TOS Shuttles... Armed?

[USS Triumphant]

While there might be SUPPLIES for that many, as you say... there are other, more pressing issues. Such issues as capacity of the life-support system, primarily.

I agree with this entirely, but...

You're making the assumption that 430 is the designed for expected load with a 20% safety factor. <snip> What if the Enterprise is tasked to rescue the crew of a sister ship? That's 400-500 more people to Enterprise's crew which would bump the total load to between 800-1000. Since we know taking on survivors and transporting them to safety is one of the tasks the Enterprise performs I think it would be safe to say that the ship can temporarily transport at the minimum the crew of another starship or even more.

I also agree with this point. And taken together, I'm sticking with my "calculations".

I'm also in the camp that the shuttles can pack as many people as one gets by dividing the internal volume by the average volume of a person...A life support system that can supposedly keep a reasonable number of occupants alive in vacuum for a week could be cranked up to keep alive fifty squeezed-in people for the half an hour it takes to get them to orbit.

I definitely don't agree with this. It's a little like thinking that because a household air conditioning system can cool thousands of degrees over its lifetime, that it should be able to cool the house to near absolute zero for a brief period. It doesn't work like that, for essentially the same reasons.

 

[Timo]

Yet it doesn't take much to keep a bunch of people breathing for half an hour - and it doesn't really matter if the interior temperature is that of a sauna, or cools down to minus forty. We're not talking about sustaining life here, only about keeping from immediately terminating it with truly extreme conditions.

The one part of "life support" that might catastrophically fail if it merely underperformed by 70% is inertia damping; people might not survive being crushed. But they would survive being suffocated or dehydrated or frozen or roasted.

Also, we have precedent of small craft usually operated by 2-4 people taking aboard 60 or more with ease. In "The Homecoming", a runabout did an interstellar evac run with 60 people aboard; in "The Siege", three such craft did one-way interstellar sorties to get all non-Bajorans off DS9 and out of Bajoran space, at a time when the station supposedly held something like 300 workers. 24th century life support is robust; why wouldn't its 23rd century equivalent be?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Yet it doesn't take much to keep a bunch of people breathing for half an hour - and it doesn't really matter if the interior temperature is that of a sauna, or cools down to minus forty. We're not talking about sustaining life here, only about keeping from immediately terminating it with truly extreme conditions.

The one part of "life support" that might catastrophically fail if it merely underperformed by 70% is inertia damping; people might not survive being crushed. But they would survive being suffocated or dehydrated or frozen or roasted.

Also, we have precedent of small craft usually operated by 2-4 people taking aboard 60 or more with ease. In "The Homecoming", a runabout did an interstellar evac run with 60 people aboard; in "The Siege", three such craft did one-way interstellar sorties to get all non-Bajorans off DS9 and out of Bajoran space, at a time when the station supposedly held something like 300 workers. 24th century life support is robust; why wouldn't its 23rd century equivalent be?

Timo Saloniemi

We are not just talking about cooling... or, for that matter (and this is more likely in space) HEATING.

The real issue is air replenishment. How much oxygen is added to the atmospheric mix per hour, max? How much do living humans consume? How much CO2 is produced by those many people, and how much can the system remove?

That's where the calculations I'm seeing are wrong... they're based on TERRESTRIAL assumptions of "infinite air."

So, you really need to think about how the air replenishment system would work. Would you design any system to work at 500% of the expected daily output for an extended period? Even if that meant doubling the amount of equipment making up the life-support system, consuming valuable space, adding mass (which impacts vehicle efficiency, as well as acceleration rate and maneuverability).

In modern aerospace, the weight of an aircraft is tweaked to reduce mere OUNCES of excess mass. The same general set of laws of physics apply both there and in the semi-fictional (ie, "science fiction") world of Star Trek.

You don't add extra mass, with all the performance costs associated with that, unless you have no real choice. Ensuring the safety of the crew is something you have no real choice about, of course.

The problem, guys, is that many of those discussing this (or related) topics really haven't worked out just how tightly-packed this ship already is. And remember that this isn't the Hilton, with 95%+ of its volume taken up by habitation space... this is a working spacecraft where easily 1/2 of the ship's habitable volume is dedicated to equipment and to mission hardware.

You may be able to, practically, pack the decks of a naval vessel, today, with refugees... but that ONLY works because there's an effectively infinite source of fresh air to tap.

If you pack the Enterprise in the same fashion, you'll end up with a ship of corpses in just a few hours. Even if you could reject all the waste heat and provide food and other consumables to everyone... it is just crazy to assume that they'd all be able to breath.

