USS Enterprise's Neck Width

[Nutso]

[Graham Kennedy]

I've hit this question a few times when I'm making blender models of the Enterprise. I always make the neck as thick as I think I can get away with, precisely because it's so thin on the real model. Still, it is just wide enough to fit a modest room, or a turbolift shaft, some conduits, etc.

Actually I'm in the process of building the polar lights 1/350 scale Enterprise model right now. They say they scanned the actual shooting model to get the details and dimensions perfect, so I can measure things on it and scale them up. I'm intrigued to see if I can get a neck thickness from that.

[Bryan Moore]

I've hit this question a few times when I'm making blender models of the Enterprise. I always make the neck as thick as I think I can get away with, precisely because it's so thin on the real model. Still, it is just wide enough to fit a modest room, or a turbolift shaft, some conduits, etc.

Actually I'm in the process of building the polar lights 1/350 scale Enterprise model right now. They say they scanned the actual shooting model to get the details and dimensions perfect, so I can measure things on it and scale them up. I'm intrigued to see if I can get a neck thickness from that.

This video is similar to other measurements we've seen before - no more than 15 feet wide max - just enough to get a few shafts and conduits as you suggested. I don't even inherently hate the idea of that, though a slightly thicker one would make more sense. My assumption would be that this is significantly supported by jacked up SIF's and the like.

[McAvoy]

15 feet isn't alot. Considering a torpedo from Chang's bird of prey penetrated the saucer could easily do the same thing on the next. In fact a single torpedo could completely wreck a couple of decks on the deck and definitely wreck the structural integrity of the ship.

Though Khan did target the next, specifically the torpedo starboard torpedo launcher and it looked like it pushed the plates in by a few feet or so.

It's possible the neck is the most armored section of the ship.

[Graham Kennedy]

It's interesting that for the following generation, the Excelsior's neck was so much thicker - over 13 times as thick. One can imagine a few phaser shots doing severe damage to the Connie neck, perhaps even completely severing it, but not really so for the Excelsior.

[Atekimogus]

I think it gives the ship quite a distinctive look and I do like - I belive - Doug Drexlers interpretation that including such things that look like an obvious weakpoint, like the neck and nacelle struts make the ship look more advanced in a way.

However, if we assume that structural integrity is not a problem and battle damage is neither (heck..who knows how force field and SIF work anyhow. Since you can have solid force field objects on the holodeck..maybe you don't even need anything physical to hold the neck together in the most extreme circumstance...) there is still one thing that makes this design incredibly impractical:

Traffic. Now I don't know....I guess the whole reason for creating this bottleneck ties into the same as the nacelle struts...things in the drive section could go to hell and need to be contained somehow. Fair enough....but still....how do you manage traffic?

I mean given the crew size I would assume that there are at least 100 people down there working at all times. How do you evacute them in an emergency (which might have knocked out transporter). How do you move - stuff - through there. Transporter might be fine and dandy..but that seems like a "huge" waste of energy just trying to transport a table from one section to the other.....

[Graham Kennedy]

At ten or eleven feet wide, is there going to be a problem with moving stuff, though?

Remember, as far as we know the saucer section doesn't detach on the TOS Connie. So it's not like a problem with the engines might require everyone to be evacuated.

Nor, that we know of, is there any particular need to move large cargo items around the ship interior. We've seen a few cargo crates and things in TOS, and none of them were especially large.



One wonders at the carrying capacity of the turbolift system. In the TNG tech manual we're told that multiple lifts wander the system, with occasional little sidings one lift can move over into so another can pass by. If the Connie system is anything like that then the carrying capacity would only really depend on how many lifts there are. In a matter of a minute or two you could move all the lifts down into the engineering hull, sending them through the shaft in the neck one behind the other. Once there the doors open, you fill a lift, the doors close and it whooshes off and a moment later the next car arrives to repeat the process.

It's only speculation, but if there's say five lifts in the system, you could move several dozen people for every couple of minutes. Evacuating a hundred people from the engineering hull really shouldn't take that long. Five to ten minutes, maybe. And that's assuming there's only one shaft in the neck... if there's two in there you could cycle lifts on a continuous loop. Great increase in the carrying capacity from that.

