Let us discuss canon, "official but not canon" and "things we can deduce from canon" information regarding early shuttlecraft. I'll start -- join in as you can and by the time we're done perhaps we'll have a better understanding of how those things were supposed to be used.

The shuttles do not have racing stripes. Nor do they have fuzzy dice hanging from the ceiling. They are no-nonsense workhorses, functional and without adornment -- maybe.

The TOS shuttles have nacelles. When the series was first created, I suppose that the inclusion of nacelles on shuttlecraft was intended to visually link the smaller vessel with the Enterprise, ensuring the audience knew that this was one of the "good guy's" ships. However, as things turn out, we eventually "learned" that the nacelles were not necessarily "power pods" as first envisioned by the series' creators, but the main element of the warp drive system.

So how fast is it?

Other questions:

• How long can a shuttlecraft operate without refuelling (or other support)?

• If they used the TOS shuttles for interstellar travel, did the Federation operate a series of rest areas or gas stations along well-travelled routes? The TOS Technical Manual's diagrams and cutaways of the shuttle show no provision for personal hygiene, especially a toilet.

  "You'd better go before we leave. The next stop is 1.5 light years away and we don't have a porta-potty!" Perhaps it's in the classified aft compartment?

Warning!
The Mark III Pottymatic^tm matter conversion waste disposal unit is a classified system!
Access to the Mark III Pottymatic^tm matter conversion waste disposal unit is controlled by the shuttlecraft commander. You must provide proof of clearance to the shuttlecraft commander or access will be denied.
Failure to provide proper proof-of-clearance before attempting to operate the Mark III Pottymatic^tm matter conversion waste disposal unit is punishable by Federation law!

• Since they don't have wings and have landing pads rather than wheels, I presume shuttles have VTOL capability. Do you suppose this is an anti-grav system or impulse? If it's impulse, how do they keep the downwash from blasting the heck out of everything below the shuttle?

Answers and speculation are appreciated, but what I'm really looking for is questions I haven't thought of yet. There's a lot we might know about the shuttles that we aren't aware of yet. Let's find out what we know.

--Baloo

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"Going to church does not make you a Christian anymore than going to McDonalds's makes you a hamburger."
--[Source unknown.]
http://www.geocities.com/cyrano_jones.geo/

[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited February 28, 2000).]
 

1) TOS shuttles weren't seen in actual interstellar transit any more than TNG shuttles were. The longest-sounding trip was the one in "Metamorphosis", with the command staff escorting the commissioner (Nancy Hetford? I don't have the 'pedia with me now) from one system to the next - but even there, the shuttle could simply have been getting out of the system to meet the Enterprise at the Oort cloud (a natural thing to do, considering that there was this big asteroid cloud in between). So probably even at optimal speeds, endurance would only be semi-interstellar, crew survival a matter of weeks at most.

In "The Menagerie", the shuttle *must* be capable of warp speeds because it almost catces up with the Enterprise. The ship cannot be fleeing at mere impulse, since it is in interstellar transit (and I think warp speeds are even explicitly mentioned). Or would starbase 11 be in the same system as Talos? Sounds extremely unlikely (but it would help explain how the Talosians can project a fake Mendez on the starbase!). Warp 2 is a possible top speed (Kirk did cruise at warp 2 now and then - and Spock might have been hoping Kirk would catch up, so he'd go easy on the gas pedal).

2)The shuttle might have had a modular internal configuration, with a "sleep-in" module for longer flights. Too bad none was seen in "Metamorphosis". We did see the aft compartment, or the starboard half of it, in that episode - it was a silly empty room with dials on the starboard wall. The other wall could very easily have held a porta-pot.

3)Probably antigravs do most of the work at final approach, with a little help from rocket engines (the ST5 shuttle kicks up dust as it lands). I doubt impulse engines are used at all within an atmosphere, since DS9 "The Siege" seems to say they are useless there. Lower-power rockets probably exist for atmospheric maneuvering.

We never saw the underside of the TOS shuttle. Perhaps it would have held glowing thingamabobs similar to those of the ST5 shuttle, serving as landing antigravs?

Now for the bonus questions:

-Assuming the shuttles are capable of warp 2 or so, do they have antimatter engines or something else? Where are the engines housed? Probably most of the machinery is in the nacelles (this is where fuel was vented from in "The Galileo Seven"). Impulse nozzles may be in the back compartment (although they do not fill any major portion of it), as might be life support. Navigational gear could be at the nose. Microminiaturization at work!

-Are the shuttles armed? I very much doubt it. Nor do I believe in onboard transporters, not even emergency ones. But perhaps late in the movie era?

-Do the shuttles have forcefield air-curtains or what? If not, how did Spock eject the antimatter bomb in "Immunity Syndrome"? Did he don a spacesuit? Where would those be stored?

-Do the shuttles have shields of any sort? Those might be necessary for atmospheric maneuvering, and a nav deflector is a must if the craft has warp capability (perhaps one of those undernose grilles?).

Timo Saloniemi

 

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"The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity�s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something."
Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"

 

So "The Menagerie" has Class F shuttles. Some Voyager episode ("Alice"?) has Paris mentioning a Class J shuttle as well - or was it Class S? The Class system might be parallel to the Type one, or might represent a higher hierarchy level (and Class B might be the same as the Class 2 often bandied about in Voyager). Or then the Class system might be an earlier one, and when Starfleet reached Class Z, they switched to the Type system.

Timo Saloniemi
 

Does there seem to be any relationship between the type and class of shuttles seen on-screen? Or do they just seem to assign these classes and type numbers at random?

Example: do all type 1 shuttles have a certain number of seats or a certain amount of internal volume?

--Baloo

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"Going to church does not make you a Christian anymore than going to McDonalds's makes you a hamburger."
--[Source unknown.]
http://www.geocities.com/cyrano_jones.geo/

I'm not certain about the TOS reference but I think the Class S shuttle from VOY might of been a designation of a civilian shuttlecraft different than the Starfleet shuttles.

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"The Borg wouldn't know fun if they assimilated an amusement park" - Torres
Federation Starship Datalink - On that annoying Tripod server.
 

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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory
 

So canonically we have Type 6, Class 2, Class 6, Class F, Class S all applying to various shuttlecraft (and Class 6, Class 7 and Class 9 applying to various second-rate starships, not to mention the Class system of probes). It's unlikely there would really be three overlapping systems. To remove unnecessary overlap, perhaps Class 2 would be the same as Class B, and Class and Type would describe slightly different aspects of the craft?

Timo Saloniemi
 

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"Life's a bitch, then you die"
-USS Vanderbilt, Vanderbuilt Class starship

 

The shuttle in Generations was a miniature originally built for ST5:TFF. Modelmakers simply added side windows and removed side sponsons and redid the paint job to make the shuttle look more like a stretched Type 6.

There were two full-size shuttles built for ST5:TFF, as well as one miniature. One full-sizer was reworked into the Type 6 shuttle for TNG "Darmok", and a corresponding Type 6 miniature built. The other, however, was stretched and otherwise modified for Generations, and the above-mentioned special miniature was also created to match this modification. The full-size modification was never used in Generations in the end, but the corresponding miniature was.

After Generations, the full-sizer was destroyed by weather. The other full-sizer that had spent time as the Type 6 in TNG and Voyager and even some DS9 was finally destroyed in Voyager "Alice" to create an alien shuttle. Only the miniatures (as well as some CGI) survive now.

Timo Saloniemi