Starship Size Argument™ thread

[BillJ]

Nah - a cube is tiny compared to a planet and though it's self-healing the Enterprise demonstrated in "Q Who" that it could be damaged. It's not that big. Faced with even the fleet of Kirk's time - twelve ships that could each destroy the surface of a planet - it wouldn't last long enough to automatically repair itself. The only way it survives is if it's from Krypton and gains invulnerability from Earth's Sun.

I can't believe I'm having a nerd moment here. I must go to bed.

But weren't they able to adapt to Federation weapons thanks to the encounter in system J-25?

And don't forget that in the novels they had a Borg cube eat Pluto!

But either way, the Connie's seemed to be Starfleet's front line vessels when it came to mixing it up with other Empires. So I think my point stands that a first-time dedicated 'warship' in the Abramsverse contradicts nothing nor does it mean that Starfleet was made-up of tree-hugging Hippies prior to Nero's incursion.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Don't bring science into this, CorporalCaptain. We're talking about Star Trek.

My bad!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Don't bring science into this, CorporalCaptain. We're talking about Star Trek.

As far as The Paradise Syndrome goes, it seems Spock completely forgets the Enterprise has photon torpedoes and that they can build explosives with anti-matter like in Obsession. Perhaps Spock had the goal of diverting the asteroid instead of shattering it?

My fanwank from the 1970's was that Spock broke the Enterprise in such a way that it could no longer energize photon torpedoes. This idea was pre-TMP ["Belay that pha-ser or-der!"], and I'm also sure that I didn't crosscheck it with all the other episodes.

 

[anotherdemon]

BillJ,

You misunderstand. I meant that a simple shuttle having a warp accident and smashing into a planet would most likely devastate it. Accidents can wipe out planetary populations..., so it'd make sense for proper Starfleet vessels to have immense armament compared to what we see as militarily appropriate through the eyes of today.

CorporalCaptain,

The energy has to go somewhere. As it's not transmitted to the surrounding space when entering and exiting warp, it's a decent assumption that it's stored as KE as the vessel moves at warp. There's no mention of mass alteration and time dilation during warp, so we can probably assume that the mass of the vessel is the same.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

BillJ,

You misunderstand. I meant that a simple shuttle having a warp accident and smashing into a planet would most likely devastate it. Accidents can wipe out planetary populations..., so it'd make sense for proper Starfleet vessels to have immense armament compared to what we see as militarily appropriate through the eyes of today.

CorporalCaptain,

The energy has to go somewhere. As it's not transmitted to the surrounding space when entering and exiting warp, it's a decent assumption that it's stored as KE as the vessel moves at warp. There's no mention of mass alteration and time dilation during warp, so we can probably assume that the mass of the vessel is the same.

At the risk of bringing science into Star Trek, not so fast.

"The" energy? What energy are you talking about?

If we restrict ourselves to the established physics of relativity, then the amount of energy needed to accelerate an object to faster-than-light speeds (continuously, starting from rest, along a "best attempt" trajectory) has to be infinite. That is to say, no matter how much fuel you consumed, you'd never get there.

Therefore, to avoid infinite fuel consumption, a warp drive must artificially reduce the inertial mass of the craft, from the point of view of the outside universe, in addition to acting in ways contrary to presently established physics. (By the way, in there is an argument for it causing the craft's inertial mass to vanish, but that's beside the point.)

In fact, reducing inertial mass is exactly what warp fields do, according to Star Trek canon. From TNG: Deja Q:

Q: Simple. Change the gravitational constant of the universe.
LAFORGE: What?
Q: Change the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby altering the mass of the asteroid.

[...]

LAFORGE: You know, this might work. We can't change the gravitational constant of the universe, but if we wrap a low level warp field around that moon, we could reduce its gravitational constant. Make it lighter so we can push it.

[...]

