Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Size of 'mushroom' starbases.

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

As you might have guessed from this thread's title, I'm going to ask you what the size (estimate) for the mushroom-shaped starbases is (both 'small' TMP one and Starbse 74).

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Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

There was no starbase in TMP. Unless you mean the upside down "Regula I" office thing.
Mushroom Space dock was first seen in STIII, and also in STVI (I know the inside part was in IV and V, but I don't think there were any external shots of it).

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Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

There was an exterior shot in IV, because I remember seeing the lights blink out when the probe went by.

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Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

And, in actuality, Regula I is an upside down office complex...

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Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

The docking bay on Starbase 375 held the stolen Jem"Hadar bug with very little room to spare. Starbase 375 was a "mushroom" station minus the long tanks on the bottom (or top?) Using this as a calculation of size, the starbase shouldn't be very big at all.

Of course, other shots of the station with starships in the background made it look quite larger than it should be using the above method.

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Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :

Starbase 375 is not a mushroom starbase. It's an Office Complex/Regula 1 starbase without the Regula 1 bottom extension.

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Groundskeeper Willy: Aye. I also 'ate the mess he left on me rug. [Bart stares.] Ya heard me!

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

There was also a big-arsed mushroom station at UP where the Enterprise-D was built... you saw it in the episode "Booby Trap" well the inside of it anyway...

I've got a pic... wait a second...

OK nope, I can't find it - can somebody post the picture of the Geordi looking out those large windows at the skeleton of the E-D?

Here is a shot from Starbase 74 or the one from "Remember Me"

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Did I say TMP? I must have been drunk

I meant 'Spacedock' and Starbase 74, actually.

So how big could the above station (74) be, if it can house an entire Galaxy ship?

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Posted by MIB on :

From what I heard the mushroom spacedock that was orbiting earth was approx. 3.5 to 4 miles in diameter and 5 miles tall. As for starbase 74, it could be the same size as the earth spacedock. Starbase 74 might have simply had larger doors for larger ships. Just because a galaxy class ship could dock there doesn't mean the entire starbase is larger. All it means to me is that starbase 74 has larger doors.

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

74 *is* larger. In an exterior shot with the Ent-D and the station, the Ent-D appeared to be just as big as the old Enterprise in the old shot with Spacedock.

BTW, how many (kilo)meters is a mile? I'm accustomed to the metric system.

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

1.609Km/mi

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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

1 mile is exactly 1.60934 km.

And I don't think the mushroom starbase model never got a 'door-upgrade'. In the Star Trek Universe^tm I think it will be more logical that it had its door enlarged, and that overal size is the same.

But that's just my opinion.

Somebody count those windows and check that for me! I don't have the episode on tape...

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

I haven't posted in a while, but now I'm back! Ready to bore you with more technical related minutae! Ha ha ha ha ha! Ahem.

Now, to the topic at hand, I don't believe the "mushroom" base ever got any changes to its doors. I never actually saw the episode with Starbase 74 in it, but I've seen screenshots, and the door remains proportionally the same size to the rest of the station superstructure between the STNG episode and ST-III. So the station was built bigger.

Boy, that's a lot to explain a little.

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

I'd say they just adjusted the size of the ships in the SFX department so they fit through the doors. *SHOCK*

But if you're looking for a trek explanation I'd suggest that there isn't a logical one.

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Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

::gasps:: You mean it isn't REAL? AHH! No, seriously, I understand they made a minor continuity error. In the trek world, we just have the say they make them in multiple sizes. "We have here our Mark I models, built to fit small dogs and rodents, and over here is the Mark IV . . ."

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

That's all very interesting, but it still leaves me with my question

What size is Starbase 74 compared to the Ent-D?

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

I'd say, given the size difference between the Ent-A and Ent-D: about two times the height and width given above for the movie Starbase.

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

[This message has been edited by Altair (edited January 15, 2001).]

Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

I always based it on that the Enterprise and the Excelsior had to fit in the Spacedock so the doors would be in the ballpark figure of 200 meters. Now the Galaxy class' saucer is about the same length as the Excelsior class so that would be about 500 meters. So find out the dimensions of the Spacedock and mulitply that by 2.5 and you get a good general idea of how large these stations are. I think it's the largest man-made object (aside from Ocean World and Unimatrix 1) that was built in Star Trek.

With the size of Starbase 74, I think its possible to have smaller doors somewhere on the bottom about the same size as the ones in ST 3.

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Wasn't Mr. Dyson human? Or did he just discover it?

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Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Freeman Dyson is very human. He's a physicist, professor, author, and futurist. Among his many interesting and intricate ideas is an object now called a Dyson's sphere, which he postulated might be constructed by a very advanced species. He suggested that looking for these objects might be a good way to start a search for intelligent extraterrestrial life.

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Well! You learn something every day!

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Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

Of course, what he didn't say was HOW to look for them. How do you spot a star when it's closed up in a metal ball? Look up in the sky and say "no star over there, must be a Dyson sphere?"

