aircraft, the lower wing was altered into a kind of W configuration.

I think the California class may have been a transitional design, which, however, persisted based on its utility.