I know it's a teaser trailer. Kinda like lingerie on a good looking woman (what's underneath might not be what you're really seeing). But if you notice in the background of the teaser...a city. Most likely San Francisco. IF, and this is a BIG IF, if the Enterprise is being built on Earth...why? Wouldn't the most logical way be in space dock? Or am I missing some fan wank logic that I've yet to pick up?
Why Build On Earth?
- Thread starter FlightCntrl
- Start date
Whether sarcastic or not, it just seems...I dunno...a little much to believe something THAT SIZE could get off the ground feasibly. Place all the technobabble you want in the thing, but in the long run, something the size of a Constitution class vessel...is well...BIG!
Cheaper than launching all those parts into space? Safer than the thousnds of dangerous man hours working in space suits? Easier, because the new Enterprise can fly in atmosphere. Notice the rotors at the front and fins on the nacelles? What else are they for?
Given an easy technobabble solution to lifting such a payload (remember this is a world with tractor beams, transporters and impulse drive at its disposal), allowing the ship to be built in a shirtsleeve environment makes sense from a worker safety perspective.
End technobabble solution. They did it because JJ Abrams though it would look cool to juxtapose grungy-looking welders and antiquated construction techniques against... wait, what is that they're working on... GASP! It's the ENTERPRISE!
As for the spinning things... my technobabble guess would be that they are the components that, spinning in opposition, create the bussard collector's particle-atractive field. Once they get going they will create the familiar energized glow we see at the front end of a nacelle, only we'll know it's not just a glowing dome but an actual mechanism. It's Abrams' grungy mechanical rationalization for the spinning nacelle effect so familiar to us from TOS.
End technobabble solution. They did it because JJ Abrams though it would look cool to juxtapose grungy-looking welders and antiquated construction techniques against... wait, what is that they're working on... GASP! It's the ENTERPRISE!
As for the spinning things... my technobabble guess would be that they are the components that, spinning in opposition, create the bussard collector's particle-atractive field. Once they get going they will create the familiar energized glow we see at the front end of a nacelle, only we'll know it's not just a glowing dome but an actual mechanism. It's Abrams' grungy mechanical rationalization for the spinning nacelle effect so familiar to us from TOS.
That's a great explanation. I think it's going to fly into space. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
It's amazing that people who watch a show about space ships that can travel at speeds faster than light, travel through time, and all the other wacky stuff we see in Star Trek, can completely forget a little something called Anti-Gravity.
And, in the old "Lost Years Saga" novel, "A Flag Full of Stars", which documented the ship's overhaul between TOS/TAS and TMP, the secondary hull was in the orbiting drydock, but the saucer was on the ground.
As in the implicit technological capability that allows the personnel to walk as if they were on a planetary surface -- on the decks of a craft in space? The technology that allows them to not be smeared into (or the ship itself, for that matter) a paste of near-molecular depth during acceleration/ deceleration. Or, allows the an almost unimaginable acceleration of a large mass to significant percentages of the speed of light in mere moments?
But, somehow, is incapable of lifting said large mass into orbit?
It's only because it hadn't been shown in TOS/ TOS-cast movies... until (implied) now.
But, somehow, is incapable of lifting said large mass into orbit?
It's only because it hadn't been shown in TOS/ TOS-cast movies... until (implied) now.
Remember, though, that with Trek (as with all science fiction) we have to accept that the mere showing of futuristic thing A in use does not necessarily mean that the logically following futuristic thing B would be in use.
With Trek, we have to accept that warp drives and transporters coexist with user interfaces that consist of hundreds of colored, unlabeled plastic push-buttons, and with advanced communication devices that can carry audio only. If we truly speculated upon the research and development needed to create warp drive and transporter, we would find it unlikely to the extreme that our heroes wouldn't have mind-controlled computers and fully visual communication devices.
Unlikely to the extreme, yet there it sits, smack in the middle of the Trek universe. So we have to invent rationales as to why Trek gives us certain futuristic things but not others. We can never claim that Trek "should" have something because it has everything needed for it, because what actually "is" on screen always trumps what "should" be there.
The saying about the impossible being easier to swallow than the highly improbable holds true, of course. But sometimes we have to swallow the highly improbable, because that's what we get, and that's what the stories grow out of. Trek as we know it wouldn't work if the computers were mind-controlled, and the communicators had visual feed: many a plot opportunity would be lost.
Trek isn't "the" future, it is one out of the zillions possible. If it at some point becomes dramatically necessary to say that a Constitution class starship cannot lift herself from surface to orbit, we have to accept that and work out a rationalization. Now that's a bit difficult to do when we have seen other classes of starships operate out of planetary surfaces and atmospheres with trivial ease...
But let's say it becomes dramatically necessary to show the Constitition class being constructed on the shores of San Francisco bay. Again, we can and will rationalize, and this time it's easier going because we haven't exactly seen anything that would preclude this from happening.
