The separating-saucer design

[Jeri]

In rewatching TNG from the start, I'm reminded of a couple of questions I had about the separating-saucer design. (They have probably been asked before; but after a search, I didn't find anything recently.)

(1) Is the separation joint a weak point in the design? Would it snap apart there easier -- and should enemy ships focus their fire on that joint? In case of a power failure, would the locks release, except for their mechanical component?

(2) What is the saucer segment using for warp drive, without nacelles?

Your help would be appreciated! Thanks.

 

[LivingDeadGuy]

^ The saucer can't go to warp, only impulse.

I'm not sure if the separation point would be a weak spot, but I doubt it since it seemed the ship sealed itself back up pretty tight.

It also seemed to me that there were mechanical locking mechanisms that would hold both parts together even if the power failed. There's also evidence of this in other episodes ("Genesis") where the ship had no to little power and the saucer was still connected.

 

[Trekker4747]

In rewatching TNG from the start, I'm reminded of a couple of questions I had about the separating-saucer design. (They have probably been asked before; but after a search, I didn't find anything recently.)

(1) Is the separation joint a weak point in the design? Would it snap apart there easier -- and should enemy ships focus their fire on that joint? In case of a power failure, would the locks release, except for their mechanical component?

The clamps used to hold the saucer to the battle head are... HUGE.

And there's about 10 of them IIRC and they're burried in the battlehead. They're at no risk of being damaged from attack or failing during an attack.

(2) What is the saucer segment using for warp drive, without nacelles?

Your help would be appreciated! Thanks.

The saucer section has no warp drive but will "coast out of warp" after a few minutes as the warpfield deteriorates. (TNG: Brothers)

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Though it doesn't have nacells I was under the impression the saucer had limited warp drive. I'll be a nerd later and check the tech manual when I get home.

What seems ludicrous to me is that a huge saucer section with families aboard has no warp at all perhaps, while shuttles (particularly in Voyager) stashed in a shuttle bay each have a tiny little warp core and can burn past huge saucer sections. I also wondered what if the enemy fired phasers at a shuttle bay, caused an explosion..wouldn't all that antimatter be a bigger risk to the ship than the enemy's phasors?

 

[Jon1701]

If we go off what we see onscreen - In EoF, then we have to assume the Saucer section has some sort of hidden internal Warp Drive.

Had it not, it would probably take weeks (if not years) to reach Deneb IV.

If its onscreen, its canon

 

[Jeri]

^ ^ And in Arsenal of Freedom, the chief engineer had to take it to a starbase.

 

[Jeri]

The clamps used to hold the saucer to the battle head are... HUGE.

And there's about 10 of them IIRC and they're burried in the battlehead. They're at no risk of being damaged from attack or failing during an attack

Well, I've seen them the same as everybody else -- and I didn't think they looked particularly huge. They looked appropriate to the task; but the joint is still weaker than a solid configuration.

 

[Timo]

Is it? Odds are, it's the strongest part of the ship, far stronger than that area of the neck that is only held together by the strength of its skin and whatever internal members are present. A bit like the hinges of a door may be its strongest parts.

And onscreen material would indeed indicate that the saucer is capable of medium warp all on its own, not requiring any sort of initial boost from the stardrive section. How this is accomplished is not clearly established, but one might suspect a set or five of the usual stuff: warp coils, antimatter reactors, plasma conduits, the works.

Typically, Federation warp engines have blue-glowing "field windows". The E-D saucer has blue-glowing windows on top of the aft part, arranged in two square patterns side by side just aft of the main shuttlebay. Those could well be part of the warp drive - and the TNG Tech Manual which claims the saucer can only do impulse would be blatantly lying, in order to hide a thing or two from Romulan agents who might purchase the book. Indeed, Sternbach's E-D blueprints tellingly leave the areas beneath those blue windows undescribed, only showing a vast, mysterious empty room...

(I know some say those represent a botanical garden. But I can't fathom why such a garden would have ceiling windows that glow blue... Especially when the gardens, when seen e.g. in "Imaginary Friend", are shown to have yellow internal lighting.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jeri]

Is it? Odds are, it's the strongest part of the ship, far stronger than that area of the neck that is only held together by the strength of its skin and whatever internal members are present. A bit like the hinges of a door may be its strongest parts...

Yes, I think it's weaker. A solid construction where the sections are joined together in (shot in the dark) 10,000 places -- not just the skin -- is going to be stronger than a removable construction joined in 10 places.

... - and the TNG Tech Manual which claims the saucer can only do impulse would be blatantly lying, in order to hide a thing or two from Romulan agents who might purchase the book...

I must admit, I did not think of that contingency.