[Atekimogus]

At ten or eleven feet wide, is there going to be a problem with moving stuff, though?

Remember, as far as we know the saucer section doesn't detach on the TOS Connie. So it's not like a problem with the engines might require everyone to be evacuated.

Nor, that we know of, is there any particular need to move large cargo items around the ship interior. We've seen a few cargo crates and things in TOS, and none of them were especially large.

.

Well that depends on what you really need on the engineering section. But one thing which always bugged me on blueprints of all Star Trek ships is that they are missing...imho reasonably spaced...avenues to move stuff.

Imagine the following scenario. The transporters are offline for whatever reason. You have wounded in the engineering hull which you cannot transport upright. You are effed already...no gurney is fitting in the turbolift. (or maybe one, definitely not two).

Simple things...a chair breaks....you want to move a new chair to engineering...what a nightmare in turbolifts. A desk? Forget about it completely. So yes...if we assume that not all furniture and machinery bigger than computer workstation is manufactured on spot....there seems to me a traffic problem.

Now canon-wise there is no problem really...I just assume there are wide "main streets" and staircases we just never see......but you don't really have them on blueprints afaik. Especially a ship as huge as the E-D would have some form of transportationsystem (maybe even a maglev train or something) because the turbolifts seem definitely not up to the task of moving so many people around (and the E-D was understaffed as all hell....consider it being filled up to 10k plus people which COULD be on that ship).

Like missing toilets, a functioning transport system is something star ship blueprint artists like to forget about or just wave away with having access to transporters and replicators.

[Captain Seafort]

Remember, as far as we know the saucer section doesn't detach on the TOS Connie. So it's not like a problem with the engines might require everyone to be evacuated.

KIRK: Then use your imagination. Tie every ounce of power the ship has into the impulse engines. Discard the warp drive nacelles if you have to, and crack out of there with the main section, but get that ship out of there!

She can definitely jettison her nacelles, the question is whether the "main section" refers to the saucer or engineering hull in isolation, or both combined.

[Graham Kennedy]

Come on, a chair would fit easily in a turbolift. As would a fairly sizeable desk, if you just tipped it on end.

Not sure you couldn't lie somebody down in one, too.

I'm not saying there's never going to be anything too big to move, I just doubt it's an issue that would come up anything like regularly.

[Atekimogus]

Come on, a chair would fit easily in a turbolift. As would a fairly sizeable desk, if you just tipped it on end.

Not sure you couldn't lie somebody down in one, too.

I'm not saying there's never going to be anything too big to move, I just doubt it's an issue that would come up anything like regularly.

That depends on the ship size I would imagine. It would also depend on how the whole logistical side of things are handled, something which we never really see. How do they restock a Constitution class ship? On the E-Nil I would assume through the shuttle bay? Then they would have to move everything from there to the saucer in a turbolift which is clearly not designed to tranport things. It is quite cleary just a person transporter.

On the refit there are - I belive - oppenings on the saucer which are suppost for restocking/refueling? But again, no real logistical facilities visible on the blueprints I think.

What about items you cannot beam? Can you beam a photon torpedo, for example? I would assume you'd rather restock them in a more traditional way.

Let me give you a couple more examples:

You restock torpedoes. Let us assume you fit 4-5 into a turbolift. Someone wants to use the lift, the door opens and..."Excuse me, this lift is full.....of anti-matter torpedoes, please take the next"....would make actually quite a hilarious scene.

I work with scientific equipment (microscopes mostly) and let me tell you...(and I am not even talking about MRAs or something)...this stuff is heavy and bulky and not so easy to transport. Now considering they are a scientific ship as well...they will have to regularily update/upgrade and exchange their scientific equipment. You want a bigger lift than a turbolift for moving this stuff around.

Consider a hospital. Well designed hospitals are acutally kinda designed like train stations. Very efficient in directing and moving about traffic. Their lifts are 3-4 times the size of a turbolift. Now for a Connie this might not be a problem. But just scaling everything up to the size of a GCS without thinking about logistical demands.......I think the GCS should have a logistical transport system "other" than turbolifts for sure. Similar to a service deck on an aircraft carrier, I think there should be at least one deck (saucer and engineering) dedicated purely to logistics and being able to move stuff around. An "empty" deck so to speck just as a distribution "warehouse".

