Starship Platform Lifespans

[Dukhat]

The whole Saratoga thing at the museum made little sense to me. Here’s how things most likely went down.

Very Knowledgable Intern: Sir, I think there might be a problem with one of the ships in the museum.

Dave Blass: What do you mean, there’s a problem? I’m never wrong, you know.

VKI: Well, sir, the Saratoga…

DB: Yup, I put that ship in there as a tribute to Sisko and DS9!

VKI: Doesn’t the Defiant do that job?

DB: Hey, don’t question me. We can have two tributes!

VKI: Ok, but the problem is that the Saratoga was destroyed in the very first episode of Deep Space Nine.

DB: It was? I mean…it was! You think I don't know that? There’s a reason that ship is there…(quickly checks Memory Alpha.) It’s actually another Saratoga…made to look like Sisko’s.

VKI: Er, ok. But why would anyone do that? I mean, neither ship was really all that noteworthy.

DB: What are you, some smartass? Didn’t I just say that I’m never wrong?

 

[korblborp]

They did sort of do that with the USS Saratoga. The one in the museum is the one seen in Star Trek IV, but it was renumbered to match the one lost at Wolf 359. It is possible that the USS Enterprise-A was renamed after Kirk retired from command and the USS Enterprise-B was commissioned. It remained in service for a number of years before it was decommissioned. At which time it was renamed again to USS Enterprise-A for the museum.

There was a museum ship like that. One that was built for one nation, sold to another after some time in service. Spend a lifetime in that country's service and when it retired, it was given back to the original country, who made it a museum ships with its original name. USS Slater (DE-766), a Cannon-class destroyer escort was decommissioned after World War II and sold to Greece in 1951. Renamed Aetos, she served there until decommissioned again in 1991. She was repurchased as a museum ship in 1993 and sits in Albany, New York as USS Slater.

i believe there's a WWII minelayer that drachinifel or ryan szymanski (curator of battleship new jersey) did a tour of, that got coverted to being a personal yacht at some point after the war, that

it actually seems to be pretty common in museum ships to "backdate" them, or rather, pick a point in their history to represent, unless they went straight from commission to museum status. if they had a short active span, then they went into mothballs, a good chunk of their equipment getting taken to use on fresh ships. and if they had a long service life, they had a lot of changes, and not all of them uniform...

it's not too unreasonable to think that the STIV Saratoga got refit into a similar configuration as the later one, then later decommissioned and a fresh ship in the same class and configuration built...

 

[Deks]

In terms of what we know of the Starship as platforms, they are designed to last 200 odd years.

We know SF was upgrading its old Excelsiors and Mirandas continuously - which is evident from TNG era with those ships having LCARS UI's.

We also know the USS Lakota (another Excelsior class ship) was upgraded heavily (internally) to the point where it ended up rivalling the Defiant (the Defiant was in a slightly better condition in that battle though because it had ablative hull armour - but it showed that the Ecxelsior was upgradeable to the point to rivalling most modern ships - and O'Brien didn't even want to speculate what they did to the ship's Warp drive - granted, the Defiant had issues with Structural integrity past Warp 9, while the Lakota could (probably?) achieve close to 9.5 - which is a bit lower than ENT-D (which was able to sustain 9.6 for 12 hrs).

At any rate, when it comes to platform longevity, you can actually Extend it well beyond the initial intended lifespan of 100-200 years.
Design would probably start changing once every 100 odd years... but the superstructure could also be refreshed using replicators/transporters easily enough section by section during refits... that way, you essentially revert 'wear and tear' down to 0 - and this could likely be done once every few decades (depending on what the ship went through).

So, eventually, the ship won't be the same as it started out, but given the fact SF would in all probability recycle old starship matter and materialise new in its place, that's basically how you can get from the 80 year old Excelsior to the Obena class (where SF probably 'Sovereign-ised the Excelsior).

It was implied in Pic S2 that the Stargazer was the same ship as its predecessor per the dialogue, however, the holo displays on Earth for both the USS Excelsior and USS Stargazer were the originals.

Its possible that SF simply took the old ships, recycled them and reconfigured them into brand new ones we saw in the series - but we don't know.
Its just as likely they decided to simply put the older 2 ships into storage and made the completely new ones - oddly enough, they have no letter prefixes, just new registries - so it could be either.