 

[Timo]

Yes, I think it's weaker. A solid construction where the sections are joined together in (shot in the dark) 10,000 places -- not just the skin -- is going to be stronger than a removable construction joined in 10 places.

That's far from said. The ten solid joints could well be much stronger than the sum total of whatever welds there are on the apparently quite thin walls of the other decks.

I must admit, I did not think of that contingency.

Good thing that Sternbach and Okuda themselves did. At least they added this on the introduction on page vii:

"An important word of caution: All Starfleet personnel are hereby advised that any previous technical documentation in your possession may be suspect because of an ongoing Starfleet program of disinformation intended to confound and confuse the intelligence assets of potential Threat forces. Such documents should therefore be verified with Federation archives and this Manual for authenticity."

Casts the Manual itself in rather dubious light, now doesn't it?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nebusj]

Is it? Odds are, it's the strongest part of the ship, far stronger than that area of the neck that is only held together by the strength of its skin and whatever internal members are present. A bit like the hinges of a door may be its strongest parts...

Yes, I think it's weaker. A solid construction where the sections are joined together in (shot in the dark) 10,000 places -- not just the skin -- is going to be stronger than a removable construction joined in 10 places.

With the proviso that I do not take too literally any size estimates for starships, I would like to point out that 10,000 supporting beams seems to be a rather large number for the available cross-sectional area, even though that area is something like the size of the original Enterprise's saucer section.

Also, I'd point out that given the feats of force field, tractor beam, transporter, and replicator technology which we have seen the Federation has, there's not much reason to think the docking clamps are keychain rings. I would be willing to bet the ``clamps'' are actually fused into their alternate selves on docking, with enough cut away as part of the undocking to allow the pieces to separate. (Note the debris we see flying loose when the saucer does undock.)

And finally there's the examples of the show: while the Enterprise didn't get into many battles, the neck and the docking section were never specifically targeted. Apparently opponents found attacking that to have much less tactical merit than attacking the engines would be.

 

[Jeri]

That's far from said. The ten solid joints could well be much stronger than the sum total of whatever welds there are on the apparently quite thin walls of the other decks.

Not likely; they'd be making that joint as strong as possible on a ship of solid construction, too. It's an inherently weak spot in the design, and the separate saucer increases that weakness even more.

In fact, I don't understand why enemy ships didn't immediately shear off the struts of both nacelles on the original model. I know I would have.

Casts the Manual itself in rather dubious light, now doesn't it?

Sounds like a long tradition, started by the Air Force in 1947.

 

[Jeri]

With the proviso that I do not take too literally any size estimates for starships, I would like to point out that 10,000 supporting beams seems to be a rather large number for the available cross-sectional area, even though that area is something like the size of the original Enterprise's saucer section.

I didn't say 10,000 support beams.

Also, I'd point out that given the feats of force field, tractor beam, transporter, and replicator technology which we have seen the Federation has, there's not much reason to think the docking clamps are keychain rings. I would be willing to bet the ``clamps'' are actually fused into their alternate selves on docking, with enough cut away as part of the undocking to allow the pieces to separate. (Note the debris we see flying loose when the saucer does undock.)

I'm sure they would use technology to hold it together, which is why I brought up the power-loss event. It is a weakness to rely on this in battle, when it's most likely to lose power. I'm not really seeing your "fusing" idea. That doesn't make sense to me. What if it were fused when the power is off -- when they might most want to separate?

And finally there's the examples of the show: while the Enterprise didn't get into many battles, the neck and the docking section were never specifically targeted. Apparently opponents found attacking that to have much less tactical merit than attacking the engines would be.

Yeah, and this is truly the crux of the matter; I think they simply screwed up with the design at the beginning of the show. The separating saucer scenario was basically a no-show later on.

 

[Timo]

I really cannot understand the logic of the joint being weaker than the other parts. There's no engineering basis for a categorical claim that a component that moves or locks and unlocks must be weaker than a static component made of the same materials. Indeed, often the hinges of an armored door are at least as strong as the door itself, if not more so, and the door is best attacked by cutting into the door material itself in hopes of finding and cracking open a key part of the locking mechanism.

If Starfleet engineers could choose to make the "static" neck strong enough to withstand the various stresses, they could also choose to make the saucer locking system equally strong. The weakest part of the neck would far more probably be the slim midsection - and clearly, Starfleet is perfectly comfortable with slim necks, and has been since day one.

If those flimsy pylons really suffice for their job, then there's probably either an absurdly large safety marigin to all the other, less slim hull components, or then Starfleet can use weaker materials elsewhere and still have enough structural strenght for the witnessed feats of flying through mountains or ripping holes into enemy hulls or shrugging of localized internal explosions.