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Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

I think you're supposed to look for radiative heat sources that AREN'T stars. But then again, that could include brown dwarf objects, too.

And radio waves, and other regular emissions that might indicate the presence of an advanced civilization.

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

To say nothing of the most obvious element: gravity.

A metal sphere....encasing a STAR, & possibly some planets.

If a star the size of Sol (no, not YOU, Sol..!) ALONE can generate enough of a gravity well to hold 9 or 10 planets & an asteroid belt, plus several Oort & Kuiper objects in its sway....think about how massive the well of a Dyson sphere must be.

That's why I never questioned why Jenolan crashed, but DID question how it & Enterprise survived being crunched into soup cans.

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Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :

The dyson sphere wasn't THAT big. It is about the same diameter as the earth's orbit, about 2 AUs, there were no planets inside because the habitable region was the inner surface of the sphere itself. Infact the whole point of it was to not have to live on a planet, the inner surface area of such a structure is equivilant to....a very big number of m-class worlds.

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

OK, if it's 2 AUs, then that's STILL fucking HUGE.
The gravity well would be MONSTROUS.

:::calls out::: Can we get some figures on how far out Sol's heliopause is? I think it's like 20 or 30 AUs....

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

NOO! Not the control-bridge/airbase/US-Marshal guy milking everyone on information and getting things done!!

I don't want to think about how awful it must be to be forced to live in a D-sphere. I'm depressed enough as it is... I mean, in order for it to hold together, the crust must need to be immensely thick, but the doorway the ships passed through wasn't more than 300 meters tops! AAARRGH!!!

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Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

Wait. Is gravity not based on the mass and/or density of an object? If a dyson sphere is what everyone says it is, wouldn't it have a relatively low density due to the fact that it is almost completely hollow inside? No, wait, I think I understand. It doesn't matter when something's that freakin' huge.

Wait again, how does everything on the inside of a Dyson sphere stick? Does the whole thing rotate? But that doesn't make sense because then there would be areas of relatively low to nil centripetal force. I think I'm actually getting dumber as I continue this post.

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Well, rotating the thing would create stresses that would tear apart all known materials. Come to think of it, building the thing immobile and just letting the star's gravity pull on it would create stresses that would tear apart all known materials, too. But in Trek, we aren't dealing with known materials. They have things like "neutronium" which, if it is the least bit like real neutronium (and simply contained within forcefields and gravity nets to make it practicable), might withstand the forces even if it were just about 300 meters thick.

And artificial gravity nets would keep the people walking on the inside of the sphere, too. Some sort of forcefields would hold the air in, since AG probably wouldn't reach "high" enough since it should decrease rapidly. If it did decrease slowly, to the square of the distance like real gravity does, then the pulls of the opposite sides of the sphere would simply cancel out and the inner surface would still be weightless.

Some sort of forcefield and tractor beam gadgetry would probably also be needed to keep the star centered on the sphere. And the waste heat would have to be radiated away somehow - Dyson originally never thought anybody would be living *inside* his spheres, where the star's energy would all be trapped.

All in all, the sphere wouldn't be an inert object but rather an active machine. Pull the plug on some vital piece of machinery, and it would all come to a grim end.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Just as an aside, Dyson never demanded that the real object be solid, or really all that spherical.

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20th century, go to sleep.
--
R.E.M.
****
Read chapters one and two of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! Show no patience, tolerance, or restraint.

Posted by RAMA (Member # 380) on :

Reverend, even at 2 AUs the inside interior of a Dyson sphere has enough suface area for MILLIONS of planets!! Its the second largest object ever seen in visual fiction period.

BTW, based on the size of the E-D, the spacedock model used for the starbases was at least 3 miles tall. Its correspondingly larger than the spacedock used n STIII.

RAMA

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Shifts of scenery
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[This message has been edited by RAMA (edited January 24, 2001).]

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

I feel that I should point this out: The shot of the Enterprise-D approaching Starbase in 11001001 was contructed using SFX elements from STIII. Didnt ya notice that the planet was a familiar blue/green, and that there was a moon floating in the background? Hmm?

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"And Mojo was hurt and I would have kissed his little boo boo but then I realized he was a BAD monkey so I KICKED HIM IN HIS FACE!"
-Bubbles

Posted by warbird5 on :

RAMA, what's the largest object then?

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

From popular opinion here, Sol's .....

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Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

That would be V'ger from Star Trek The Motion Picture, at 82 AUs ('only' 41 times the size of the Dyson sphere).

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

V'Ger was 82 AU long, what was it's diameter?

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them....

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

V'ger was in total 82 AUs big. It was roundish, so it was 82 AUs long as well.

But this is about the whole thing, including the force field. The ship itself was only 1000 kilometers long (or 100 kilometers, I don't remember exactly, but it was said by Kirk).

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

An addition to that:

Kirk said to fly 1000 (or 100) kilometers over the ship and then stop. They ended at the back of the ship...

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

Posted by warbird5 on :

Any estimates on the strength of these starbases?