What stroke odd to me was a proverbial lack of Galaxy class ships in Pic S3... the platform was barely 40 years old by that point, younger than the Excelsior class, and there were none of them present (except maybe the Ross class, which is thought by fans to be an upgraded Galaxy class - but apart from fans branding it as such, we don't have in-universe explanation confirming it), which to me didn't make much sense.
Its possible that sufficiently large changes in tech occurred so the Galaxy classes were recycled and turned into Ross classes... but then why is it a different class of ship? Why not call it the Galaxy II (much like they did for the Excelsior II)?

Its a bit of a mess in Pic S3 - so its left to the fans I guess.

 

[Dukhat]

It was implied in Pic S2 that the Stargazer was the same ship as its predecessor per the dialogue, however, the holo displays on Earth for both the USS Excelsior and USS Stargazer were the originals.

Not to mention that we saw Picard’s old Stargazer at the Starfleet Museum, so Rios’s ship and Picard’s ship are not one and the same despite the poorly written dialogue. Ditto with the original Excelsior.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

Normally I would say that this is needlessly convoluted, but with the whole Saratoga nonsense, I’m not so sure.

The only flying PBY that I'm aware of started life as an RCAF Canso (the Canadian version of the PBY Catalina), served through WW2 in RCAF service, then was sold on and served briefly as an air taxi before being retired. Now she's a museum piece in the UK wearing USN markings.

It is very, very normal for ships to have multiple identities in their lives, and if they get selected as museum pieces, to be restored to the most significant or emphatic point of their careers.

So "Commissioned as Enterprise-A, renamed when Enterprise-B commissioned; eventually paid off, handed over to the museum, and repainted as Enterprise-A" is very, very reasonable and almost as likely as "commissioned as some other ship, renamed as Enterprise-A for Kirk, and paid off when Enterprise-B commissioned." (I personally think the latter is more likely because it explains all the problems in TFF.)

 

[Dukhat]

It is very, very normal for ships to have multiple identities in their lives, and if they get selected as museum pieces, to be restored to the most significant or emphatic point of their careers.

So "Commissioned as Enterprise-A, renamed when Enterprise-B commissioned; eventually paid off, handed over to the museum, and repainted as Enterprise-A" is very, very reasonable and almost as likely as "commissioned as some other ship, renamed as Enterprise-A for Kirk, and paid off when Enterprise-B commissioned." (I personally think the latter is more likely because it explains all the problems in TFF.)

So here are some scenarios:

1. The Enterprise-A started life, say a decade before as the U.S.S. Michigan NCC-1785, was later scheduled for decommission but instead was hastily renamed and re-registered as the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A as a tribute to Kirk, with the understanding that he would only be commanding it temporarily until the Enterprise-now-B was finished being constructed, seven years later. The A suffered from systems failures (possibly the reason why it was going to be decommissioned), but those failures were fixed by the time the ship was given its final mission to escort Gorkon to a peace conference, which was also when Starfleet gave the notice that the ship was to return to Earth to be decommissioned to make way for the B. Then the ship was sent to the Starfleet Museum and kept its new registry.

2. The Enterprise-A started life, say a decade before as the U.S.S. Michigan NCC-1785, and was later hastily renamed and re-registered as the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A as a tribute to Kirk, who would be commanding it indefinitely. The A suffered from systems failures for some reason, but those failures were fixed by the time the ship was given its final mission to escort Gorkon to a peace conference, which was also when Starfleet gave the notice that the ship was to return to Earth to be decommissioned to make way for the B. Then the ship was recommissioned back to the Michigan with its original registry, continued to serve in Starfleet for several more years/decades, and then finally decommissioned and given its temporary Enterprise name and registry for placement in the Museum.

3. The Enterprise-A was a brand-new ship just commissioned right after the NCC-1701 was destroyed over Genesis. For some reason, this brand-new ship suffered from systems failures right from the get-go, but those failures were fixed by the time the ship was given its final mission to escort Gorkon to a peace conference, which was also when Starfleet gave the notice that the ship was to return to Earth to be decommissioned. Because the ship was only seven years old, the only logical reason why the ship would have been decommissioned so early was to make way for the B. Then this seven year old ship was sent to the Starfleet Museum.

