Spacedock Idea

[Sonic Glitch]

I was perusing Memory Alpha last night (when I should've been studying...o well..) and was reading the Spacedock entry and had a thought about how various larger ships can get in. I know people mention the fact that the Connie and Excelsior barely fit through the doors so therefore how could larger ships enter/egress. Is it possible that the Spacedock/Starbase has more than one "Gate" and they're of varying widths?

[Tyyr]

Given the size of the facility it'd be quite strange for their to only be a single entrance/exit. I'd imagine it would have several. The issue isn't that, it's that why would Starfleet build a facility like that with doors so much larger than anything in the fleet at the time?

[Sonic Glitch]

Given the size of the facility it'd be quite strange for their to only be a single entrance/exit. I'd imagine it would have several. The issue isn't that, it's that why would Starfleet build a facility like that with doors so much larger than anything in the fleet at the time?

Starfleet thought ahead and realized they will probably increase their ship sizes so rather than have to rebuild from scratch, they built the facility with future expansion in mind, much like the GCS I'd say?

[Mikey]

Right. It's ridiculous to think that the movie-era Spacedock would accomodate the larger TNG-era ships... but to say that the latest ships of its time "barely" fit means that there was very little thought of forward compatibility put into the design.

[Tyyr]

Well look at how its done in modern days. It's rare to see a facility designed to accommodate that kind of growth. The GCS is triple the Connie's beam and double it's height. You just don't spend the money to accommodate that kind of thing, it's wasteful. You tell the guy a century down the road to build his own space dock.

Now as for the Connie/Excelsior. The Excelsior is about 50% greater beam and 33% greater height. Assuming that Spacedock is a TOS era facility that's pretty good room for growth designed into it.

[Sionnach Glic]

It's rare to see a facility designed to accommodate that kind of growth.

Aye, but does any modern day drydock represent the same drain of resources and finances that Spacedock must surely have?

If you're going to build something like that, you don't want to find out in just 20 years that the design no longer works and you need to build a new one. Best to just say "make the doors twice as wide as they need to be" and get another couple of decades worth of service out of it.

[Tyyr]

We don't know what it costs the Federation to build a Spacedock. On top of that the more it costs to build the greater the pressure to reduce costs. Sure you can argue that you can stretch its life a bit longer but right now the bean counters will be looking at the price tag of the space dock as a whole then looking at what its going to cost to dramatically inflate the size of the openings beyond anything in the fleet now or the foreseeable near term and your supersized doors are going to be on the chopping block first.

[BigJKU316]

We don't know what it costs the Federation to build a Spacedock. On top of that the more it costs to build the greater the pressure to reduce costs. Sure you can argue that you can stretch its life a bit longer but right now the bean counters will be looking at the price tag of the space dock as a whole then looking at what its going to cost to dramatically inflate the size of the openings beyond anything in the fleet now or the foreseeable near term and your supersized doors are going to be on the chopping block first.

I think by far the most realistic solution would be to add external docking ports or arms on the underside of the saucer of Spacedock rather than expand the entrance at all. Your new purpose built docks can do major overhauls but there is no reason you could not run fuel and supplies through a docking port and do a good amount of work on a bigger ship that way.

Much cheaper than putting in a bigger entrance either after the fact or when you build it.

[Sionnach Glic]

You probably have a point, Tyyr. I just find it odd that someone would design a massive station which they must know may need replacing - or at the least a massive refit - in just a few decades.

BigJ' is right, though. Some docking arms would make infinitely more sense than an enclosed area.

[Tyyr]

I was going to say the doors are fairly ridiculous myself. Far simpler and cheaper to just have a big hold in the side of it.

[Deepcrush]

Anyone here thought that maybe they just enlarged the doors at some point? Seems simple enough to me.

[kostmayer]

Was just coming to post the same thing. Unless its a solid structure (doubtful considering its size), surely they can remove the outer panels and install bigger doors.

[Aaron]

You probably have a point, Tyyr. I just find it odd that someone would design a massive station which they must know may need replacing - or at the least a massive refit - in just a few decades.

BigJ' is right, though. Some docking arms would make infinitely more sense than an enclosed area.

The Panama Canal is the same size it's been for a good long while. Naval vessels are still designed with transit through it in mind. It's been in use for almost a century, frankly I would expect SF to design it's ships within the constraints of it's dock doors or use arms rather then design a whole new station.

[Atekimogus]

Anyone here thought that maybe they just enlarged the doors at some point? Seems simple enough to me.

My thoughts exactly.

[BigJKU316]

You probably have a point, Tyyr. I just find it odd that someone would design a massive station which they must know may need replacing - or at the least a massive refit - in just a few decades.

BigJ' is right, though. Some docking arms would make infinitely more sense than an enclosed area.

The Panama Canal is the same size it's been for a good long while. Naval vessels are still designed with transit through it in mind. It's been in use for almost a century, frankly I would expect SF to design it's ships within the constraints of it's dock doors or use arms rather then design a whole new station.

Not entierly true. By the end of WWII several ships existed that could not use the Panama Canal in the form of the Midway Class carriers and the proposed Montana Class Battleships. You could just cram an Iowa in there. None of the carriers built since can fit in the locks and they have to go around.

I would expect there is some advantage in having the ships in an interior environment for work being done or you would not build such a thing you would just build something on which all the ships can dock externally. Once you accept that as fact then you have to conclude at some point they would build a new station to handle the new ships they project putting in service. That either means a bigger station or bigger doors.

You can do without the Canal, you can't build a ship without having a drydock in which to service the thing.