Are these stronger than a DS9-like space station?

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

The structure of V'ger was a lot larger than the Enterprise, but certainly not the full 82 AU of the surrounding field. At this size it would have swallowed the whole solar system. I wonder anyway how the whole thing could dissolve without harming Earth. Just imagine E=mc^2.

The Dyson sphere is probably be much larger than anything else in the galaxy. It would have consumed 12,000 Earth-sized planets to be built if its shell was 100m thick.

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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

warbird5: The DS9 type 'starbase' are originally Cardassian mining facility, without any good defences to speak of. The Federation upgraded DS9 twice, and with the second upgrade it had a lot of firepower. Unfortunately we have never seen any weapons active on any other starbases. I personally think the mushroom type Spacedocks have more firepower, since they are a _lot_ bigger.

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Terry: "I forgot."
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Posted by BRUTUS on :

Is there a size comparison chart of various starbases....Spacedock, DS9, Regula 1,...or other large stationary objects like maybe that...space drill thing. What was it? Quantum fountain? What was it's name? Oh and the subspace relay...and some of the orbital drydocks. I think that would be a cool diagram to have in addition to all the ship diagrams.

Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :

Regarding the size of V'ger...the screenplay for TMP lists its length at 87 kilometers. Looking at Syd Mead's plans for V'ger, that would make it about 12.7 km wide (34 km wide across the "power vanes" that contain all the electrical effects).

The book Star Trek Phase II incorrectly identifies Mead's V'ger designs as early concepts, when they are, in fact, the final shape of the entity.

For those who want to see a line drawing of what V'ger looked like...
http://home.pacbell.net/mauricem/vger.gif

Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :

Whoops, just saw some other messages here regarding V'ger that are incorrect.

Cloud size: Epsilon 9 reports the powerfield as "Over 82 A.U.s in diameter," which is 82+ times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, or over 7 billion 626 million miles.

V'ger itself: It's size is never directly given in the final film, although it's idenfied as 87 km long in at least one draft of the shooting script.

Uhura: It could hold a crew of tens of thousands.
McCoy: Or a crew of a thousand ten miles tall.

Well, they were both wrong. At 87 km long and over 12 km wide, it could hold millions of human sized creatures, or about a dozen ten mile tall beings hunched over.

Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :

One other V'ger thing I missed...somone mentioned other dialogue concerning flying over it. Which goes...

Kirk: Bring us into a parallel course. Over the alien at 500 meters.
Sulu: 500 *meters*?
Kirk: Then take us out to 100 kilometers distance adjusting parallel course.

Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :

One other V'ger thing I missed...somone mentioned other dialogue concerning flying over it. Which goes...

Kirk: Bring us into a parallel course. Over the alien at 500 meters.
Sulu: 500 *meters*?
Kirk: Then take us out to 100 kilometers distance adjusting parallel course.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Sulu was probably just confused at the metric-ness of Kirk's command. HE thought that they'd left behind the measuring system-swapping madness when TOS ended.

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"And Mojo was hurt and I would have kissed his little boo boo but then I realized he was a BAD monkey so I KICKED HIM IN HIS FACE!"
-Bubbles

Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :

One final V'ger misperception. A lot of people assume the Enterprise aproaches V'ger from the front and crosses to the back. Actually, they approach from the rear and then fly to the front, where the maw opens and draws them in.

This is because the ship takes a "conic section flight path" that Kirk mentions, but is never defined in the film. In the novel (and elsewhere) it is explained to be that the ship first approaches the cloud head on, then swings around the side so it's always facing the cloud center as it passes. Once behind the cloud, they overtake at whatever speed they like, instead of having it charging at them at warp 7 or whatnot.

Would have been nice if they'd shown this on the tactical display!

Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

Tactical display in TMP really sucks! The Klingons had triangles representing their ships and grids that falsly display the accurate measure of the enemy. The best I have seen so far was the one in ST6 in Chang's ship.

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Predict the unpredictable, but how do you unpredict the unpredictable?

Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :

>Tactical display in TMP really sucks!
>The Klingons had triangles representing their
>ships and grids that falsly display the accurate >measure of the enemy.

I looked again. The tactical displays show silhouettes of the ships against the cloud. First seen from behind then overhead. What triangles are you talking about? The ones that frame the incoling energy bolt?

I think those displays are like the toy ships on the map kind of thing...to show where you are relative to the enemy.

>The best I have seen so far was the one in ST6
>in Chang's ship.

Which showed him targeting the TOP of the Excelsior and when he shot he hit the bottom. LOL!

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

That's because we weren't allowed to see the top of the Excelsior during that movie.

Honestly. Go and watch it. We get one shot from above (and behind), and then the ship is half obscured by cloudy stuff. Honestly, I don't know why they even bothered making those oh-so important changes (TWO Impulse crystals instead of one? Oh my).

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"And Mojo was hurt and I would have kissed his little boo boo but then I realized he was a BAD monkey so I KICKED HIM IN HIS FACE!"
-Bubbles