 

[USS Triumphant]

@Cary: Why are you talking to all of us like we agree with Timo? I agree with you that there is a limited capacity to the life support system - I just don't think it is quite as tight as you seem to. Which seems to be blssdwlf's position, as well.

I believe the point you make about them being working spacecraft is a good one regarding the shuttles, though, so I've decided that I believe they could probably only handle double (not triple) their intended crew, now.

 

[blssdwlf]

I think the Enterprise could comfortably hold an extra 400-500 people. Standing room only in the hallways (on the extreme end) might require Kirk ordering Scotty to manufacture and install extra life support equipment but I don't see why it couldn't be done

(Interestingly, the Kobyashi Maru rescue mission in TWOK would've involved the rescue of 381 people. 430+381 = 811...)

@Timo - notice also that in "The Galileo Seven" in order to create jeopardy for the shuttle crew, they had to cause a significant loss of the fuel.

 

[Timo]

@Cary: Why are you talking to all of us like we agree with Timo?

To be sure, the reply did come immediately after my post. So most of the critical "yous" there are probably aimed at that post. Although I have to point out that they are slightly mis-aimed, and that you corrected the aim for me, USS Triumphant. Thanks!

That is, Cary makes the point that the starship cannot support unreasonable numbers of people for extended times. My argument about the irrelevance of life support was made specifically regarding the shuttle run from the surface to the ship, however. For the duration of that trip, the evacuees could just hold their breath. (Literally - just inject them with one of McCoy's mystery medicines or something.)

@Timo - notice also that in "The Galileo Seven" in order to create jeopardy for the shuttle crew, they had to cause a significant loss of the fuel.

Good point. Although it's difficult to imagine how lack of fuel would affect takeoff performance: the less fuel there's aboard, the less weight there is, and this particular area of performance should only improve. In the episode, takeoff wasn't much of a problem anyway, because the shuttle was able to hover for an extended period with the angry locals hanging onto it; we're not talking about counting fuel liter by liter and optimizing some sort of a ballistic launch curve.

OTOH, we might argue that the thing limiting the shuttle's performance there wasn't the loss of fuel, but the replacing of standard fuel by hand phaser energy. But that probably means the shuttle would perform even better in normal conditions. And in any case, our castaway heroes were able to launch to space, which should suffice even if the shuttle can't achieve stable orbit; the mothership could grab the shuttle with a tractor beam at the apogee of the unstable orbit, in a fairly routine maneuver, in order to make the surface-to-orbit traffic more fuel-efficient for the shuttles.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS Triumphant]

Although I have to point out that they are slightly mis-aimed, and that you corrected the aim for me, USS Triumphant. Thanks!

Any time, Timo. Think nothing of it.

 

[Forbin]

Not that it relates directly, but many years ago a 747 packed over 1,000 people aboard in a no-seats configuration during an evacuation in, I think, India.

I'd imagine if the TOS E was emergency-evaccing a population, and if the flight time was only going to be a few days, you could line the corridors, cargo holds and hangar with refugees and cram a couple of thousand people in. They wouldn't be comfortable, and there'd be food and bathroom problems, but I don't see why not.

Ah, but this being TOS, any isolated colony or outpost is probably weeks or months from the nearest starbase or Class-M planet. This was the final frontier, remember. It was full of remote colonies that hadn't been visited in months or years.

So help is unlikely to be only a few days away.

Ah, but all you have to do is crank the engines up to Speed of Plot!

 

[Greg Cox]

So help is unlikely to be only a few days away.

Ah, but all you have to do is crank the engines up to Speed of Plot! [/QUOTE]


But what if the Plot needs to make everything harder and more challenging?

"My God, Spock, we can't leave those people to die!"

"That's not necessary, captain. We can easily transport the entire colony to the nearest starbase, which is only a few days away."

"Oh. Never mind then. Carry on."

 

[USS Triumphant]

Maybe you could have the outpost/colony be of a species that requires a non-standard environment - gravity, atmosphere, etc. Kirk's Enterprise's life support might be able to handle 240% of its crew, but I don't recall ever seeing anything to lead me to believe it could do it while juggling different requirements like that. That's even more true of the shuttles.

Maybe they're Elaysian? We don't know exactly when they joined the Federation, so it could have been that far back.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

@Cary: Why are you talking to all of us like we agree with Timo? I agree with you that there is a limited capacity to the life support system - I just don't think it is quite as tight as you seem to. Which seems to be blssdwlf's position, as well.

