Unseen TOS....

[Warped9]

^ Sorry, I meant something along the lines of the Dream Chaser or X-24 space plane (lifting body).

Cheers,
-CM-

A landing craft could indeed have something of a lifting body shape to it. By the time of the 23rd century small auxiliary craft seem to not need to look aredynamic as we know it. But throughout the 21st and into the 22nd century I would think they would have to have some recognizable areodybnamic qualities even though antigrav technology is already in use.

 

[publiusr]

Turn it on its end and without the rings and it looks like a massive rocket booster.

I can see that. Ceres, more than Utopia Planitia, should be a shipyard—the rings come from Psyche. Ceres gravity would allow monster HLLVs

 

[Warped9]

I’m presently in the process of lighting windows, adding running lights and a bit more physical detailing to see something more of the “real” ship as opposed to a less detailed schematic representation. I also want to add a few more hull markings such as the ship’s registration number. I was considering something like SR-512 where SR could mean Space vehicle Registry.

 

[BK613]

You might try something less Starfleety like the USAF tactical style tail numbers

 

[Warped9]

A bit of delay in posting some space scenes. I have added lighting and a few more surface details, but I’ve gotten caught up in changing some things. Nothing major, but I wasn’t wholly satisfied with some details.

Please stay tuned.

 

[Warped9]

I’m finishing up with my detailing, BUT I’m now preoccupied with redesigning the pod slung underneath as a more recognizable, and sizeable, landing craft.

 

[Warped9]

Still tweaking towards the finish item, but this is a fair look at what the end result will be like.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

She’s a bonny lass!

 

[Warped9]

We know very little about the Valiant. We know she disappeared, presumed lost, about two centuries prior to the events of WNMHGB. We know she was designated as a Galactic Survey Cruiser. We know she was deliberately destroyed by her own crew.

We can assume she had some form of early FTL capability, but we don't know her speed and range capabilities although we can assume they were quite limited compared to that of the Enterprise. We don't know whether she was a sleeper ship or not. We also don't know her crew complement.

Her designation as a Galactic Survey Cruiser suggests her mission profile was to range some distance from home port for an extended duration and possibly to visit multiple star systems before returning home. If so then that implies a vessel capable of operating independently from any outside support for extended periods of at least several weeks, but more likely several months and perhaps even a few years. We don't know if she was armed because we don't know when Earth first made contact with aliens and whether they were friendly or not.

We don't know if the Vaiant was a one-off design or if she was of a class of similar vessels. And finally we don't know how long she was in service before she disappeared--did she disappear relatively soon after her launch or was she operational for some years before disappearing?

As an early exploratory vessel it's possible the Valiant and her kind was something rather significant in her time. In the early days ships failing to return home were likely not rare, but the loss of a ship like the Valiant could still have been quite noteworthy. Ships like the Valiant were likely the vanguards in determining how dangerous interstellar space was and laid much of the groundwork for colonization ships to follow.

A lot of potential conjecture here.

 

[StarCruiser]

Conjecture - yes - but, logical conjecture.

The real problem here (and this has been an issue for many years) is that even if we had the Botany Bay in the 1990's, it seems like quite a leap to get to this far more capable ship in the mid-2000's.

Star Trek has been very poorly managed when it comes to internal consistency. That doesn't change how much I love classic Trek but then...?

 

[Warped9]

Tough to say. TOS establishes Zefram Cochrane discovers the space warp, but it never nailed down how long it was after that for FTL to be developed enough to routinely launch FTL ships on exploratory forays. It’s probably more into the latter quarter of the 21st century. Thus the Valiant would be one of those first major vessels.

 

[aridas sofia]

I don’t recall anything saying there was anything routine about the Valiant mission. That could have been a one off- the first of its kind after Bonaventure.

 

[Warped9]

We simply know next to nothing about the Valiant. It’s all conjecture.

That said the fact it’s designated as a galactic survey cruiser implies it’s a vessel of significance more than just a smallish followup science ship. That suggests to me there was a level of substance and proficiency to building the ship that came with some years of practice building FTL ships. Yeah, it could have been the first of its kind or one of the first, but I find it hard to see it as something quickly thrown together to take advantage of newly available FTL capability.

How many died aboard the Valiant when it hit the energy barrier? Six or so? The Enterprise had 400 some crew and not many more casualties than the Valiant when the E hit the barrier. I suppose you could chalk that up to being better protected aboard the Enterprise. Otherwise the ratio of casualties to crew complement might have given us an approximation of the Valiant’s crew complement.

Re: designing the externally berthed landing craft. A lifting body design (in tandem with antigrav) isn’t a bad idea...except in 1965 the NASA programs experimenting with lifting body design was in its infancy. It’s a question regarding how aware Jefferies could have been of that research and what NASA was doing.

Now a lifting body as a concept actually went back forty years or so before the 1960s, but it likely wasn’t a widely known idea until the later 1960s and later. NASA begin experimenting around 1963, but it’s doubtful it was widely known during the mid 1960s.

 

[publiusr]

Now here is a concept I want to throw out.

Warp Staging.

I imagine this design as itself but a nose of an even larger Declaration class warp booster.

Aridas had a concept called a superimpeller...similar to the subspace catapult.