4. The Enterprise-A was a brand-new ship just commissioned right after the NCC-1701 was destroyed over Genesis. For some reason, this brand-new ship suffered from systems failures right from the get-go, but those failures were fixed by the time the ship was given its final mission to escort Gorkon to a peace conference, which was also when Starfleet gave the notice that the ship was to return to Earth to be decommissioned. Because the ship was only seven years old, the only logical reason why the ship would have been decommissioned so early was to make way for the B. But instead, this seven year old ship was given a new name and registry, say the U.S.S. Pathfinder NCC-2025, continued to serve in Starfleet for several more years/decades, and then finally decommissioned and given its original Enterprise name and registry for placement in the Museum.



So while I get that in real life, ships can have multiple identities, Star Trek isn't real life. I tend to go by Occam's Razor in these instances. Taking into account the on-screen evidence, such as the ship's system failures, Scotty calling the ship 'new' in dialogue, the relatively newer TNG-style interiors and the newer bridge module, the fact that the crew seems completely surprised by the announcement of the decommissioning, and the fact that the B was commissioned not soon after, the simplest answer seems to be that the Enterprise-A was a brand-new ship that was decommissioned after only seven years of service, and was sent directly to the Museum where she still exists in 2401. It's not the most logical answer, but it is the simplest. Kirk does mention that 'this ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew,' but that was clearly just a reference to TNG, and not literally another crew that will take over the Enterprise-A.

 

[B.J.]

What stroke odd to me was a proverbial lack of Galaxy class ships in Pic S3...

Well, in my head canon they were all out on the frontier exploring like they were designed to do. But I assume the real reason was because they wanted to have the only Galaxy be the D. Whether they did that because they were worried people would be confused or if they wanted it to be "special" is up in the air.

 

[Dukhat]

Well, in my head canon they were all out on the frontier exploring like they were designed to do. But I assume the real reason was because they wanted to have the only Galaxy be the D. Whether they did that because they were worried people would be confused or if they wanted it to be "special" is up in the air.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Any other Galaxy class ships would have lessened the reveal of the Enterprise-D. Of course, that doesn't explain why they used an STO ship that looks almost identical to a Galaxy class when seen from a distance (the Ross class.) I understand that its use was meant to be some tribute to its STO designer, but honestly it was a bad choice, for multiple reasons.

 

[Deks]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Any other Galaxy class ships would have lessened the reveal of the Enterprise-D. Of course, that doesn't explain why they used an STO ship that looks almost identical to a Galaxy class when seen from a distance (the Ross class.) I understand that its use was meant to be some tribute to its STO designer, but honestly it was a bad choice, for multiple reasons.

Yeah, PIC s3 also royally messed up by implying ALL Starfleet ships would be assembled for Frontier Day in SOL.
That literally made 0 sense.
We're basically asked to think that the ENTIRETY of Starfleet dropped all their missions (border patrols, humanitarian/relief mission, deep space exploration, and others to attend Frontier Day).

What's more likely is that the fleet we saw was but a fraction of Starfleet as a whole which just happened to be close enough to attend Frontier Day, and as it was suggested, the Galaxy class ships in service were basically out in deep space exploring.

 

[Ithekro]

If the Galaxy-class starships are now actually on their designed mission they should be years outside of Federation space at this point. And any that are in Federation space are likely getting a refit between multi-year missions.

 

[Dukhat]

Yeah, PIC s3 also royally messed up by implying ALL Starfleet ships would be assembled for Frontier Day in SOL.
That literally made 0 sense.
We're basically asked to think that the ENTIRETY of Starfleet dropped all their missions (border patrols, humanitarian/relief mission, deep space exploration, and others to attend Frontier Day).

What's more likely is that the fleet we saw was but a fraction of Starfleet as a whole which just happened to be close enough to attend Frontier Day, and as it was suggested, the Galaxy class ships in service were basically out in deep space exploring.

Also, all of the ship classes represented were relatively brand-new as of 2401, the oldest class being the Akira. So this would mean that even newer TNG-era classes such as the Intrepid, Prometheus, Nebula, Galaxy, Saber, Steamrunner, Norway, Parliament, Obena, Dauntless, Protostar, and Lamarr classes are no longer in service simply because they were not at Frontier Day, not to mention older classes of ships such as the Excelsior, Reliant, Oberth, Ambassador, California, etc. etc. etc. that were still clearly being used in some capacity in the late 24th century. This also makes zero sense.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

3. The Enterprise-A was a brand-new ship just commissioned right after the NCC-1701 was destroyed over Genesis. For some reason, this brand-new ship suffered from systems failures right from the get-go, but those failures were fixed by the time the ship was given its final mission to escort Gorkon to a peace conference, which was also when Starfleet gave the notice that the ship was to return to Earth to be decommissioned. Because the ship was only seven years old, the only logical reason why the ship would have been decommissioned so early was to make way for the B. Then this seven year old ship was sent to the Starfleet Museum.