LAFORGE: Extending warp field forward.
PICARD [OC]: Engineering, is that the forward limit?
DATA: Yes, Captain. We are unable to encompass the entire moon.
PICARD [OC]: Do you recommend that we proceed?
Q: The two parts of the moon will have different inertial densities.
LAFORGE: Stand by, Captain. I can adjust the field symmetry to compensate.

[...]

DATA: Inertial mass of the moon is decreasing to approximately two point five million metric tonnes.
LAFORGE: It's working. We can move it. Firing impulse engines.

In other words, the kinetic energy of a ship moving at warp really can't be as huge as one might assume, if one were to extrapolate from known physics alone. For, if it were, it would be too huge for the warp drive to work at all. One function of the warp field must be to reduce the kinetic energy, by reducing the inertia of the craft, as it is perceived by the outside universe, especially as the lightspeed barrier itself is pierced.

I eagerly look forward to seeing how STiD deals with this next week.

Now, on the other hand, a ship traveling at a high sublight speed, but without a warp field, and smashing into a planet could certainly cause a catastrophe.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

I haven't scrutinized any of this but you could get the impression of screwed up perspective depending on the taking lens -- wider ones distort foreground, longe ones compress whole view.

I've pointed out before that the ship interiors LOOK big because they're likely shot with a wide angle lens. That tends to give a distorted depth perception to scenes. If you ever had a chance to visit the bridge sets on a Paramount tour, for example, you'd see that they're much tinier than on screen. That's also why engineering looks huge, but really isn't the cavernous place it is on screen (the actual brewery buildings themselves are about 50m x 100m, and that's not just the tanks and pipes).

 

[F. King Daniel]

Camera tricks don't hold up to analysis, but these large interiors and scaled exteriors have, as I've shown throughout this thread.
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq9uXOWOqaQ[/YT]
That as well as the huge shuttlebay.

 

[anotherdemon]

Warp drive doesn't equate to impossible physics (the need for infinite energy to accelerate past light speed for example), rather it's a space-time distortion that creates said distortion around the vessel and allows it to move at relativistic speeds through normal space. However, in Star Trek the vessel at warp is still affected by objects outside of the warp bubble.

Generally, entering and exiting warp as we know it will probably toast a planet at least if you're in its vicinity when exiting/entering. Since this doesn't happen in Trek, the energy of the warp bubble must be stored differently.

Hence, a ship, no matter how light, moving at warp, will literally toast a planet if it hits such whilst at warp.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Camera tricks don't hold up to analysis, but these large interiors and scaled exteriors have, as I've shown throughout this thread.

All you've shown throughout this thread is the RESULT of lenses making things look bigger than they are. Why can't you understand that? Your "evidence" is completely biased by what you call "camera tricks." Have you ever shopped for a house or apartment online? Have you ever noticed the rooms in the pictures look HUGE compared to how big they are in real life?

In the end, your "analysis" is no different than the one I did, which you subsequently shat all over and mocked. You measure pixels on one object, and compare it to something else to make your point. And, just as you accused me, I shall return the favour: you fail to consider the perspective! At least I was using orthographic projections for my measurements. You're using 2D projections of "3D" scenes and pretending you can correctly guess the depth.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Warp drive doesn't equate to impossible physics (the need for infinite energy to accelerate past light speed for example),

I never said that it did. What I said was:

In other words, the kinetic energy of a ship moving at warp really can't be as huge as one might assume, if one were to extrapolate from known physics alone. For, if it were, it would be too huge for the warp drive to work at all.

I also quoted some on-screen Trek to back up what I was saying. Yet you assert:

Hence, a ship, no matter how light, moving at warp, will literally toast a planet if it hits such whilst at warp.

Now, I'm genuinely curious: can you quote any on-screen Trek to back up what you're saying?

I haven't seen the new film. What I said about that was:

I eagerly look forward to seeing how STiD deals with this next week.

Is there something in the new film that supports what you are saying?

Now, on the other hand, a ship traveling at a high sublight speed, but without a warp field, and smashing into a planet could certainly cause a catastrophe.

