posted
Well, that explains it... she had breast implants by the time she joined Crossing Jordan.
So the Enterprise was inside the orbital facility... perhaps after creating the hull pieces on the surface and welding them together in an orbital drydock at UP.
That still wouldn't explain why the have pieces of a Galaxy Class on the surface, aside as storage.
BTA... aren't the industrial replicators large enough now to replicate escape pods/shuttlepods?
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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posted
I doubt industrial replicators can produce large, working vehicles, like that. Chunks of them for assembly? Sure. A working escape pod? Probably not.
posted
How large have those industrial replicators gotten?
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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No, but one possibility we may be overlooking is a more aesthetic answer? Like Utopia Planitia is looking to build a ground complex that reflects the scope of their achievements in ship-building at the orbital facilities. So maybe they build themselves the coolest office-building EVAR and make it look like a GCS saucer and assorted hull bits. Maybe? Because I could actually see that happening (esp. where any Scandinavian architects might be involved.)
Because while it might be plausible to assemble these structures on the ground, and it might be possible to lift them into orbit, and while that might even have some marginal safety advantage, it is, at heart, a profoundly silly idea. I'm siding with Lee on this one (minus 80% of the n00Bashing, it's his job, you see). Yes it's an interesting idea, and obviously has given us something to discuss, but I just don't see it.
Because it really wouldn't make sense, even if you could, to assemble this stuff on the ground only to lob it into the sky. Not on the scale of these vessels. There's not even any particularly compelling reason to. We saw the NX-01 being constructed in orbit and I'm guessing ship construction safety/technology wouldn't have taken a step back in the intervening centuries. These TNG engineers, they've got transporters and replicators and force-fields and shit. There's a reason we don't build our supertankers in South Dakota.
Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:From Lee: To build a ship on the ground would require massive gravity-nullification, plus constant and rapidly-shifting and evolving Structural-Integrity field application.
Quite aside from the main topic, as a sidenote I don't think this would be too much of a problem for the Federation. Their computers routinely employ subspace fields to run FTL...so couldn't they be employed to manage millisecond to millisecond changes required to forcefield, structural integrity and artificial gravity systems? After all if it's a matter of compensating for local natural phenomena, an FTL computer should (by definition) be able to operate fast enough to take them into account and adjust things accordingly. As I say just a sidenote, but an interesting one. Well, to me anyway! ;-)
quote:And from bX... it is, at heart, a profoundly silly idea. I'm siding with Lee on this one (minus 80% of the n00Bashing, it's his job, you see).
Minus only 80% of the bashing? :-) I've been around here for a while now. Admittedly I read more than I pitch in, but I would have thought I would have been around long enough to at least be not quite so noobish anymore. Still, as I look into the mirror and see more and more of my dad's hairline staring back at me maybe being considered new in some aspects of my life isn't such a bad thing! ;-)
While I don't think the idea is all that silly, I agree that the majority of on-screen evidence points to orbital construction and I also agree that this has benefits in some aspects over planetside work. However, there is the point made above that the bad guys in "Parallels" had to be looking at the place for something.
Thinking about it, it might tie in with the idea floated earlier that the surface construction area is a place where they build one spaceframe and subject it to extreme conditions for stress tolerance tests. Stands to reason that the hulls they would build in there would be the prototypes for the next series of ships Starfleet would be sending out - that in itself might be enough to entice the bad guys to peek. After all why watch a crew in orbit build yet another Excelsior class when you can train your sensor array on the test range on the ground and see what new stuff they're putting together?
quote:And finally from HerbShrump... Dang it! And I'm always so good about pointing out to my wife people who've played on Star Trek. Can't believe I missed that!
I'm afflicted by this as well - my fiance has to endure paused DVDs and trips to the computer to check the imdb all the time. Last time it was watching "Young Frankenstein" for the nth time, when I realised that the copper with the fake arm was the guy from "Malcolm in the Middle". Felt silly that I hadn't spotted that one before.
Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: The training facility idea has some merit, though I question what use a 1/1 scale replica would be, given that there were supposedly so few GCS in the first place, AND the simple fact that you'd have a holodeck to accomplish most of it anyway.
When I first saw the image, I was sure it had been inspired by the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility:
Note that partial mockups are used (e.g. the crew compartment trainers). And even on the "full" trainer, the wings are left off. And it's all sitting around in one big building.
posted
Yeah... by the 24th Century holodecks are more cost effective. Who knows if those pieces are just there for storage or stress testing, or hell buildings like the Jupiter Station saucers.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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posted
Firstly, the notion that a starship with no inherent atmospheric capability would be constructed planetside is assinine in the extreme.
A huge waste of time, energy and rescources to get it all up into space, clean all the dust and contanimants out of everything and then asemble the major pieces for a second phase of construction...
No.
I'd prefer to think that the setup is part of starfleet's rescue/survivial training. Sorta a "save/survive the crashed starship" seneario.
It's concievable that the whole thing is the final resting place of the Galaxy class' "test to destruction" prototype (as is often called for in aircraft) to see how well the spaceframe held out in a planetfall condition.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
That Utopia Planitia's storage area is also orbiting Mars? I never did figure out where did the Defiant get shelved at.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: (I bet it's the Trinculo.)
A few things... I made the Trinculo joke back on page 1!!
Maybe the ship in question is being DEconstructed?
I would say that back at the time of the Enterprise-D being built - the third Galaxy Class?? They probably would have kept it within the confines of a Spacedock to avoid prying eyes. Especially if the Argus Array can be used to spy on a planet's surface light years away.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
Mabye it's a daycare center for the UP children- you know, one of those cutesy buildings vaguely shaped like the product of the company. Motorolla has a big cellphone shaped playground- mabye it's the Starfleet version.
I'm convinced those are not nacelles, but rather 1950's style diners lined up next to each other.
Or possibly, humans have not outgrown the irrational need for mobile homes in the future and are useing them to attract Martian torandoes as part of some weather experiment.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
You guys need lives, and WOMEN! Then again who am I to talk? I have neither...
I'm going to go watch all six Star Wars movies now. Then The LOTR Trilogy (Extended Edition). Then maybe I'll fantasize about being a porn star....
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
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