Well I was in a book store the otherday and I saw the space station of Masao's gracing the front cover. VERY nice Masao - and that's so awesome that you've got your work assigned to semi-officialdom!
Tell me, did you also design the blueprints/station plan on the inside plates of that book?
Congratulations, again.
Andrew
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Yeah it's sweet- did you see the pull-out of the station poster in the book's rear cover? I wanted to turn to the guy next to me and say "I talk geek stuff with this guy!"
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
(isn't in the know)
Front cover of what?
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Sweet!!!! Congrats.
Posted by Wee Bairns (Member # 1324) on :
A sweet design, for sure, and very treknologically feasable...but why are the Enterprise's impulse vents glowing? Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
There's all kinds of things wrong with the Enterprise on the cover.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Old news, guys! But thanks, anyway.
I only did the 2-D schematics, which were reprinted in the fold out. I don't do any 3-D modeling. The cover artwork is by Doug Drexler.
I've already received the cover art for the next Vanguard novel from Marco Palmieri, the editor at Pocket Books. It features the space station and another ship. (Can't say more than that)
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
NX-1000?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The USS Trinculo? The USS Discovery? On subspace you say? The USS Helen Keller coming in for repairs to her sensors again?
Is it one of your original designs, Masao? Models of your Predator class are featured at the SSM gallery this week, you know. Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
The Trinculo!!! That would be a hell of an acid trip...
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Ohhhhhhhhhhh:
Gosh, it's an awfully small book, isn't it?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote:It features the space station and another ship. (Can't say more than that)
But can you tell whether you designed/helped design that ship?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Zefram (Member # 1568) on :
I actually bought that book because of its cover. The story was okay-good enough that I'd like to read the next sequel, anyway. The station's design seems kind of like a mix between the K-7 station and the stations later seen following Star Trek III.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The obvious K-7 element is the "sombrero hull", but its engineering rationale seems different in Masao's design and in the original which borrowed from this Douglas Corp. study. SB 47 is a solid structure that maximises horizontal deck area, but K-7 features these segments of slightly differing radii that slide within each other for launch (in the Douglas model) or perhaps to reveal internal cargo spaces (in the Trek interpretation that probably was not "launched" at all).
Of course, with SB 47 as big as it is, there could still be segments of varying radii - so slightly varying that we can't really see the seams. A collapsible hull might help with towing the structure in place; there wouldn't be any air resistance to fight, or any tight canals to navigate through, but there might still be a warp field within which to ride...
...Although the novel itself suggests the SB 47 construction took place in situ.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo:
quote:It features the space station and another ship. (Can't say more than that)
But can you tell whether you designed/helped design that ship?
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, I can. No, I didn't.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: [QUOTE]Of course, with SB 47 as big as it is, there could still be segments of varying radii - so slightly varying that we can't really see the seams. A collapsible hull might help with towing the structure in place; there wouldn't be any air resistance to fight, or any tight canals to navigate through, but there might still be a warp field within which to ride...
I know about the basis of the original K7 (of course!) but I don't know if Marco Palmieri does. Regardless, he didn't ask me to incorporate any suggestion of collapsibility into my station design. For a station of that size, engineering enormous pivoting sections would probably be more trouble than just building the thing in place. They'd probably flex quite a bit and be subject to differential contraction and expansion. You could, however, have pre-fab sections (like slices of orange peel) that might be stacked to save space. However, I suspect a typical plank on frame construction method, as presumably used for starships, was envisioned.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
In TOS they'd likely have to build "on location" nad probably from mostly native materials (meaning starbases would likely be somewhat near asteroid belts or uninhabited worlds they could mine the hell out of).
FASA has some nice tug designs that can tow a Regula sized staton, but tha's mostlt TMP and later.
By TNG, they should be able to inport large quantities of raw materials or locally mined stuff to replicate whatever they'd need.
While never shown, I'd think some starbases slighty reflect the cultures that built it- the Andor starbase would vary a bit from the Vulcan version while following a common overall design.
[ November 20, 2005, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Jason Abbadon ]
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
Looks like I'll be buying the second book based on the cover, too.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Interesting how Trek novelists and cover artists do their damnedest to discredit the connection between this sphere-and-cylinder ship and the name Daedalus... Doesn't anybody remember that Data declared the class of that name decommissioned from 2196 onward?
Of course, this picture could be of the unstuck SB 46, making all chronological considerations moot. And it's truly a testimony to human stubbornness that we kept building these things after losing 45 of them to explosions.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There's a lucrative Tellarite tax break for blown-up space stations.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Nice, but the two EVA suits are out of scale with the windows....and someone's been downloading Hubble pics.
Purdy oildrum Deadalus- the USS Haliburton?
Posted by Wee Bairns (Member # 1324) on :
Is that NCC-470?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
No. It is swamp gas reflected off a weather balloon on Venus. Move on.
Frankly, I can't fathom this obsession with Daedalus class ships, when the single canon datapoint we have on them is that they were not in service when anything of significance happened to anybody we know.
Okay, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers book uses an ex-Starfleet Daedalus as a SCE support vessel in a basically valid manner. But having one in active NCC registry at the time of "Vanguard" is not consistent with what we know.
Unless, of course, the sphere-and-cylinder ship is actually of Icarus class, and the real Daedalus looked completely different. Or then NCC-470 (430?) ran into another spatiotemporal anomaly.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
I'm pretty sure Timo's right (NCC-430):
I'm not sure I understand the obsession with the Daedalus class (or whatever the sphere and cylinder ships are called), given that I think they look kinda dumb. I've only ever seen one image I really liked of one of these. Plus it reminds me too much of the Discovery from 2001, only 500% less cool.
I really love the design of the station, Masao, and you are to be congratulated. But did you intend for it to be so shiny? I know you did not make the model, beyond your control, I'm just curious if you thought imagined it that way. Look at those perfect reflections in the foreground.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Yeah, BX, I noticed those reflections (Marco sent me large poster of the artwork). I figure starships have a sort of satiny semimatte/semigloss finish like modern aircraft, but Vanguard shines like a dance floor in a Fred Astaire movie.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Mabye they just skipped the paint to save the million tons of mass it would add to the station.
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
The reflection looks strange because otherwise the surface doesn't give me the impression of being highly reflective. Still it is impressive cover art.
Posted by jesus X (Member # 1201) on :
I bought the book several days ago. I saw your name on the foldout and it hit me like a brick, "Flare!" Dude, congrats. I really like the design, too.
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