Ah, the joys of the internet... where every posting seems to be personal. In fact, this was (as Timo noted) a response to his own post, primarily.

I believe the point you make about them being working spacecraft is a good one regarding the shuttles, though, so I've decided that I believe they could probably only handle double (not triple) their intended crew, now.

I'm just very aware of how tight aerospace design work is re: mass. I've had to spend ludicrous amounts of time, in the past, trying to squeeze out a few ounces of metal from a housing, for instance... balancing that fine razor's-edge between "strong enough to do the job it needs to do" and "as light and small as possible."

The idea of "200% overdesign" or more is just a total anathema to me. Yes, you do that on land-based hardware all the time. It's trivial, and it's the easiest way to make sure you have a safe design.

Example - designing a boiler. The boiler needs to be 3/16" thick "idealized" aluminum in order to support the cycling pressure inside that boiler for its design life without fatigue or rupture. Standard practice is to then just make it twice as thick... 3/8"... which compensates for flaws in the material and manufacturing defects, and allows it to survive overpressure events with a high likelihood of success.

This is how pretty much everything "static" gets done. You just factor in a 2x "safety factor" and you're golden. The extra mass costs something, but the reduced need to inspect and to ensure "zero defects" more than compensates for that.

Going for terrestrial vehicles... autos and the like... you're still able to add more mass. Not AS much, because you're trying to get good fuel economy, but it's still more practical to just "overdesign."

But when you get into aerospace, you no longer have that option. Every single ounce of mass is a HUGE cost... in terms of energy consumption for the vehicle, in terms of efficiency of operation, in terms of vehicle range, in terms of survivability... basically every element is adversely impacted by added mass.

So... you design things very closely... on the "razor's edge" so to speak. You have ONLY as much as you need, in order to meet your mission profile, and not one ounce more.

So... I guess what we're talking about is "what is the mission profile of the Enterprise?"

Is the Enterprise intended to be a cargo carrier? It is intended to be an evacuation vessel?

To me, the Enterprise and her eleven "explorer refit" heavy cruiser sister ships are designed to be long-range explorers, combining the miltary/tactical aspects of the "non-explorer-refit" cruisers but incorporating the full resources of a medium survey survey vessel as well.

The ship isn't THAT large, really... and there are a lot of people already packed into that volume, and a lot of equipment and resources. EXACTLY the list of personnel and hardware required to do the job the ship is expected to perform.

Imagine yourself as a Starfleet admiral. You're running a "mission profile" meeting for a new class of ship... a refit of an earlier hull, like the 1701 (series) or perhaps a new-build hull... it doesn't matter. You know the "base" performance stats of the ship.

Now... you have to balance range, speed, efficiency, and so forth... the "generic" characteristics... and the specific missions you want the ship to perform.

The question, I guess, is "is the main role of this ship to be a personnel transport" or is it to be a patrol combatant with full survey capabilities? If you decide it needs the extra "headroom" to handle lots of extra passengers, what will this cost you... range? Yep. Speed and maneuverability? Yep. So... then... combat survivability? Yep.

Maybe, as a fleet admiral, you see those costs to be worth it. But you have to look at the costs, and decide... what's most important to you in this class of ship.

You can't just say "I want it all, with no cost."

Trust me, I've worked for engineering directors who say stuff like that... but nobody competent would ever think any such thing.

 

[USS Triumphant]

@Cary: I definitely concede each and every one of your points... now. And, up to a point, in the 23rd century. But the power generation technologies they use seem to me to beg for extra equipment to bleed off excess power most of the time, if anything, and mass isn't an issue when you have a field that manipulates how much apparent mass the rest of the universe "thinks" you are carrying!

 

[blssdwlf]

@Cary - I get what you're saying too. I just don't think you're taking in consideration the demonstrated mission profile of the Enterprise. We've seen in the series that in addition to combat and exploration it is tasked to rescue personnel from other ships and colonies as well as ferry delegations. I agree the 1701 is not meant to be a passenger ship like the E-D but by golly it can go save a ship with 400 people in it and that's not considered an emergency load for the ship.

So, as part of the mission profile, I'd argue that the Enterprise is designed to take on the extra load and that it is not designed at the "razor's edge." (Far from it - with those spacious 8' wide hallways and spare materials and manufacturing capacity for 200+ satellites, flintlocks, etc.) The only thing can't manufacture are very sophisticated equipment like a stardrive or pergium reactor pump.

