Up sizing the movie Enterprise

[Shaw]

... with the hangar being the real "key factor."

I thought the hangar deck was okay on the 947' version, though I wouldn't mind if it was a little bigger. As the one part of the ship that is a pretty wide open space, it would be nice to use it for recreational activities... but it is a few feet too narrow for an official size volleyball court.

It might not be as much of a problem if the gallery wasn't as wide as we saw in Conscience of the King, but I couldn't justify changing what we saw on screen for something we've never even heard of in TOS.

My main motivation has been to see if what Jefferies put together for TOS worked with as few compromises as possible (and I think it seems to). But I think while aridas sofia's version also seems to work, when you attempt to add in TAS stuff as well the larger (1080') size might be even more desirable.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Here's how I see bunking on the ship.

SNIP!

I've been thinking along the same lines as far as quarters are concerned.

Things can get a bit cozy, however, when you start trying to find places for the fourteen science labs, bowling alley, gymnasium, theatre, rec rooms, etc.

I think I have accommodations for around forty guys down in the secondary hull (permanent engine crew), in something more of a barracks arrangement.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Shaw,

I don't recall anybody proposing resizing the Enterprise to 1,080 feet. Who came up with that idea?


Captain Robert April,

I thought the Enterprise had 12-science laboratories?


CuttingEdge100

 

[Shaw]

Shaw,

I don't recall anybody proposing resizing the Enterprise to 1,080 feet. Who came up with that idea?

There have been numerous extended discussions on the net over the actual size of the TOS Enterprise, and as there isn't an actual ship, there is a lot of details choices anyone can make when approaching the subject.

On the 1080' length, this is based on a direct doubling of the original intended length of 540' (from around the late summer of 1964). The fact that this was the original length was confirmed (quite nicely) by MGagen using the hull markings on the secondary hull. But for whatever reasons, Jefferies didn't use a doubled scale, and decided on a length of 947' for his internal use on the show's production. This has generally divided those of us interested in the TOS Enterprise as a workable ship (and making plans for such a vessel) into two camps... the 947' camp and the 1080' camp.

I generally fall into the 947' camp as my work in this area to date has been an attempt to see just how much rhyme and reason Jefferies actually put into the designing of the Enterprise. Most people assume that because Star Trek was made at around the same time as Lost in Space or Voyage to the bottom of the Sea that the attention to detail must have been as lacking. I've come to the conclusion that Jefferies most likely had a very clear vision of how the Enterprise was laid out and he left us some great clues as to what he saw in his mind back during TOS production.

One of the things that I believe is that the Enterprise in Jefferies' mind was always a work in progress, and he would have no problems changing this if he wanted. He didn't constrain himself to the finished 11' model, his Enterprise was the one in his head and in his drawings (which diverged from the original model in the years after it was built).

The best example of this is the Phase II Enterprise (which was what the TMP Enterprise was based on), which was supposed to have been a generally mild upgrade to the ship (in the proposed show), but Jefferies took the opportunity to make other modifications to the design. It was Jefferies' modifications that have led to the heated discussions over the question of whether the TMP Enterprise is actually the TOS Enterprise or a completely new ship.

One additional wrinkle in all this are the Joseph plans from 1973. Most people (including me while growing up) considered these the plans for the Enterprise. And this includes things like deck heights. Many people assume the show's ceiling heights (about 10') were a mistake given the number of decks in the Joseph plans, but Jefferies had actually assumed fewer decks in his design.

In my plans I used two main sources as seen here, and I've been using the original set plans for interior parts of the ship. Though to date I've only done outline sketches of where I plan on taking all this.

 

[Vance]

Well, they WERE the plans to the Enterprise, since Roddenberry said so. That's the trick of all of it, isn't it?

 

[Forbin]

IIRC, the Ohio class subs have the crew quartered in bunk rooms berthing nine men each, rather than rackling all over the ship. A bit more civilized

 

[westwords2020]