No comment about what I said here?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

CorporalCaptain is right - given that we know nothing about how momentum and kinetic energy apply to a fictitious "warp drive" it's impossible to say what would result from a collision between a vessel traveling in that manner and an obstacle in its path.

Hell, maybe it'd pass right through.

 

[trevanian]

Camera tricks don't hold up to analysis, but these large interiors and scaled exteriors have, as I've shown throughout this thread.

All you've shown throughout this thread is the RESULT of lenses making things look bigger than they are. Why can't you understand that? Your "evidence" is completely biased by what you call "camera tricks." Have you ever shopped for a house or apartment online? Have you ever noticed the rooms in the pictures look HUGE compared to how big they are in real life?

In the end, your "analysis" is no different than the one I did, which you subsequently shat all over and mocked. You measure pixels on one object, and compare it to something else to make your point. And, just as you accused me, I shall return the favour: you fail to consider the perspective! At least I was using orthographic projections for my measurements. You're using 2D projections of "3D" scenes and pretending you can correctly guess the depth.

There's some validity to this observation. One of the difficulties on 2010 was determining the actual size of 2001's DISCOVERY sets, due in large part to the use of very wide angle lenses on the 65mm camera. Even with a lot of study by the art department, it seems pretty clear that 2010 messed some of that up pretty badly. For this TREK stuff, if you knew the lens used, you could then extract the distortion from the image and THEN do 2d projections to get an accurate size, but you'd need to know the lens AND be able to extract the distortion, which doesn't seem likely for anybody here.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Camera tricks don't hold up to analysis, but these large interiors and scaled exteriors have, as I've shown throughout this thread.

All you've shown throughout this thread is the RESULT of lenses making things look bigger than they are. Why can't you understand that? Your "evidence" is completely biased by what you call "camera tricks." Have you ever shopped for a house or apartment online? Have you ever noticed the rooms in the pictures look HUGE compared to how big they are in real life?

In the end, your "analysis" is no different than the one I did, which you subsequently shat all over and mocked. You measure pixels on one object, and compare it to something else to make your point. And, just as you accused me, I shall return the favour: you fail to consider the perspective! At least I was using orthographic projections for my measurements. You're using 2D projections of "3D" scenes and pretending you can correctly guess the depth.

ORTHOGRAPHIC VIEW. Establishing deck height, which matches the bridge, the rest of the windows, the torpedo launcher, the shuttlebay etc etc etc. While I respect that wide-angle lenses can make things look bigger than they are, these are not camera tricks. You yourself admitted earlier that the shuttlebay and bridge at the very least would have to be ignored in order to fit what we've seen into a ship less than 725m in length.

You're also again ignoring the shuttle size, and that it would be physically impossible to fit the rows of 12m shuttles in a shuttlebay thay would be just 17m wide.

 

[Gonzo]

Camera tricks don't hold up to analysis, but these large interiors and scaled exteriors have, as I've shown throughout this thread.

All you've shown throughout this thread is the RESULT of lenses making things look bigger than they are. Why can't you understand that? Your "evidence" is completely biased by what you call "camera tricks." Have you ever shopped for a house or apartment online? Have you ever noticed the rooms in the pictures look HUGE compared to how big they are in real life?

In the end, your "analysis" is no different than the one I did, which you subsequently shat all over and mocked. You measure pixels on one object, and compare it to something else to make your point. And, just as you accused me, I shall return the favour: you fail to consider the perspective! At least I was using orthographic projections for my measurements. You're using 2D projections of "3D" scenes and pretending you can correctly guess the depth.

ORTHOGRAPHIC VIEW. Establishing deck height, which matches the bridge, the rest of the windows, the torpedo launcher, the shuttlebay etc etc etc. While I respect that wide-angle lenses can make things look bigger than they are, these are not camera tricks. You yourself admitted earlier that the shuttlebay and bridge at the very least would have to be ignored in order to fit what we've seen into a ship less than 725m in length.