@Greg Cox -

But what if the Plot needs to make everything harder and more challenging?

"My God, Spock, we can't leave those people to die!"

"That's not necessary, captain. We can easily transport the entire colony to the nearest starbase, which is only a few days away."

"Oh. Never mind then. Carry on."

Didn't they make it harder and more challenging in TOS by giving other problems to deal with? Like in "The Devil in the Dark" they had to evacuate the entire mining colony because of the missing reactor pump but the primary goal was to solve the mystery/kill the creature. Or when they can easily transport vital medicine to another colony they are interrupted into hunting a blood-sucking gas creature.

So, here's one TOS way of handling your scenario:

McCoy: We need to transport the entire colony of people to Starbase 200 for medical attention that I can't give aboard the Enterprise and we need to get them there in two days or they are all dead Jim!

Kirk: Understood - standby to evacuate. Transporter room -

Spock: Captain, a fast moving ion storm has rendered transporters inoperative. We'll need to bring them up by shuttle. By my calculations, we will only have enough time to bring up a third of the population before we must warp out to Starbase 200.

Cue dramatic music!

 

[Timo]

...Of course, it would be nice to blame a dramatic situation solely on the inherent limitations of Star Trek hardware for this rare once.

And we do have reason to suspect that Kirk is handicapped in terms of hardware. We only ever see him operate two shuttles per episode, after all, while his buddy Tracey had four and Robau had dozens. There would be good opportunities for Kirk to lament that his ship can accommodate 20 shuttles but is only ever provided with a handful due to the mission profile. Or that the modular approach to starship construction would allow Starfleet to equip him with evac gear for thousands, but the atmosphere generators have been left ashore for this exploration mission, and there's no time to go to the nearest starbase.

The thing is, if lots of people need to get off a planet and into Kirk's ship in a hurry, it is always going to be hellishly difficult. The drama can be tweaked so that Kirk just barely makes it, or he completely fails and tens of thousands die, without introducing ion storms or unexpected malfunctions; the mere scarcity of shuttle seats should always be a sufficient limiter, while the number of shuttles and colonists would be the sufficient variable for allowing Kirk to succeed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

So help is unlikely to be only a few days away.

Ah, but all you have to do is crank the engines up to Speed of Plot!

But what if the Plot needs to make everything harder and more challenging?

"My God, Spock, we can't leave those people to die!"

"That's not necessary, captain. We can easily transport the entire colony to the nearest starbase, which is only a few days away."

"Oh. Never mind then. Carry on."[/QUOTE]

! Okay, that's when you bring in the B-story.

 

[Forbin]

Didn't they make it harder and more challenging in TOS by giving other problems to deal with?

IIRC, there was a standard request to the writers - whatever else is going on in the main plot, come up with something to put the Enterprise in danger too.

Everybody has a disease that makes them act drunk? Have the ship falling out of orbit too. Kirk has to deal with a society that simulates war and has suicide booths? Have them trying to shoot the ship down too. Etc.

 

[Vance]

Everybody has a disease that makes them act drunk? Have the ship falling out of orbit too. Kirk has to deal with a society that simulates war and has suicide booths? Have them trying to shoot the ship down too. Etc.

In a lot of episodes, this helps Kirk skirt the Prime Directive, though. If something (or someone) can hurt a starship, then the Prime Directive doesn't really apply anymore. (Vaal, Eminiar, Landru). It also helped that TOS did a relatively good job of making this threat link directly to the overall plot - rather than TNG's early approach of 'this has shit all to do with anything, but it's DRAMA!'

 

[Mytran]

I wish the FX-Remaster team either went with Warped9's version where the background of the flight deck are the giant flight deck doors or left it completely alone for "Journey to Babel". Because the FX-Remaster version puts the hallway in a part of the Enterprise that just wouldn't fit

I think what you're referring to is when the new fx team inserted a viewing gallery (observation deck) into the scene, to make it appear that the door was located in the side of the shuttlebay. Apart from the layout issues that blssdwlf mentioned, the team couldn't even be consistent about where the viewing gallery was located - between JTB and TIS it shifted down by about 3 feet:


(click for larger images)

 

[blssdwlf]

@Mytran - wow, I'm glad I'm not trying to make heads or tails of the FX-remastered TNG Universe 1701

 

[Timo]

...Of course, we could be watching the two levels of hangars below the flight deck, and each has a slightly differently positioned row of fancy lights near the ceiling, as seen in TOS-R.

Timo Saloniemi