posted
Working on data for my Cut-a-way model, I noticed THIS blue print showing 'cargo doors' on the upper surface of the primary hull, just in front of the Impulse Engines. Any opinions on what they are? and are for? I expect that they are large access doors, for the impulse engines, but what if they are cargo doors? that's an odd place for cargo.
-------------------- joH'a' 'oH wIj DevwI' jIH DIchDaq Hutlh pagh (some days it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning) The Woozle!
Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
Darth_DotCom
Ex-Member
posted
Actually that wouldn't be such an odd place for cargo doors, IMO. Your original assumption could still be right, they could be a way of loading/unloading large impulse engine parts into and out of the saucer quickly. They're located close enough to the impulse deck, that they could house massive components (sic) to large to move through the standard corridors. Maybe there are large "bay" doors on the inside of the cargo area that allows the impulse deck crews to move the parts in and out during repairs and maintence. But then again I could be wrong and it could be just a quick way for them to store the saucer sections supplies &/ crew's personal property close to the living sections of the ship so the quarter master and his teams don't have to waste time hauling them up from the main cargo deck in the stardrive section.
IIRC, ST:TMP shows us some open cargo bays on the underside of the saucer section when Kirk ans Scotty do their flyby at the start of the movie, can't remember if there were any open on teh dorsal section of the saucer; I'll have to rewatch the DVD to check for sure.
IP: Logged
posted
The underside in TMP had one open "door" that was actually intended to be a landing pad by Probert. In case of a saucer separation and atmospheric entry, the pad would extend to support the flying saucer on the ground. Of course, it could just as well be that the saucer would "crush-land" like the E-D saucer did, and this was "in fact" a cargo door...
The underside also has two pairs of hatches for docking ports, one of which is used by Kirk for a spacewalk but only seen in detail in cut scenes. And even in those scenes, the matte work was never properly finished. The internal configuration of those ports and adjoining airlocks could be very different from what Probert originally intended. The airlock set is a bit difficult to plausibly fit inside the hull the way Probert intended - once again, as with Main Engineering, there is a corridor there that is too long and straight to fit in without TARDIS tech.
Generally, I think the TMP Enterprise could have used even more hatches on the various surfaces. The secondary hull doesn't have features that would correspond to the painted areas of the TOS secondary hull. Had Probert included even a few hatch outlines down there, we could now assign those to TNG-style engineering features like "core ejection" and "antimatter refill" and whatnot...
posted
I figured that those were where the Drydock latched onto the ship. Enterprise B was attached that way and so was the Enterprise D (in the Ships of The Line calander)and Enterprise E in Nemesis has a simular configuration (although attaching at the conviently located main shuttlebay).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Timo: The underside in TMP had one open "door" that was actually intended to be a landing pad by Probert."
The pads are there, but none of them are ever seen open.
Here are the hatches. I got four captures and tinted and labeled the various panels.
quote:The underside also has two pairs of hatches for docking ports, one of which is used by Kirk for a spacewalk but only seen in detail in cut scenes.
And which can be seen open in both the spacedock and Spock Walk sequences.
quote:The internal configuration of those ports and adjoining airlocks could be very different from what Probert originally intended. The airlock set is a bit difficult to plausibly fit inside the hull...
I've never seen any of Andy's drawing for the airlock (I've never asked). What's your source for that? I'd be curious to see.
quote:Generally, I think the TMP Enterprise could have used even more hatches on the various surfaces.
Very likely. Just looking around the hatches we do see open you can clearly see similar hatches on both sides. It's reasonable to assume there are more.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Timo: The airlock set is a bit difficult to plausibly fit inside the hull the way Probert intended - once again, as with Main Engineering, there is a corridor there that is too long and straight to fit in without TARDIS tech.
The set seems to work well from the standpoint of the unofficial, but well done, Star Trek VI blueprints, as well as the set diagram from Mr. Scott's Guide.
posted
Right. The corridor problem only emerges if one thinks what else has to fit on that deck. And that's not really Probert's problem, it's Shane Johnson's. Judging by TMP, it could be that the corridors from the two presumably identical airlock complexes just meet each other a few meters away from the computer core or turbolift shaft (or whatever runs along the saucer axis on that ship). But there isn't room for "auxiliary control" on that deck, at least not in the SJ configuration.
quote:Originally posted by TheWoozle: Working on data for my Cut-a-way model, I noticed THIS blue print showing 'cargo doors' on the upper surface of the primary hull, just in front of the Impulse Engines. Any opinions on what they are? and are for? I expect that they are large access doors, for the impulse engines, but what if they are cargo doors? that's an odd place for cargo.
I've also noticed some other strange features on the saucer's dorsal surface.
The red one we know from TMP to be a small cargo/personnel elevator, but the others are uncertain, could they all be the same kind of cargo elevator? I find it hard to belive that so many would be needed. My personal theory is that they're escape pod hatches, I did some scale calculations and they are about the correct size for the type of pod depicted in Mr Scott's Guide and their positioning is consistant with the hatches marked on the Enterprise-B's MSD. Still, has Probert ever issued a definitive guide to the purposes behind all of these mysterious hull features? I'd be nicee to hear it from the horse's mouth.
As for the underside, there appears to be a total of twelve large hatches! That's counting the four potential landing struts. Ventral Saucer Dorsal Saucer
posted
On the Starship Modeler, Trek forum, I picked up this, refering to those big door-shaped things on the top view, by the impuslse engines.
From The Yoshinator: I know I've seen illustrations of those that were done back in the late 70's in preperation for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I have it somewhere. But it would take forever to track down. I think they were amongst some illustrations of the Impulse Engines.