No argument, though, that the ability to repeatedly separate and reattach the saucer was an experiment that Starfleet soon considered a failure. Probably not technologically, as simulations would have revealed that already before construction, but operationally - no captain agreed with the new rules of leaving the saucer behind at the first sign of danger, and there was no benefit in separating it at the second sign...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[prometheuspan]

seems to me like in some episode or another the saucer sections warp rating was listed as warp 3. I also can't imagine how that could work given the lack of nacelles, but hey, this is science FICTION and the plot demanded it...

 

[Timo]

There are only four actual E-D saucer separation events in TNG: "Farpoint", "Arsenal of Freedom", "Best of Both Worlds" and ST:Generations. In addition, separation is considered but dismissed in "Heart of Glory" as a precaution before entering a potential battlefield, and in "Brothers" as a means of depriving Data of the control of the ship. An explosion separates the saucer of the Yamato in "Contagion", and supposedly also that of the Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" although the VFX is less clear there.

Yet it's only in "Farpoint" and "Arsenal" that the saucer is supposed to engage in travel on its own. In "Farpoint", we witness it flying across a distance that the combined ship covered at extreme warp during several minutes of flight at least - so we know the saucer can maintain at least medium warp after high-warp separation. In "Arsenal", though, the saucer is jettisoned at impulse, yet supposed to travel to a distant starbase in another star system. If giving a warp boost with the stardrive section was necessary or even helpful in saucer warp travel, surely it would have been done in "Arsenal" - so this is another bit of indirect proof that the saucer can accelerate to warp on its own.

Neither of these eps establishes the warp speed of the saucer, though. In "Brothers", it is discussed that the saucer will drop out of warp two minutes after separation - but this need not always be the case. The whole point of the separation here is to sabotage the ship so that Data can't make use of it, so it would also make sense to perform the separation in such an exceptional manner that it sabotages the saucer's ability to maintain or reach warp. Probably not difficult to do when the saucer lacks all crew except for Data, and when our heroes clearly do their best to sabotage the computers and automated systems of the saucer while Data fights back.

Apart from all of that, warp 3 sounds plausible for a massive saucer-shaped starship with internally mounted and thus probably relatively weak engines. And internal warp engines certainly aren't unheard of in Federation starships (say, the Defiant), let alone alien ones.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jeri]

I really cannot understand the logic of the joint being weaker than the other parts. There's no engineering basis for a categorical claim that a component that moves or locks and unlocks must be weaker than a static component made of the same materials. Indeed, often the hinges of an armored door are at least as strong as the door itself, if not more so, and the door is best attacked by cutting into the door material itself in hopes of finding and cracking open a key part of the locking mechanism.

If Starfleet engineers could choose to make the "static" neck strong enough to withstand the various stresses, they could also choose to make the saucer locking system equally strong. The weakest part of the neck would far more probably be the slim midsection - and clearly, Starfleet is perfectly comfortable with slim necks, and has been since day one.

If those flimsy pylons really suffice for their job...

The example you chose proves the point: the armored-car thieves go after the locking mechanism. It, too, is a joint and is the weakest point; indeed, this example is almost exactly the case of the separating-saucer design. In the case of the saucer joint, the primary force working against it would be torsion. An integrated, permanent reinforcement would be less susceptible to rocking and twisting than would the 10 locks used to hold the saucer in place. The 10 locks could never be made as substantial as an integrated reinforcement.

Better not to even discuss the pylons; that's water under the bridge. They wouldn't suffice tactically, but it's accepted and we go on about our fan business.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Does it really matter if the joint is a weak point? It's negated by the structural integrity and inertial dampener systems, and if either of those fail, the crew is either decompressed or chunky salsa.

 

[Renvar]

Does it really matter if the joint is a weak point? It's negated by the structural integrity and inertial dampener systems, and if either of those fail, the crew is either decompressed or chunky salsa.

Heh, chunky salsa...

Ehm..

The structural integrity field has always been purported to be the thing that really holds the ship together. Usually it seems to be the last thing to go before a ship is destroyed. There have also been instances where power is diverted to a specific part of the ship's SIF to protect it from imminent damage, such as when the Cardies shot at the Enterprise's warp nacelle in "The Chase." It's conceivable then to conclude that the field is used to hold together parts of a ship's design that would normally be fragile using standard construction theory, but may be necessary for warp-field physics.

 

[Trekker4747]

As described in the Technichal Manual the ship's Structural Integirty field is a forcefield that holds the ship together. Otherwise when the warp or impulse engines fire different areas of the ship would be moving at different speeds at the same time and the ship would crush itself as the back end of it rams into the front of it because they're traveling at different speeds by factors of 100s or 1000s of miles a second.

It "holds the ship together" in a sense of acceleration forces and very possibly from the shift of sudden impacts.