Here's my idea:

The Enterprise-A is either a new ship that was planned to have another name (dialogue says it is new), or an older ship that had its name changed. After possibly up to 11 years in service (stardates suggest as much as from 84-95), the ship is either renamed to it original planned name and returns to service, or is decommissioned but saved for a museum. The class itself, however, continues in service with slight alterations, a different purpose, and a different name.

Starfleet uses some older classes for cargo carriers or medical transports (Miranda as a cargo carrier in TNG, Daedalus as a medical ship in the Star Trek: Legacy video game). Dr. Leah Brahms' design room and some others places are shown to have Constitution-class models with sideways nacelles and cargo doors where many of the the windows would be.

I'm suggesting the Wambundu-class is the name used for ships in this situation since they are referred to as both cruisers and medical ships in TNG.

To be fair, I generally don't conisder anythign made after 2009 to canon, but the presence of the Enterprise-A in the fleet museum is heavily implied by "Relics." A depiction of the fleet musuem that did not include it would be a worse problem that trying to explain either a 7-year (or 11-year, or any other number less than 20-year) old ship being in a musuem.

 

[Dukhat]

Here's my idea:

The Enterprise-A is either a new ship that was planned to have another name (dialogue says it is new), or an older ship that had its name changed. After possibly up to 11 years in service (stardates suggest as much as from 84-95)

The dedication plaque in TUC has the commissioning date as 8442.5 (2286.) For lack of other information, I am assuming that the ship was finished construction and was ready to be named and registered on that date. I do think that the ship was never supposed to be an Enterprise. I speculate that the next Enterprise after the NCC-1701 was always supposed to be an Excelsior, and that this Excelsior class Enterprise would have had a normal, higher registry; say, NCC-2001. Instead, as a tribute to Kirk and his crew, the new Connie was made into a 'temporary' Enterprise with the temporary registry NCC-1701-A, and that this registry scheme just stuck when they finally completed the Excelsior class ship.

To be fair, I generally don't consider anything made after 2009 to canon, but the presence of the Enterprise-A in the fleet museum is heavily implied by "Relics." A depiction of the fleet museum that did not include it would be a worse problem that trying to explain either a 7-year (or 11-year, or any other number less than 20-year) old ship being in a museum.

I don't think "Relics" implies that the Connie in the Museum was the Enterprise-A.

PICARD: (looks around the bridge) Constitution class.
SCOTT: Aye. You're familiar with them?
PICARD: There's one in the Fleet museum, but then of course, this is your Enterprise?

The implication is more that the ship in the museum is a TOS Connie like the original Enterprise that Scotty brought up in the holodeck (which the New Jersey in PIC basically covers.)

 

[Ithekro]

In theory, the Connie in the museum Picard was talking about was the USS New Jersey that was seen later in S3 of Picard.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

PICARD: (looks around the bridge) Constitution class.
SCOTT: Aye. You're familiar with them?
PICARD: There's one in the Fleet museum, but then of course, this is your Enterprise?

Although these are the words, the delivery seems different from this. To me it sounds like he ends with "But then, of course, this is YOUR Enterprise." (ending with a period and emphasizing "your."

Scotty responds with, "I served on two..." then goes on to talk about other things.

To me, that suggests:

1. Picard is aware of a Constitution class ship in the fleet museum.
2. The emphasis on the word "your" might imply that an Enterprise is there, but not one Picard considers "Scotty's," either because he was not aware Scotty was on the Enterprise-A, or more likely that he did not think Scotty would have the attachment to a newer Enterprise/
3. Scotty "corrects" him that Scotty was on two Enterprises (does not mean Scotty thought that Picard did not know about the Enterprise-A, but rather that Scotty acknowledged it to Picard.)

Putting all that together, it sounds like there is an Enterprise in the Fleet Musuem, and that Picard felt it was not one that Scotty would care much about, but Scotty did.

Can we take a moment and acknowledge how these two actors added with their voices so much more emotion to what is written down?

