posted
Quick reference question here -- have we ever been given a hint about how massive DS9 is? I took a quick scan through the likely pages of the DS9:TM, but didn't find anything useful. I don't recall it being mentioned in any episode, either. Has anyone at least tried to do some unofficial calculations about its volume and approximate mass, maybe?
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posted
So massive, they'll never find all of O'Brien's victims.
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-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
The Making of Deep Space Nine book says Okuda and Sternbach calculated the station was approximately 1350m in diameter (about 2.1 x the Galaxy Class length) and that the station's mass was 10.12 million metric tonnes.
posted
Ah, thank you! I've got the "Making of" book, but left it at home...
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He knows this stuff in his head...it's scary.
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posted
Don't forget that B5 was hollow, though. That probably counts for some of the difference. But yeah, it is quite a difference...
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posted
B5 also uses wretched Imperial units, so it's actually 2 268 000 metric tons vs. DS9. And B5 is no more than half or two thirds empty space, tops. The dorsal cargo structure, radiator complex, and power generator section are many times the volume of DS9 alone.
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posted
IIRC, the 2.5 million figure is for the outer casing only. B5's total mass is closer to 9 billion tons (or so JMS has allegedly said, but I reeeaaally cannot be arsed to weed through ten years' worth of rec.arts posts right now to verify that B)).
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It's up at the Lurker's Guide, I believe. But I also cannot be arsed going through all those episode listings.
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quote: And one of the people there, who had been with SDI and the Space Program for 12 years, currently a top-level NASA consultant, pulled me aside and said that after seeing the line about the gravity not letting the body get very far -- and THAT is what was said in the script, and in the episode, NOT your characterization of a body "bound" to the hull -- he said he sat down to do the math required to come up with the actuall MASS of B5, starting with the 2.5 million tons of actual structure, plus likely vegetation, quarters, occupants, ships docked inside...and when you add it all up, it came to about the same mass as a fairly small moon...and IT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO KEEP THE BODY FROM -- AS STATED IN THE SCRIPT -- GETTING VERY FAR.
I think its in reference to someone complaining about whether or not a body being thrown out of an airlock would be trapped by the station's gravity or not.
posted
Hopefully, I'll soon be updating my Volumetrics page with DS9's volume, thanks to a visitor with Lightwave and spare time. That'll give us a common frame of reference.
That done, I'd imagine that DS9 would be on the light side as far as density is concerned. If we assume that nacelles are very dense (supported in part by Voyager's speedboat shuttle not toppling over, along with other points (esp. non-canon ones)), then DS9, being nacelle-less, shouldn't be too massive.
On the other hand, the whole frickin' thing is spindly parts with lots of hull material, unlike a very voluminous Galaxy hull . . . so that would drive it up a bit.
So anyway, if we for the moment assume DS9 is as voluminous as, say, 10 Galaxy Class starships (that's just a ballpark estimate off the top of my head), I'd imagine that her mass should be on the order of 70-100 million metric tons.
More on starship masses and the episodic basis from which I guesstimated that figure:
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