OK, think about Star Trek: The Motion Picture, OK, we get a very long view of the shuttlebay/cargobay in the engineering section - this picture can also be seen in The Art of Star Trek - we know that we can see for quite a distance - and then out into space, then think of Star Trek 5: The Final Fronteir - now when in the shuttle bay in numerous seens, we seen the observation Deck, with Scotty in it, and basically the whole shuttle bay - but there is not huge gap in the roof where cargo shuttles can fly through - OK this ISN'T the same enterprise - but it IS the same class, or can we consider such a major change of internal structure to be a new class or, maybe some alterations occured?? And to top it off the TFF shuttlebay was a closer fit to the old shuttle bay on the original Enterprise...
------------------ "I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die, while you discuss this invasion in a committee" Queen Amidala - Star Wars: Episode 1, The Phantom Menace
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
If we can rely in part on the information in Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, there is a section on the shuttle bay that states a moving wall can seperate the cargo bay from the shuttle bay. Judging by the position of the control bay and the turbolifts in the Motion Picture and The Final Frontier, this could be the case. Except the wall in The Final Frontier looks pretty solid. So maybe a slight design change led to a solid wall instead of the moving one. I wouldn't necessarily call that a new class, myself.
------------------ "Some people call me the Space Cowboy. Yeah! Some call me the Gangster of Love. Some people call me Maurice. Whoo hoo! 'Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love!" - Steve Miller Band's The Joker
Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :
It would seem some pretty major rethinking was done between the two ships.
Perhaps since the E-A may have been an older ship "resprayed", perhaps for some design reason it retained a more antiquated shuttle bay in order to accomodate something else in the space forward of it.
------------------ "Now then, I believe Random Pavarotti disease is a psychological ailment and we should find it in the otherworldliness of Vince's brain." "Ohw, rubbish. I reckon Random Pavarotti disease is a physical condition...... Let's go and look at 'is bum!"
-Rex the Runt
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
We've seen ships of the same class that have different bridges. Why can't they have different shuttlebays, too?
------------------ "Sew, very old one! Sew like the wind!" -Martin Short, The Three Amigos
Posted by Simon on :
Well bridge modules can be easily removed and replaced. It would be much harder to do that for something as central as the shuttle bay.
------------------ Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking. -Machiavelli
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Yes, but there's no reason that they couldn't have altered the design prior to building the ship...
------------------ "There's always a bigger fish..." -Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I believe that the Enterprise-A (or Yorktown) did have a different shuttlebay prior to the refit in 2286. It's more plausible than the assumption that the old ship has been rebuilt once again. Maybe even the original Constitution class ships had different shuttlebay sizes, which could explain Trinculo's problem with the different number of shuttles.
------------------ "No, thanks. I've had enough. One more cup and I'll jump to warp." (Janeway, asked if she would like some coffee in "Once upon a Time") www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/
Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :
The Enterprise was refit in 2271, and might well have been the first to receive the upgrades. The ship that became the Enterprise-A was in spacedock in 2286. . . 15 years later. While it's unlikely that they were still refitting the original Constitution-class vessels by then, it's not impossible.
Most likely is that the ways in which they did the refits changed over time. Scotty viewed the new ship as a lemon, maybe it didn't have the prestige that the original did and therefore didn't get a fancy shuttlebay. . .