Currently, Russian Delta and Typhoon class subs are fitted for very long operations so a pool, sauna, gymn (?) and pet are are provided along with larger quarters, I think, to allow the crew to withstand a long patrol or under the ice in the Artic.
A bigger ship with 400 crew allows much more in the way of science and sensor capabilities. Computers are more extensive Adequate room is provided for two person cabins for crew and junior officers and single cabins for senior officers.
You have the bowling alley, the forest area and the Olympic swimming pool and large cargo facilities.
You also have more power availible for shields and weapons.
These crew amenties, like on Russian ballistic missile subs allow the crew to not just endure but enjoy their surroundings on a long patrol.
Oh, there are self preparing resturants onboard also.
Finally, a sufficently large shuttlebay is there as well.
Check out US and Soviet Submarine Designs of the Cold War 1946 to 2006 just out and authoured by Norman Polmar, an acknowledged expert in naval vessels with illustrations by A.D.Baker III, an expert in ship drawings.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The real issue of size has always been that there's nothing 100% certain about any of it. The only "real" indicator was the on-screen (but unreadable) 947' number off of one of Matt Jefferies' comparison sketches (showing the 1701 and a Klingon Battlecruiser) in one episode. And, as has been pointed out more than once, he clearly didn't consider the design he provided to be "fully developed." It was, as I stated once (and got flamed over!) a "sketch" rather than a fully-realized design.

These days, many folks have tried to turn it into a real, fully-realized design. Franz Joseph did it first, back in the 1970s, and those were "official plans" signed off on by Paramount and by Roddenberry (though both later on tried to refute everything FJ did... mainly as a turf-battle thing, not due to technical merits). But the idea of trying to "make it all make sense" has been a hobby of some of us here for 40 years or more. So it's not like you can come in and just say "well, why don't we change this?" and not have it come across as a little bit... uh... "brash?"

I accepted the 947' number for years, but over time, started to realize that there were details on the real ship that weren't quite the same as what I THOUGHT I'd seen on-screen (the advent of video-tape certainly helped in that regard!). Today, we have some VERY accurate blueprints of the exterior of the studio model, though the two best-regarded ones still deviate slightly in subtle ways. But while these show the FORM very well, they don't show the SIZE or the INTERNAL CONFIGURATION so well.

That's where the "Matt Jefferies' original intent" stuff really started to come into play. People started comparing the window locations on the model and realized where Jefferies had originally intended deck-lines to have been, for instance.... and it matched up surprisingly well to Jefferies' original TOS-era sketches.

Now, one of the biggest issues with the FJ blueprints from 1974 was that he was bound by Roddenberry's claim that everyone on the ship was an officer (something that was in direct violation of on-screen evidence in numerous episodes!) So FJ's prints turned massive amounts of the internal volume of the ship into private or semi-private cabin space, reducing (as mentioned, above) the available volume for actual WORKING spaces (labs, engineering spaces, control facilities, etc). My own attempt at fitting things into the volume have been based upon reducing the total cabin-related volume by the scheme I described in my earlier post.

I've got a pretty fine model I've used as my starting point (thanks, TallGuy!), which I've been gradually populating internally.

What I discovered was that the deck heights work better if the ship is larger... my "ideal number" turned out to be 1,108', actually... but that's so close to 1080' that I chose to just lock in on that number and lower ceiling heights appropriately. I've allowed for reasonably thick walls and floor/ceilings because these are actual structural elements of the ship... consisting of load-bearing members as well as being heavily populated by plumbing, wiring, and ship's systems components. My walls are typically between 18" and 3' in thickness (thicker ones less common but present in more heavily stressed regions) with my deck thicknesses being about 2'. The hull skin is typically 18" thick... if the internal structure was less robust, this would have to be much heavier, of course.

I found out that I could keep the 10' ceilings for corridors with the 1080' version... assuming that the segments seen in the corridor ceilings are actually mechanical members and that cabin spaces have their ceiling suspended from those members (and thus being less tall overall). I found out that the hangar could work, with a 24' shuttlecraft (Warped9 did some great work on this as well, and I consider his to be the definitive "make it all fit" work on TOS shuttlecraft to date!) without interfering with the pylons on the 1080' version while it does interfere if you use the 947' version (see David Shaw's sketch above, for instance, which uses the 947' number).

I did discover that 11 decks in the primary hull is sort of nonsensical anyway... 10 decks, in the 1080' version, works very nicely (assuming you leave the bridge-dome nub as the turbolift shaft!)

The only real "tweak" that came into play here... where an existing set didn't work exactly as built... was the bridge. The centerline of the lift shaft is further out on the model, at this scale, then it was on the physical set. But the physical set can be tweaked very slightly... enough to justify by "different camera lenses" if you like... and it fits quite nicely. (You just have to accept that Pike had that bridge rearranged so that he didn't have the turbolift door right behind him... apparently the guy hated hearing the whoosh and not being able to see who was sneaking up behind him, so he had the bridge rearranged to annoy some of the TrekBBS posters!)

