The separating-saucer design

[Non Sync]

The Star Trek: The Next Generatoin Technical Manual states that there are eighteen docking latches and that "the Saucer Module is equipped only with impluse propulsion."

 

[Forbin]

There are 32 individual latches on the model, but most of them are in pairs, with four singles. The manual is counting pairs as one clamp, which, I suppose, is just as valid.

See: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/gus/1701d-gus-engineering-top-bottom.jpg

 

[Timo]

Similarly, the manual speaks of and shows nine warp coils per nacelle, whereas display screens in the show itself show eighteen coils per nacelle, and (lest we think that the displays e.g. combine port and starboard coils in one nacelle for brevity) "Eye of the Beholder" visuals show eighteen seemingly distinct donuts as well. It may well be that the coils act in functional pairs there, leading to two different but equally valid ways of counting.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Albertus]

Similarly,.."Eye of the Beholder" visuals show eighteen seemingly distinct donuts as well. It may well be that the coils act in functional pairs there, leading to two different but equally valid ways of counting.

Timo Saloniemi

There are 14 double-headed latches and 4 single-head latches. No more, no less. That makes eighteen. ( I counted them on the model too, same as the book.)

 

[tharpdevenport]

^Well, maybe it's a lot easier to make a 2-ton shuttle go to warp than a 2-million-ton saucer. The shuttle just needs a tiny little reactor and two modest-sized nacelles. A warp drive system may take up a huge amount of space in the saucer that's needed for mission or living equipment. Then what you have is a big spaceship full of two massive drive systems with less space for other important stuff.

Well, the wait doesn't matter. A warp drive is warping space around the ship; the ship, essentially, doesn't move but rather space around it.

 

[Timo]

Naah. Nobody knows how warp drive works, and nobody has ever established on screen or in writing that weight wouldn't matter.

If it didn't, why should any of the Enterprises have engines bigger than the shuttlecraft ones?

Probably you indeed need bigger engines to haul around bigger masses. Or then you need big engines for big volumes, so that the warp field can be extended around all that volume. And the saucer definitely qualifies for "big" in both respects.

Timo Saloniemi