TOS shuttle cutaway

[T'Girl]

As for the impulse engine: it all depends on where the center of gravity is for this ship. And what powers a shuttlecraft anyway? Are those matter-antimatter nacelles, just like the ones used by large starships? If so, where to they store the fuel? "The Galileo Seven" and "The Menagerie, Part 1" seemed to suggest that shuttlecrafts may use a different power source, but it was never clear to me what it was. If the ship uses some fuel-based reactor technology, then the fuel must be stored in either the nacelles or the underbelly of the ship (where Scotty was tinkering while on the surface of Taurus II) which would suggest the lower half of the ship to be the center of gravity. This would, in turn, suggest that the impulse engine would be located near the bottom of the vessel.

If, on the other hand, fuel were stored in the ceiling of the main fuselage, that glowing rear array would be ideal for an impulse engine.

The Shuttlecraft seen in The Menagerie, Part 1 seems to be moving at warp speed chasing the Enterprise. If there was no anticipation of needing warp drive the nacelles might not of been fueled with antimatter during The Galileo Seven. Spock obviously jettisons something out the back of the nacelles, if the shuttlecraft uses a two part fuel (hypergolic ?) a larger component stored in two tanks, one in either nacelle, and a smaller amount of a second component stored in the shuttlecraft's floor pan. It's the smaller component that leaked away and that Scotty figured a way of replacing with phaser energy. What Spock jettisoned in low orbit was the fuel stored in the nacelles.

One wonders... Should the impulse engine be the row of vertical yellowish squares on top of the stern plate - or rather the single red horizontal nozzle in the middle of said plate?

Look at this.
http://scottgammans.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/hangar_1280x9601.jpg

 

[Timo]

On the fuel issue, another possibility is that the fuel isn't two-component - but two-function (or "half-component").

That is, the shuttle uses something like deuterium as the source of energy (thus "fuel" even though no burning is occurring - technical language has already eroded enough that fuel no longer is something that burns). But, just like a TNG era starship, it also uses deuterium-based plasma for transferring that energy to the warp coils where it coaxes them to create a warp field. The reactor is in the aft compartment, the coils are in the nacelles, and the plasma flows underfloor.

Now, some of the fuel is gone, so the shuttle can't create enough energy from the fusion/annihilation/ion cascade/whatever where the fuel usually is used. But there's enough of this fuel to create all the necessary power-transferring plasma - all they lack is the energy to be put into that plasma. And fortunately, the underfloor plasma leads have a nice little gadget: a power tap that usually takes some of the energy away from the plasma stream and uses it for powering secondary systems such as life support, lights, navigation gear, phaser charging devices, etc. Such taps are also familiar from TNG technobabble.

Now all Scotty has to do is set the tap to run on reverse, and pump energy into it from secondary systems - in this case, phaser power packs. This energy replaces the fuel in the energy-producing role - but the deuterium is still there, doing its secondary job. And Spock can vent the drive plasma (another operation familiar from TNG) to create his attention-begging flare.

No actual "rocketry" involved anywhere, but fuel is doubly involved in the propulsion process. And all the operations we see are standard ones, also present elsewhere in Trek, not ones specific to the situation in "The Galileo Seven".

Howzzat?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

^ Probably the best treknical speculation I've read in a long time. It fits "The Galileo Seven" quite well. Now, I wonder what the computer was talking about in "The Menagerie, Part 1" when it mentioned that a Class F Shuttlecraft used "ion propulsion"...

 

[Timo]

Not "ion propulsion", but "ion engine power".

Here I'm partial to Dave Stern's ENT novel Daedalus, which mention a "Cascade Ion Drive" that is a method of obtaining power for the warp drive, not a method of propelling the ship as such. It's something the Suliban have mastered, but Starfleet fumbles, resulting in the loss of the prototype ship Daedalus in the 2140s. Combining that with VOY, where "polaric ion power" is a power source that is very difficult to master and has in fact been banned by an interstellar treaty, is an appealing possibility.

So my pet interpretation here is that small craft like shuttles and Suliban pods are capable of extracting power out of some sort of fuel (say, antimatter) through a polaric ion cascade process, whatever that is - but attempts at using that method on a larger scale invariably end in disaster. Which is why Scotty would love to learn more about the ion system aboard the Eymorg vessel in "Spock's Brain"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

You are just full of solutions, aren't you, Timo?

I should be copying this stuff down...