Seriously, I'm 100% sold on the 1080' thing... though I accept that some folks will always stick with the 947' number. I don't think Jefferies would have minded upsizing the ship by this small amount based upon a more rigorous study of the layout than he ever performed. He clearly was willing to improve on the design over time.

The big issue with your original suggestion, Westwords2020, is that you simply said "why not make it twice as big?" You gave a few examples of big ships. But you failed to support your argument with anything that would either convince us that it SHOULD be increased, or that by doing so you wouldn't be tossing out (for no good reason) 40+ years worth of familiarization so many of us have devoted so much time to already.

There are a number of real naval types (both currently serving and veterans) on here... and there are quite a few real technical types (myself among them) on here who've actually been involved with design at this sort of level for real-world applications (and who as a result try to apply our real-world perspective to this fictional universe).

Over time, most of us are open to adjusting our perspectives... IF YOU MAKE A STRONG, VALID ARGUMENT. I'd heard the 1080 vs. 947 debate for a long time and just stuck with the 947 number because it was "official," til I did the legwork myself and realized that one actually made more sense. I changed my mind because I was convinced, in other words... not by passion, but by logic.

None of us are totally dedicated to the idea that everything ever seen on-screen is inviolable and cannot be questioned. If that was the case, we'd have to accept that Starbase 11 kept their computers in the Enterprise's engineering bay! The trick is to look past the production necessities and to try to make what we have... what we've seen on-screen... fit into some logical framework. And many people... probably tens of thousands, over the years... have dedicated their time and energy to doing so already.

 

[Ronald Held]

Are there any camps beside the ones supporting 947 'and 1080'?

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'm not totally married to the 947' figure, mainly because the notion of the ship being that figure right on the nose, with no left over inches, just kinda bugs me.

I'd much rather just take the exterior and the interior sets, and figure out how big the one has to be to fit all the other stuff inside and not look ridiculous.

 

[Richard Baker]

I would go with the 1080 size. I always figuresd the Saucer to be 11 decks thick and the rim to be 2 decks- it fits the wondow patterns and the ship's interior that we have seen. The Pike era ship had less crew but later refits reduced the amount of equipment and early replicators allowed for less volume to be used for food storage so the crew increased in size. The movie refit increased the size of the ship and changed almost every proportion- the reason it was still called a refit instead of a completely new ship was mentioned soemwhere as that they used origianl parts (sometimes melted and recast) in it's costruction to keep the ship the same famous Enterprise that Starfleet changed all of it's markings to honor.
Starfleet designs always seem to be trying to make things bigger and bigger- the Voyager was consideres a 'small nimble vessel' but it is much larger that the movie refit Enterprise. Edwin Whitfire (one of the original designers of the Galaxy Class with Andy Probert) told me that the Enterprise D was too big- ven with a crew of over a thousand you would have about one person per football field size area- you could wander for weeks and never see anybody else.

.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Shaw,

With that said, 1,080 feet / 329.19 meters sounds more logical. I would speculate that would make the Constitution-Class Refit 347.5 meters?


While, I'm at it: Does this mean the other ships in Star Trek, such as the D-7 would be ~1.140 to 1.141 (1080/947 = 1.404435) times as large?

 

[ancient]

I'm not really loyal to either number, but tend to go with 1080 since, why not?

For me, length is a fairly trivial detail, the true issue is shape and volume, which I like better when the ship is slightly bigger. MJ's sketch is pretty crude, and doesn't match the proportions of the 11-ft model all that well, so I've always figured that fudging with the ship's exact size was always in the cards.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Addendum to the above: I do still tend to lean towards the 947' figure, out of tradition if nothing else, but if, in the end, the ship just won't work at that size, I can handle increasing the size a tad.

 

[Shaw]

Shaw,

With that said, 1,080 feet / 329.19 meters sounds more logical.

Well, the logic of it depends on the goal and motivations of those working on this. And while we are all passionate about envisioning the possibility of the TOS Enterprise, few of our projects are truly overlapping when looking at the constraints we are using. For example, my work is based on similar constraints used by aridas sofia, and because of this our results look very similar. Our goal is to see just how well Jefferies had thought this stuff out back in the 1960's. That type of project has well defined initial conditions and requires almost no re-imagining of anything. Sizes are strictly defined, much of the placement internal elements were given, and from there it is mainly an arrangement puzzle.

Now, with a completely different set of constraints, initial conditions and assumptions, someone else (like you and others) would find a length of 1080 feet a perfectly logical choice. And I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with based on their starting points. My starting points were chronicled in a long (and currently dormant) thread.