We may have to invent several centuries' worth of pseudohistory to justify why this happens - but then again, we already have to do something like that to explain why only the Borg are cybernetically enhanced, why Data is unique and artificial intelligences don't coexist with humanoids or indeed rule over them, and why Kirk wears clumsy laced 1960s boots that would be out of place in the seventies, let alone the 2260s.
A future where NCC-1701 is welded together on Earth is possible. It's a weird one, to be sure, but so is the rest of Trek. And it's not a major doze of additional weirdness when we think it through.
Timo Saloniemi
With Trek, we have to accept that warp drives and transporters coexist with user interfaces that consist of hundreds of colored, unlabeled plastic push-buttons, and with advanced communication devices that can carry audio only. If we truly speculated upon the research and development needed to create warp drive and transporter, we would find it unlikely to the extreme that our heroes wouldn't have mind-controlled computers and fully visual communication devices.
Unlikely to the extreme, yet there it sits, smack in the middle of the Trek universe. So we have to invent rationales as to why Trek gives us certain futuristic things but not others. We can never claim that Trek "should" have something because it has everything needed for it, because what actually "is" on screen always trumps what "should" be there.
The saying about the impossible being easier to swallow than the highly improbable holds true, of course. But sometimes we have to swallow the highly improbable, because that's what we get, and that's what the stories grow out of. Trek as we know it wouldn't work if the computers were mind-controlled, and the communicators had visual feed: many a plot opportunity would be lost.
Trek isn't "the" future, it is one out of the zillions possible. If it at some point becomes dramatically necessary to say that a Constitution class starship cannot lift herself from surface to orbit, we have to accept that and work out a rationalization. Now that's a bit difficult to do when we have seen other classes of starships operate out of planetary surfaces and atmospheres with trivial ease...
But let's say it becomes dramatically necessary to show the Constitition class being constructed on the shores of San Francisco bay. Again, we can and will rationalize, and this time it's easier going because we haven't exactly seen anything that would preclude this from happening.
We may have to invent several centuries' worth of pseudohistory to justify why this happens - but then again, we already have to do something like that to explain why only the Borg are cybernetically enhanced, why Data is unique and artificial intelligences don't coexist with humanoids or indeed rule over them, and why Kirk wears clumsy laced 1960s boots that would be out of place in the seventies, let alone the 2260s.
A future where NCC-1701 is welded together on Earth is possible. It's a weird one, to be sure, but so is the rest of Trek. And it's not a major doze of additional weirdness when we think it through.
Timo Saloniemi
Frankly I have no problems with the ship being built on Earth. What I have issues with is welding. The metal used in welds are softer than usual metals. I wonder how the metal frame with soft metal welds is going to withstand the rigors of space. One asteroid or a photon torpedo is going to rip the whole ship apart.
Besides, the surface plating seems to follow the shape of the metal frame very closely. There does not seem to be enough space for bulkheads. I wonder how the starship is going to be airtight!
Besides, the surface plating seems to follow the shape of the metal frame very closely. There does not seem to be enough space for bulkheads. I wonder how the starship is going to be airtight!
I don't get the latter thing. Why wouldn't the surface be the airtight part?
We don't really know which part does what in a 23rd century starship, but the TNG Tech Manual tries to make it sound as if the 24th century ones have a load-carrying frame plated with stuff, but hollow on the inside - creating in effect a "load-carrying skin" even though it's actually thanks to the frame. Things could be pretty much the same here, with the plating irrelevant to structural strength.
Timo Saloniemi
We don't really know which part does what in a 23rd century starship, but the TNG Tech Manual tries to make it sound as if the 24th century ones have a load-carrying frame plated with stuff, but hollow on the inside - creating in effect a "load-carrying skin" even though it's actually thanks to the frame. Things could be pretty much the same here, with the plating irrelevant to structural strength.
Timo Saloniemi
This is what I am referring to. Do you notice the thickness of the saucer wall as well as how every deck/level extends right up to the saucer's wall. Its almost as if the saucer is simply covered with steel plates. All this make it feel as if the Enterprise is just a sea-faring cruiser.
"The unit components were built at the Star Fleet Division of what is still called the San Francisco Navy Yards, and the vessel was assembled in space. The Enterprise is not designed to enter the atmosphere of a planet and never lands on a planet surface." From "The Making of 'Star Trek'", copyright 1968, p. 171.
Now, whether or not one wants to take that as canon or not (it's not "on screen") is problematic. In my day, that book was the Bible. The written word to settle almost any "Star Trek" argument.
I have trouble believing that it would be dangerous to work in space compared to ground construction. By that time there are space stations orbiting planets, starbases, colonies in space, and long deep space travels by warp drive are common. Spacewalks are probably done for a lark. You'd have to think construction in space would be commonplace.
Editedt to add: Working in space would also be cheaper, because components would weigh less. Easier to move around. Easier to place. No gravity to fight. Imagine placing the engines on the struts in 1 g versus doing it in space. Further, imagine attaching the saucer to its neck in 1 g as to the comparative ease of doing it in no gravity.
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