I can see a way for space lanes to be laid down by discarded rings from ring ships that enter such a catapult already FTL.

Valiant was hurled much farther afield than thought...but could have come back more quickly from the galactic rim than Enterprise in free space.

Think Krasnikov tubes on steroids.

Only ring ships can lay down these things. And they have to be “anchored” with collapsars on either end. Warp Factor One engages these, but nacelle ships can leave these high chi lanes.

Remember, you actually need negative energy for tubes to work...this negative energy barrier gave them far more than they ever expected. Where transwarp leaves you a salamander, this makes you a junior league Q.

Thus, Valiant was thrown farther out than it had a right to be. And you had a way station out at-this-one-place on the edge of the Galaxy.

The infrastructure is in place. But nacelle ships caught up.

Enterprise went right down the path that Valiant laid down. The Kelvins broke in in a “flatter” more ordinary spot, and got jacked.

 

[Warped9]

The trick here, and it’s a trick, is trying to figure out what Jefferies could have done. There is zero guarantee his solutions, if tasked with the same objectives, would be the same as mine. I am trying like hell to forget everything post TOS, and in this particular case post 1965. I also think Jefferies would have endeavoured to keep things relatively straightforward as that in turn would be easier for the general viewing audience to understand.

Recall my remark from further upthread regarding form suggesting substance and function, or words to that effect. The tech of TOS was rarely, if ever, explained. The form, sometimes in tandem with a few carefully words and how the device was used, is what conveyed how a device worked. The shape of the Enterprise is never explained, but its configuration and how it’s shown to operate conveys how it works. And that got across the idea of very highly advanced technology and engineering. The design of the Enterprise might be pure fantasy, but it was put across is such a convincing way that we believe it to be based on sound credible logic. It inspired generations of fans as well as budding scientists and engineers to make it even more real and believable.

I don’t think my reasoning is too off base here, but I am wondering if Jefferies could have envisioned and considered the idea of an externally berthed landing craft. The Enterprise clearly shows his reasoning of minimizing going outside the ship for maintenance and repair. That thinking seemed to be reflected in his later design for the Botany Bay as well. There is also the fact that smooth skinned spaceships were the thinking of the era, at least for a few more years. The designs of 2001: A Space Odyssey would start to change that, but TOS would adhere to then current mainstream view of futuristic technology looking sleek and simplified. In TMP that thinking would prevail even with an added degree of detailing while resisting the new industrial idea of the future seen and popularized in Silent Running, Star Wars, Alien and others.

To that end when I design for TOS I resist too much detailing because it would otherwise look inconsistent with what we think of as the TOS aesthetic. That added level of detailing belongs to TMP and later. Whenever I see the TMP and later Trek aesthetic applied to TOS it never looks convincing to me. It’s just a mind exercise because we know we would never have seen that on television even under the best of conditions. Thats why I find a lot of TOS-R so jarring—not just the retconning, but the insistence of trying to make TOS look more like contemporary productions. Rebooting TOS whole cloth for a new production is one thing, but trying to “fix” a fifty year old production to fit contemporary perspectives is, in my view, disrespectful bullshit.

I want to flesh out TOS, but hopefully in a way the original creators could or might have if given the chance. But it ain’t always easy.

 

[publiusr]

One trope in sci-fi that is a little jarring is having an advanced ship like Enterprise finding older slower ships farther afield than reason would suggest. Now, we all like a good mystery—and maybe that is where things should stay—-but one of the reasons I suggested warp staging is the idea that history rhymes.

I can see Zephram being a nacelle guy, with expendable warp staged ringships being the SLS of its day...supporting infrastructure. I have this idea of countdowns coming with this idea. With your ship laying down warp rings in its wake like a subway. I can imagine the arguments different engineers would have.

This is SLS and Enterprise is, well....Starship.

You have the look down—-the ethos.
The landing boat could be this:
www.astronautix.com/m/mtkva.html

I can see that underneath. There would be artificial/antigravity, but not to the point where tiny TOS shuttles are like mini-vans you just hop in and drive. This would have no windows, is realistic—-fits with the large size of your well blended pod...and it fits the flow you emulate.

But this is your baby and not for me to poison, of course

 

[Warped9]

** I have been doodling something quite similar to that, but I haven't yet hit on something I really like.

 

[publiusr]

Maybe two of them back to back? They could dock to each other and have a tube to the main ship through the heat shield

 

[STEPhon IT]

Tough to say. TOS establishes Zefram Cochrane discovers the space warp, but it never nailed down how long it was after that for FTL to be developed enough to routinely launch FTL ships on exploratory forays. It’s probably more into the latter quarter of the 21st century. Thus the Valiant would be one of those first major vessels.

TOS was set in the timeline of 22nd Century; I think STAR TREK’s timeline works best for me if the episodes are set in the late 2190s. So Cochrane having “died” as “an old man” 150 years earlier puts that around 2040. His “discovery” of the space warp would likely have been about 40 years before that, or the year 2000.

 

[Warped9]

For now I’ve decided to stop obsessing about the landing craft. It’s not something that has to be nailed down for a design that could be only glimpsed onscreen. I’m not trying to figure out a hero ship for a film or series here. So I will come back to this another time.

I’m now considering my next move.