 

[Dukhat]

Although these are the words, the delivery seems different from this. To me it sounds like he ends with "But then, of course, this is YOUR Enterprise." (ending with a period and emphasizing "your."

Scotty responds with, "I served on two..." then goes on to talk about other things.

To me, that suggests:

1. Picard is aware of a Constitution class ship in the fleet museum.
2. The emphasis on the word "your" might imply that an Enterprise is there, but not one Picard considers "Scotty's," either because he was not aware Scotty was on the Enterprise-A, or more likely that he did not think Scotty would have the attachment to a newer Enterprise/
3. Scotty "corrects" him that Scotty was on two Enterprises (does not mean Scotty thought that Picard did not know about the Enterprise-A, but rather that Scotty acknowledged it to Picard.)

Putting all that together, it sounds like there is an Enterprise in the Fleet Musuem, and that Picard felt it was not one that Scotty would care much about, but Scotty did.

Can we take a moment and acknowledge how these two actors added with their voices so much more emotion to what is written down?

I suppose one could interpret the dialogue that way. But the fact that Picard didn’t immediately tell Scotty that the second Enterprise was at the Museum, especially once Scotty brings up that he served on it, seems to indicate the Ent-A was not the ship Picard was referring to. Instead of saying ‘there’s one in the fleet museum,’ he should have said ‘the Enterprise-A is in the museum’ if indeed that was the ship. And the fact that Picard looked around the TOS bridge before saying ‘Constitution class’ also seems to indicate that the ship in the museum was a TOS Connie and not a Connie refit, Ent-A or otherwise.

 

[David cgc]

Although these are the words, the delivery seems different from this. To me it sounds like he ends with "But then, of course, this is YOUR Enterprise." (ending with a period and emphasizing "your."

As opposed to Picard's Enterprise, the one they're actually on.

 

[Dukhat]

As opposed to Picard's Enterprise, the one they're actually on.

Yes, this is quite obviously what Picard meant.

 

[XCV330]

Right now the longest continually used crewed spacecraft is ISS. It will be coming up on 30 years old in 2028, but parts of it were built earlier. Zvezda module goes back to the 80s. But this was a real ship and it's suffered from heating/cooling cycles many times a day (many nights and days per day!), micrometeor impacts, heavy docking, radiation. Even at that it can be used until at least 2030. I would imagine they could do much better in a fictitious world with hulls made of exotic metals and imaginary materials. If we had some kind of functional repair facility in orbit there might be no reason to ever stop using ISS.. except when it's obsolete.

So why would a ship need to be replaced? If it smells inside after a few decades expose the inner hull to vacuum, blow out the junk, and start fresh with the burnt smell of space. Give it a new interior and update subsystems.

It just seems like maybe it's actually easier in some cases to replace and recycle rather than to upgrade. It might explain why some ships were possibly designed with that in mind, while others weren't. There are probably competing design schools and design ideas constantly at play, as well as mission creep and some designs simply not being able to be adapted any longer to the needs of the service. For whatever in-world reasons Excelsiors, and Miranda's were clearly very good at being upgraded and continuing to find uses even as potentially better ships were designed and built.

I've used the analogy before but Paraguay has one tank, an M3 Stuart built no later than 1944. They just haven't needed another one.

 

[Dukhat]

For whatever in-world reasons Excelsiors and Mirandas were clearly very good at being upgraded and continuing to find uses even as potentially better ships were designed and built.

The thing is, most uses of the Reliant, Excelsior and Oberth models were originally envisioned as other, newer vessels in TNG:

USS Tsiolkovsky: Was meant to be a brand-new science vessel commissioned the same year as the Enterprise-D.

USS Fearless: Was meant to be the first appearance of Andrew Probert's Ambassador class.

USS Lantree: Was meant to be a newer very small supply ship with a crew of only 26 people.

USS Brattain: Was meant to be a newer small science vessel built in the 2330s with a crew of only 35 people.

USS Bozeman: Was meant to be a TOS Constitution class starship (not technically a 'newer' vessel, but a new model would have had to have been built for it.)

USS Raman: Was meant to be a new science vessel contemporary to the Enterprise-D (no model was ever built for it, but the Encyclopedia makes it an Oberth.)

USS Pegasus: Was supposed to be a newer ship commissioned only five years before the Enterprise-D.


So they weren't good at being upgraded so much as they were just the go-to models because the producers were too cheap to build new ones.