posted
According to Rob Bonchune of Foundation Imaging (excerpt of the essential part of a reply to an e-mail of mine in which I mentioned that more people would like to know the size):
"The Enterprise length has been set at 225 meters. Width of the primary hull: 136 meters.
The dimensions and specifics where given to us by Doug Drexler/Star Trek art department. Doug built the prototype."
posted
Just checked the schematic. The ship's length is 1.65 times the width of its saucer, which is just right. Amazing. FAR too big, though. *runs and hides* 8)
posted
I also think it's far too big - for the amount of people that crew her. I think 87 is still far too few for a ship of that size, given the E-nil's 430. Unless of course you figure out a way to rationalize it with Pike's crew count of 203.
It is an early ship. They will not be as advanced as 1701 was/is/will be. They haven't mastered space travel or ship design & construction and so will only be able to house small numbers of people on fairly large ships.
Besides, look at the Oberth - 150m (ish) and only 80 people. Based on those figures the Enterprise would have a crew of about 120 - 87 ain't far off . . . and don't forget that at that time Earth had few people to spare what with WW3 and all . . .
-------------------- If you cant convince them, confuse them.
posted
Well, remember that both Doug and Bernd have extensive experience with Starfleet deck heights (how many MSDs do you have to do to, or how many lengths do you have to verify structurally before get a good feel for them?) Bernd just happened to pick the right deck height.
The only thing that's fishy is the 190m size quoted in the series bible and the Communicator (the latter saying "a little over 600 feet", suggesting an independent source?). Might be the size of the prototype model, the earlier Enterprise sketches that more resembled the Ent-A, or simply a made-up length by the producers. Remember, Roddenberry set the 190,000-ton mass of the Constitution before it was even designed! The runabouts were said to be 20m long in the DS9 bible, then ended up 23.1m long in Rick's blueprints. A small difference.
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: I also think it's far too big - for the amount of people that crew her. I think 87 is still far too few for a ship of that size, given the E-nil's 430. Unless of course you figure out a way to rationalize it with Pike's crew count of 203.
Mark
Can we say that most of it is used for unadvanced bulky systems? Maybe structural integrity and inertial dampening take up some major space, especially if we consider radiation shielding from those devices and possibly others.
posted
It kinda makes sense that there'd be a small crew on a ship this size. When equipment is first invented, it's pretty bulky. Take telephone equipment, for instance. In the switchouses around here, there's a lot of empty floorspace because the older equipment that did the job of the new stuff was all electromechanical and took up a lot of room. But now everything's compact (thank the Japanese ).
[ December 04, 2001: Message edited by: Mr. Christopher ]
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Anyway, keep in mind that the above pool was done when all we had to go on was the John Eaves interview that said the ship was smaller than Kirk's and would please fans of Akira (famous last words, one suspects ). So Bernd's guess most likely had little to do with deck height guesstimation. (Or, perhaps he sneakily did know about the design months before we did and had ample time to cook up his pages upon pages of criticism... (j/k) )
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
posted
Naw, even without knowing the exact shape, we did know that the ship had to be about 65-95% the size of the TOS Enterprise, otherwise it wouldn't have looked good in a TNG-era display lineup.
posted
Well this makes the diameter of the NX-01 saucer identical to that of the TOS Enterprise. A pity really, I would've prefered the NX-01 to be a little smaller.
Even so, the crew/size ratio is about right when compared to TNG era crew sizes. It's also nice to have deck heights that are actually big enough to support the sets.
posted
I have seen a picture of Bernd, so it must be The_Tom who has the 2.5 meter long nose.
The official size of the saucer currently seems to make it *bigger* than the TOS Constitution primary hull. After all, there's no undercut to the widest part, and the shape overall is more lenticular instead of a flat pillbox with a mound in the middle. But when you stuff the shuttlebays and the engineering facilities in there, plus all those consumables the ship has to carry when it doesn't have advanced fabricators or replicators... No, I don't find the ~90 crew unrealistic at all. Especially if the ship sailed out without some of the gunnery crew when she didn't even have the guns for them.
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