 

[scotpens]

One major issue with designing a workable TOS shuttlecraft is reconciling the differences between the full-size mockup, the filming miniature, and the live-action set. Like many fictional vehicles, the shuttlecraft is bigger inside than it is outside. The ceiling of the interior set was high enough to allow an average man to stand upright; the full-size prop clearly didn't have that much headroom. Obviously, any rendition of the shuttle that includes the aft storage compartment and space for propulsion machinery will have to be bigger than the actual full-size prop. How long does your version scale out to be?

 

[Mytran]

There've been a couple of projects conducted around this subject already, such as this one here or here. The length of a full sized shuttle (i.e. big enough to fit the interior set in) usually comes in at around 30'

 

[Timo]

...Thankfully enough, the size of the prop wasn't a major plot point in any episode. That is, if every scene featuring the prop were redone so that a thirty-footer were used instead, there would be no need to alter the photography let alone the drama.

Even the issue of sizing the shuttle against the shuttlebay is essentially conflict-free, as we don't have a clear idea on the size relationship between the shuttle and the bay. The miniature is seen taking off and landing from a single vantage point, the front end of the bay; that allows for all sorts of interpretations of perspective there, and the shuttle could essentially vary in size by 100% without much conflict. All we need is for it to be as long as the turntable is wide, and we can fudge that width to our liking.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[scotpens]

...Thankfully enough, the size of the prop wasn't a major plot point in any episode.

The only canonical reference to the shuttlecraft's size is in "The Galileo Seven," when Kirk makes an offhand reference to a "24-foot shuttlecraft." Unless that line of dialogue is regarded as etched in stone, there's no reason why the shuttle can't be scaled up by 25 percent or so. The only practical problem is the height of the door sill and the fold-down retractable step built into the port nacelle.

 

[Mytran]

...The only practical problem is the height of the door sill and the fold-down retractable step built into the port nacelle.

Fortunately, a 30' shuttle just squeezes in under these conditions. This guy even adjusted the size of the door to fit! (Minimum size estimates based on a 5'5" crewmember)

...Even the issue of sizing the shuttle against the shuttlebay is essentially conflict-free, as we don't have a clear idea on the size relationship between the shuttle and the bay.

The only scaling that might be attempted is when the shuttle is standing on the turntable, since that is a fixed point and nearest the camera (a forced perspective set will still be correct at the front end, if the back end gets gradually smaller).
If we know the shuttle's length or width we can extrapolate the width of the shuttlebay at the section where the turntable is. The following is based on the full sized prop (about 20’ long, although I’ve used the distance between the nacelles as a yardstick instead)

Of course a 64’ wide bay makes it pretty cavernous, but then it was always presented as such in the show – more like one of those WWII aircraft hangars than anything else (which I'm sure was the inspiration).

Naturally, if we interpret the shuttlecraft to be the 30' long design the shuttlebay needs to increase in width still further in order to match the imagery (about 96') which opens up another question - how big would the Enterprise need to be to fit this in?!?!?

 

[Shaw]

... which opens up another question - how big would the Enterprise need to be to fit this in?!?!?

I always find interesting the arguments where the shuttlecraft (which was the worst reference for scale in TOS) gets used as a reference for the hangar bay (a forced perspective miniature which was never intended to provide scale reference beyond a general emotional response) which in turn gets used as a reference for scaling the Enterprise. I don't believe you could pick a worse direction to work from than that.

The shuttlecraft was a totally (and in every way) compromised prop that was out of the hands of the people who made Star Trek. When the deal was made with AMT for them to finance, design and build the shuttlecraft, control of the scale aspects of it were completely out of the hands of Jefferies and company.

Why pick such a flawed starting point? There is no definitive size for the shuttlecraft, there is no ideal reference point for measuring a forced perspective miniature, and you end up with bad data on top of bad data... and then you want to apply that to the Enterprise?

A word of advice (which I'm sure you guys will ignore), when you hear the term forced perspective, that should be a warning to not use it for any type of measurements.



By the way, the live action shuttlecraft was designed as a forced perspective prop to seem larger (and longer) when viewed from the rear.

 

[Timo]

This just goes to highlight that there are no good ways of establishing the size of the hero ship of TOS against known references - which leaves us grasping at straws.

