Starships routinely leave base without important equipment installed (it will on next Tuesday). What

[FormerLurker]

The E-B wasn't even on a shakedown cruise. Those take weeks, or even months, and are used to determine how well the systems work before sending the ship out for real. The E-B, on the other hand, was a new Christmas bicycle that Dad only let you peddle up and down the driveway until he got the chance to look it over.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Yeah, the Enterprise-B was just out on a PR run after her official commissioning. The ship was never intended to do anything more than "a quick run around the block" between Spacedock and Pluto. Of course, nothing can be as easy as that for a ship named Enterprise...

 

[DonIago]

"What if...the E-B had embarked on her shakedown a day later..."

Getting back to the OP, though...inertial dampers seem like a good thing to have.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Happens all the time when bureaucrats and politics are involved. They likely wanted the E-B launched on a certain date for political reasons, so "rush it out of the door, it's not like it's going into anything complex" is in play.

My group had this in 2012 - a new lab building had been set up and there was pressure to move us in (from our shittier, smaller but working lab) in order to have occupancy so it looked good when the stakeholders visited. Never mind that we couldn't do any actual work in there due to lack of various facilities....

Oh, as lab leader I knew - and protested - but was told I'd be "playing football with my own head" if I didn't toe the line...

Yeap, you beat me to it. We launched a ship back around the turn of the century that was only halfway painted (the side facing the audience, plus bow and stern for any camera shots), and no propellers… just to make the politicos happy.

Of course, karma kicked in when the side launch messed up and the resulting ‘launching wave’ from the ship hitting the water was strong enough to take out the grandstand and injure some of the VIPs. Minor oopsie, there.

Cheers,
-CM-