[bladela]

You restock torpedoes. Let us assume you fit 4-5 into a turbolift. Someone wants to use the lift, the door opens and..."Excuse me, this lift is full.....of anti-matter torpedoes, please take the next"....would make actually quite a hilarious scene.

I do not think they move torpedoes armed with antimatter, if I'm not mistaken they are loaded at the time of the launch (which must make the torpedo room an unpleasant place to work).

Consider a hospital. Well designed hospitals are acutally kinda designed like train stations. Very efficient in directing and moving about traffic. Their lifts are 3-4 times the size of a turbolift. Now for a Connie this might not be a problem. But just scaling everything up to the size of a GCS without thinking about logistical demands.......I think the GCS should have a logistical transport system "other" than turbolifts for sure. Similar to a service deck on an aircraft carrier, I think there should be at least one deck (saucer and engineering) dedicated purely to logistics and being able to move stuff around. An "empty" deck so to speck just as a distribution "warehouse".

a GCS has several cargo bays and cargo transport, that should fulfill that requirement easily i think.

Without forgetting that, at least in TNG, the use of replicators may have reduced the need to bring medium-small size equipment from outside the ship.
What you need to load is the replication data package and the raw material (which is supplied at stops at the starbases) and simply replicate the component and teleport it to the desired room. You will then have to "just" move it to the exact point and connect it to the interconnections (data, energy ... others ...)

[Graham Kennedy]

You restock torpedoes. Let us assume you fit 4-5 into a turbolift. Someone wants to use the lift, the door opens and..."Excuse me, this lift is full.....of anti-matter torpedoes, please take the next"....would make actually quite a hilarious scene.

I do not think they move torpedoes armed with antimatter, if I'm not mistaken they are loaded at the time of the launch (which must make the torpedo room an unpleasant place to work).

Maybe worth noting that during the production of TOS, photon torpedoes weren't physical objects at all. They were a M/AM charge contained within a magnetic field. We didn't see casings until ST II.

I think the GCS should have a logistical transport system "other" than turbolifts for sure. Similar to a service deck on an aircraft carrier, I think there should be at least one deck (saucer and engineering) dedicated purely to logistics and being able to move stuff around. An "empty" deck so to speck just as a distribution "warehouse".

I always figured they used internal beaming for this. Cargo bays are fitted with transporters, likely for this very reason.

[bladela]

Maybe worth noting that during the production of TOS, photon torpedoes weren't physical objects at all. They were a M/AM charge contained within a magnetic field. We didn't see casings until ST II.

that would explode almost immediately after leaving the ship ... sorry ... moment of real life attack

I always figured they used internal beaming for this. Cargo bays are fitted with transporters, likely for this very reason.

I don't remember if in tng it is ever said that a GCS has internally industrial replicators, which would be exactly what is needed in these cases (such as those that were intended to provide the Cardassians)

[Graham Kennedy]

Maybe worth noting that during the production of TOS, photon torpedoes weren't physical objects at all. They were a M/AM charge contained within a magnetic field. We didn't see casings until ST II.

that would explode almost immediately after leaving the ship ... sorry ... moment of real life attack

I always figured they used internal beaming for this. Cargo bays are fitted with transporters, likely for this very reason.

I don't remember if in tng it is ever said that a GCS has internally industrial replicators, which would be exactly what is needed in these cases (such as those that were intended to provide the Cardassians)

I've always imagined that there must be a multitude of different sizes for replicators. At the low end, the standard food replicators. Then larger ones for larger items, etc, right up to the industrial replicator which can... what? Stuff like whole vehicles replicated in one go, maybe. To my mind an industrial replicator is a very serious piece of hardware, maybe dozens of those materialisation pads each churning out a constant stream of goods - remember that only seven of these were expected to rebuild the economy of an entire planet, each one must be the equivalent of dozens of present day factories.

So I don't doubt that something like a Galaxy class has a good sized replicator that could make things like a computer core, a crate of phasers, a small fusion reactor, a ten foot long section of conduit, a hull plate, etc.

I do doubt that it has a true industrial replicator that's basically the industrial revolution in a can.