In contrast, TOS-R is full of things we can use, such as people moving behind windows, external shots pairing the ship and the shuttle far less ambiguously than in the original product, and even a remake of the iconic shot from "The Cage" where we get a peek inside the bridge dome. The size of the ship isn't in much question any more, then, not in the TOS-R "reality"; the size of the shuttle thus gets established as well, along with some ideas on how to "read" the forced perspectives of the original product.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

...the hangar bay (a forced perspective miniature which was never intended to provide scale reference beyond a general emotional response) which in turn gets used as a reference for scaling the Enterprise...when you hear the term forced perspective, that should be a warning to not use it for any type of measurements.

I agree that the shuttlebay f.p. set will cause trouble if used to calculate length - but at the nearest point to the camera, surely its width is still useable?
The emotional response generated by the set is that of a large room, something at least 5 times the width of the shuttlecraft (however wide that actually is!). And I just don't feel the same response when I see the "correctly scaled" models such as those in TOS-R

 

[Shaw]

I agree that the shuttlebay f.p. set will cause trouble if used to calculate length - but at the nearest point to the camera, surely its width is still useable?

The width is the most unusable part. That, after all, is how the perspective is being forced.

The idea was the make the point of view of the camera feel small and the bay large. Considering that the camera was large and the bay a miniature, they were working against the physical reality of the filming conditions.

 

[Timo]

...Of course, the transverse direction is the one not affected by forced perspective. So if the bay is five shuttlecraft widths wide in this forced perspective view, then we can say with certainty that the "real" bay is also five shuttlecraft widths wide at that particular point.

After this, it's "merely" a matter of deciding whether the side walls of the bay are straight and parallel, or perhaps follow the contours of the outer hull, or then do something else. Yet it is fairly easy to establish the minimum width of the bay in terms of shuttlecraft widths, without the forced perspective interfering in any way.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shaw]

...

Timo Saloniemi

Lets be sure we're getting this... the width of the shuttlecraft is unknown and therefore a bad data point. But if you times that data point by some multiple (like five), you are thinking that will make it a better data point?

Interesting.

Lets look at a non-Trek forced perspective setup and see if this other logic works any better. We can use the hallway from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for this.

Based on these images, how many Wonka butts wide do you guys think this hallway would be if it wasn't designed as a forced perspective set piece? Wonka's butt (like the shuttlecraft model) is moving towards the end of the forced perspective hallway, and should be just as valid for making scale judgments as the shuttlecraft model is for the forced perspective hangar bay.

 

[Timo]

Lets be sure we're getting this... the width of the shuttlecraft is unknown and therefore a bad data point. But if you times that data point by some multiple (like five), you are thinking that will make it a better data point?

Nope. But your argument about the forced perspective somehow making width measurements invalid is utter bullshit. Just wanted to point that out.

We can establish the shuttlebay width in units of shuttle width - AT ANY POINT (that is, at any distance from the camera) WHERE WE SEE THE SHUTTLECRAFT POSITIONED. You amply demonstrate that with the above series of pictures, which give three unambiguous widths for the corridor at three points. It's merely a question of then establishing those units in more absolute terms (which is easier with Willy Wonka than with the shuttle). But the following is completely incorrect - I can't understand what you might have been thinking here:

The width is the most unusable part. That, after all, is how the perspective is being forced.

Nope, it ain't. The width is the one and only part that can be used. Depth is being forced, but that merely affects the contours of the side walls (and the ceiling and floor), not the point-by-point measurements.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shaw]

Just wanted to point that out.

Timo Saloniemi

Too bad you lack the skills to prove it.




... or you could draw us a picture showing us how your logic works.



Edit:
Knowing that Timo is a talker and can't draw, I thought I'd put together something for everyone.

 

[Timo]

No need to get upset. You made a single false statement, the following one:

The width is the most unusable part. That, after all, is how the perspective is being forced.

I'm not saying you're an idiot on general principles, or in the habit of raping hamsters, or anything. I'm just pointing out that the above claim is utter nonsense. The rest of your argumentation is valid. That part is not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shaw]

You made a single false statement, the following one:

The width is the most unusable part. That, after all, is how the perspective is being forced.

I'm not saying you're an idiot on general principles, or in the habit of raping hamsters, or anything. I'm just pointing out that the above claim is utter nonsense.

Considering that the widths is what is being distorted to create the perspective illusion, while the width of the shuttlecraft isn't distorting... you got an up hill fight against the facts on your hands.

Best of luck with that.

Of course there are classes on perspective drawing that you could take (I know, I've taught a few) that might help with understanding this stuff.