You're also again ignoring the shuttle size, and that it would be physically impossible to fit the rows of 12m shuttles in a shuttlebay thay would be just 17m wide.

So here we are 4 years later with someone still trying to argue that the NuEnterprise is the same size as the original when it clearly is not. Those NuShuttles are twice the size of the old ones and they have rows of them in the shuttlebay.

Not too mention the NuEnterprise engineering which is a huge area, from whatever angle you look at it.

Why is it so hard to accept reality WarpFactorZ, you are the only one left who cant accept the truth that it is larger, KingDaniel has been very patient with his explanations and has provided more than enough evidence to prove that the dimensions of the NuEnterprise are considerably larger than the original.

I was here when the original discussion started up after the first new film in 2009 and it was blindingly obvious that it was larger just by looking at it, no diagrams or comparisons that were provided at the time were necessary and back then I could not understand why a few members couldn't accept the new reality.

It has been stated by those who designed the new ship that it is twice the size of the original and the scale model kits that were released confirmed it also.

What is the real problem...

P.S

The Vengeance is a big girl and using the side view comparison from one of the trailers is easily twice the size of the NuEnterprise (probably more) which would make it as big as a Romulan Warbird from TNG (looks even bigger tbh), I have no problem with this as bigger ships mean more deployment flexibility and increased time away from starbases.

 

[BillJ]

All I know is this:

* My house size matters.
* My bank account size matters.
* My d*ck size matters.
* The size of a fictional starship, doesn't matter.

 

[Beagleman]

It's not the size it's what you do with it... oh whatever...

 

[Kruezerman]

^ Bull.

Anyway, I've always wondered, with a crew of 1100 or so, where do they all sleep? And relax? Can they fit so many quarters in the ship plus the massive engineering and shuttlebay, plus the science labs and torpedo bays, etc?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Anyway, I've always wondered, with a crew of 1100 or so, where do they all sleep? And relax? Can they fit so many quarters in the ship plus the massive engineering and shuttlebay, plus the science labs and torpedo bays, etc?

Oh, sure. Even if you confined them all to only the saucer section you'd have more than enough room for the crew quarters. The thing is massive.

The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in the picture below, had a crew of:

5,828 (maximum)
Ship's company: 3,000 (2,700 Sailors, 150 Chiefs, 150 Officers)
Air wing: 1,800 (250 pilots, and 1,550 support personnel)

Aircraft carried: Hold up to 90 / 60+ (normally)

That's with the hangar deck, nuclear reactors, workshops, aviation fuel storage, engine room, armories, mess hall, etc. taking up a ton of space.

It's about as tall and long as the rim of the ST09 Enterprise saucer alone, and only a fraction of the width. She's a big girl.

The Enterprise-D there typically carried a crew of about 1,014 in luxurious hotel suite sized quarters, and it had plenty of room to spare. It's actually a small crew given its immense volume. It probably was pretty lonely in a lot of corridors aboard ship.

 

[Xavier_Storma]

Taking INTO DARKNESS into consideration the size of 350 meters is about right.

Several hints at that: Kirk and McCoy dive to the Enterprise.
Vengance attacks Enterprise we see several hull breaches, and they consist of one at max two decks at the endge of the saucer.
When the Vengance crashes, it's saucer is not higher than 150 meters, considering it is much bigger than the Enterprise, it will probably be somewhere in 600 meter range.

350 meters fits the ship perfectly, therefor one has to readjust that chart.

 

[Richard Baker]

I was corresponding with Ed Whitefire, one of the original designers of the Galaxy Class, he mentioned that that with the size of the ship and crew you could wander for days and never see another person- it was the equivalent of one person per almost two football fields of space.
My only problem with the new Enterprise's size is that it just does not look 'large' enough for the stated scale. When you look at the Enterprise-D it appears to be the right size- the blended forms, expanses of windows, you can see it being a massive vessel. Same thing for the larger Klingon BoPs- it was created to look like a scout ship and enlarging it to the size of a D-7 just does not work with me...