IIRC they were originally shuttle bays. But since they were never emphasized, the evidence of what they truely are is still uncertain. I do remember there were originally some warning markings that encircled them.
This I'm very unsure of: There may have been an ST:TMP shuttle sitting there, in the pic, right on top of it. If I ever find it. I'll try and post it.
My guess is that these bays there very much like DS9's They just dropped in. They most likely had a forcefeild activated above to seal the opening while a shuttle was there. Just like the forcefeild seal/doors in the main bay that seperates the landing area from the cargo area.
-------------------- joH'a' 'oH wIj DevwI' jIH DIchDaq Hutlh pagh (some days it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning) The Woozle!
Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Sorry to take this discussion just a little off course, but I'd like to take a moment to address the underside of the saucer in more detail.
While Rev's pic is of the CGI model created by Foundation Imaging for the Director's Edition of TMP and shows only 12 hatches on the ventral saucer surface, there are in fact 14 on the actual studio model:
(Please see here for the full sized original pic.)
A. (Red) Airlock docking ports, the portside of which was used to exit the ship by thruster suit in TMP. B. (Blue) According to designer Andrew Probert and David Kimble's official blueprints published by Paramount with the release of TMP, the landing pads that would extend to support the saucer after it had separated and landed on a planet surface. C. (Green) These are curiously omitted in the Foundation CGI model and in the old official blueprints, but one of them (visible in MrNeutron's screencap in the post above) was seen open during the drydock sequence in TMP. It's difficult to tell exactly what they are, but they could be cargo hatches or just simple maintenance access panels of some sort. D. (Magenta) One of these was also seen open and being attended by a work bee in TMP. (Also visible in MrNeutron's cap.) It appeared to be similar or identical in nature to C. E. (Yellow) These four are still a complete mystery, but could of course be ascribed any number of useful purposes. An interesting little theory of mine is that at least two of them may retract or drop down to reveal torpedo tubes, thus explaining the "TORP BAY 3" and "TORP BAY 4" signage seen in some of the battle sequence shots in TWOK. (For an interesting look at this tidbit, check out this article at Trekplace.com.)
As to the hatches/panels on the dorsal surface, the large ones in front of the impulse engines aren't labeled in Kimble's blueprints and I can't recall seeing them labeled anywhere else, including Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise. The story that Woozle got at Starshipmodeler may simply originate from the early Probert concept sketch below, where a "Shuttle/Admiral's Barge Hanger-Elevator" was located behind the bridge mound. However, this is merely early conceptual art:
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Generally, I think the TMP Enterprise could have used even more hatches on the various surfaces. The secondary hull doesn't have features that would correspond to the painted areas of the TOS secondary hull. Had Probert included even a few hatch outlines down there, we could now assign those to TNG-style engineering features like "core ejection" and "antimatter refill" and whatnot...
Actually, interestingly enough, such markings were added to the model when ILM re-did the paintjob as that of the Enterprise-A. They can be observed in this photograph.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Since I'm planning a cut-a-way model project.... I think that a combination maintenance and cargo bay would look cool, under those hatches.
On the other tenticle, they may just be ejection hatches, for APUs.
-------------------- joH'a' 'oH wIj DevwI' jIH DIchDaq Hutlh pagh (some days it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning) The Woozle!
Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Could be the unidentified hatches are covering some of the long missing lifeboats.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Hey, that E-A repaint looks really fascinating!
We can do many things with it:
a) Pretend it was there all the time, even in the E-nil refit.
b) Pretend the hatches were there, even in E-nil refit, but were not painted conspicuously in E-nil.
c) Say the hatches and the associated paint job were present only in ST5&6, and claim that this was because the E-A was a less extensive refit of a TOS ship than what was done to the E-nil.
In any case, the ventral things suggest major engineering functions situated aft of the botanical section (either related to the warp reactor, or then to something else like tractor beams or sensors). Perhaps the vertical core doesn't quite eject directly down, since the attractive round hole is so far back - but the antimatter refill ports and pod ejection hatches could very well be back there, and not at the bottom of the vertical shaft after all.
Or then the core in the E-A really is that far back (since the E-A was never shown to have the huge cargo hold), and a corresponding structure may have been there in TOS ships as well. If we go by a) or b), then the E-nil refit could have had this circular hatch farther forward...
The red outline on the fantail undercut would perfectly serve as a cargo door in the TOS ship. Here, the beacon pimple and the gridlines make that highly unlikely. Perhaps this is just an approach aid for shuttles? The four things under the keel look more like actual hatches, or blowaway or sensor-transparent panels.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Right. The corridor problem only emerges if one thinks what else has to fit on that deck. And that's not really Probert's problem, it's Shane Johnson's. Judging by TMP, it could be that the corridors from the two presumably identical airlock complexes just meet each other a few meters away from the computer core or turbolift shaft (or whatever runs along the saucer axis on that ship). But there isn't room for "auxiliary control" on that deck, at least not in the SJ configuration.
Timo Saloniemi
What are you using for reference. By just using Shane Johnson's material, the Aux Control is on Deck 7 and the saucer Docking bays are one deck below at the forward of Deck 8; still plenty of room to fit both.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Or then the core in the E-A really is that far back (since the E-A was never shown to have the huge cargo hold)
In Star Trek V, the two large doors are shown closed (or mostly so), isolating the Cargo Complex from the Shuttlebay. You can see in the TMP Cargo area that two large doors are completely open and show us the shuttlebay. There just needs to be a turbolift between the doors on the Shuttlebay side. There's no reason to believe the same large Cargo Complex isn't behind those doors.
posted
Is it possible the mystery yellow 'doors' could be the early form of transport emitters (the little yellow strips that are seen on 24th century starship hulls)?
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