But none of this is a contest (to me), I plan on returning to that project at some point when I have some time, but we should all remember that it was a personal project which actually served it's main purpose from my point of view (I now have a very full and complete version of the Enterprise in my mind, that was what I really wanted to begin with). No one else need ever agree with me, and that would be fine. I've encouraged others to make the same attempts I have starting with whatever constraints, conditions and assumptions work for them. And all of my sketches and notes were released under a share-and-share-alike license for all to use if they want to (just as I plan on doing for all future works).

So if 1080' is what works for you, go forward and make it into something that you can share with the rest of us, because I love seeing all of these different ideas.

MJ's sketch is pretty crude, and doesn't match the proportions of the 11-ft model all that well, so I've always figured that fudging with the ship's exact size was always in the cards.

Why are you using a sketch?

We have more than enough of the original construction plans (including accurate measurements) to see that the 11 foot model matches those plans quite well.

But if you lack that information, sure, fudge away. I, on the other hand, felt I had enough information to base my plans on Jefferies original construction plans and only switch to using the 11 foot model after Cary made the suggestion.

 

[ancient]

I don't use the scaled sketch MJ made, that's what I just said.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Assuming the Enterprise was supposed to be 1,080 feet or 329.19 meters in length, does that mean that all of the other ships in Star Trek such as the Romulan BoP, the Klingon/Romulan D-7 and Klingon D-7M all supposed to be proportionately scaled up as well?

CuttingEdge100

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Assuming the Enterprise was supposed to be 1,080 feet or 329.19 meters in length, does that mean that all of the other ships in Star Trek such as the Romulan BoP, the Klingon/Romulan D-7 and Klingon D-7M all supposed to be proportionately scaled up as well?

CuttingEdge100

Not necessarily... since this is a fairly small "tweak" rather than a major redefinition (approximately 14%).

Since we weren't given ANY scale indicator of the Romulan ship, this one is totally untouched. The Tholian ships work just fine either way, too... there is no clear scale definition that sets the two to be a specific size relative to the Enterprise... only a few "rough scale" SFX shots that give you accuracy to, say, +/- 25% or so.

But the Klingon ship... well, we were never really given a length for that other than in the one MJ sketch, nor a relative scale other than in that same MJ sketch.

My take is that the proportions in the sketch (which are very visible on-screen) are important, but the actual length is less so, since it wasn't readable on-screen. SO... in THIS case, yeah, I'd say up-scale the Klingon D-7A (TOS) design (that's always been how I, and many "fan translations," translate the wing-markings on the TOS ship, by the way).

As for the TMP ships... well, since both are (as far as I'm concerned) really entirely new ships that just reuse a few parts to justify the construction of a new ship that's not allowed under treaty/bookkeeping restrictions (that's how I see the TMP ship... it's entirely new, but keeps the same registration and is called a "refit" to avoid violating some sort of regulation or treaty) or the TMP Klingon ship (totally new as well... D-7M, being the widely accepted designation... with the D-7S being the TUC version as I recall!). These ships can be left at their "official scales" per the TMP blueprints without any problem. They are, after all, new ships. And this actually helps out a little bit with the idea that the TOS and TMP Enterprise may have, for instance, kept the same core Primary Hull structure... I believe that this eliminates the "enlarged saucer diameter" issue, doesn't it?)

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Cary L. Brown,

I agree with you that the D-7 being that it was shown in comparison to the Enterprise that it needs to be scaled up as well. I think the D-7M K'Tinga and all D-7 variants need to be scaled up as well.

The D-7A scaled up goes from 228.3 meters to ~260.36 meters
The D-7M scaled up goes from 232.64* meters to ~265.313 meters


CuttingEdge100
* - I took some diagrams and compared the length of the D-7 and D-7M sans nacelles; they were virtually the same length. With the longer nacelles of the D-7M, the ship came out to my computations to be 232.64 meters about.

 

[Shaw]

But the Klingon ship... well, we were never really given a length for that other than in the one MJ sketch, nor a relative scale other than in that same MJ sketch.

My take is that the proportions in the sketch (which are very visible on-screen) are important, but the actual length is less so, since it wasn't readable on-screen.

Well, aren't we actually talking about two sketches... and as for what degree we can (or should) disregard those for certain aspects while retaining other aspects, maybe we should actually look at them here...

​

Unlike other TOS displays (such as the phaser display that is our only on screen reference for the Constitution), these graphics were meant to be seen by the viewer. They were the focus of the camera and two different views were provided.

Seems sort of odd to be using this for relative scale reference between these ships while disregarding the visible scale key in the same set of images.