posted
That could be just about anything - a Bonestell picture of the nozzle of a conventional moon rocket, vintage 1950, for example. But it does look very much like the hemispherical fusion chamber of the so-called Daedalus ship, which was supposed to work by controlled laser fusion of deuterium (a bit smoother than just exploding H-bombs off the stern like in Project Orion - but not much). IIRC, the Daedalus wasn't a NASA study project: it was something cooked up by the BIS, or the British Interplanetary Society, and then refined by others.
The Daedalus was supposed to go to Barnard's star (some 50 ly away), using two identically shaped but differently sized stages to accelerate and launching probes as it flies past the star. Having it as close to a planet as in that picture would probably mean that a disastrous collision with a dust particle is only a fraction of a second away...
posted
Timo: got any pics of both the daedalus-project ship and a better pic then the one I posted? I do recognice the project, didn�t remember Barnard�s star though.
------------------ "The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity�s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something." Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"
posted
Just saw ST:TMP today. One can see computer displays in the Epsilon 9 station. Anyone know if there is anything interesting there? Oh, look at the bottom of this page of mine. http://w1.314.telia.com/~u31412332/scifi/starbase3.htm This starbase(?) keeps popping up. It was in the Kobayashi Maru scenario, on the Enterprise bridge and in ST:TNG episode "Conspiracy". Any idea what this is?
------------------ "The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity�s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something." Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"
posted
I can't really make out enough detail to say what exactly it is. But they do seem to be at least roughly similar.
Anyway, that second station you list is actually a model of the International Space Station, or at least what NASA says it will look like once completed.
------------------ "What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity." -- Camper Van Beethoven
------------------ "In sporting events it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." - Homer Simpson Federation Starship Datalink - On that annoying Tripod server, sucks don't it?
posted
The NASA-style station isn't the much delayed ISS, not exactly. It is instead an earlier version usually called "Space Station Fred" - it came between the original even bigger Space Station Freedom and the downscaled Space Station Alpha, which was then modified into the one with Russian components, and is again being modified to compensate for the delays in delivery of the said components...
So either Sisko is into building models of things that never really existed, of "experimental projects" and "preliminary designs" and the like (which is perfectly possible - I know of people who specialize in building aircraft-that-never-were). Or then the Trek timeline went straight to "SS Fred" and did not have to suffer all these delays and modifications. We already know that the space program of Trek was quite a bit different from ours: a military Saturn V launch in '68, six Voyager probes instead of two, DY-100 ships in the 1990s... So why not "SS Fred"?
Another possibility: In Kirk's time, records from the 1990s were "sketchy". Perhaps Sisko is in the mistaken belief that this is what the ISS looked like.
posted
I don�t think that the neutral zone base was ever seen. The pic itself is from the star trek card game, so it isn�t canon.
Timo: I think the idea of the space exploration going in a different direction then in our reality is the correct way to go. That would most easily explain almost everything with for example the DY-100. And the pic of the starbase in sisko�s office is definetly not similar to the newest pics of the ISS.
------------------ "The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity�s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something." Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"
posted
On the other hand, if Sisko does like to build or at least display models of ships never actually built, perhaps that explains the four-nacelled Nebula he had.
------------------ "What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity." -- Camper Van Beethoven
posted
Actually, I don't think Sisko ever had a four-nacelle Nebula. A Nebula study model with too long a secondary hull, yes - but a standard triangular pod was substituted for the "roll bar" of "The Wounded" tabletop model that in turn had been created by gluing extra plastic on the miniature nacelles of the "Future Imperfect" tabletop model, which in turn was originally built for "BoBW". Still with me?
But if Sisko has a nonexistent space station and a nonexistent Nebula in his office, does this mean the Daedalus class never existed, either?!?
Are there any subtle inaccuracies in his baseball?
posted
Wow, Timo, I never thought of that. Does someone have a good screencap of the baseball so we can count the stitches?
(Wow, this belongs in "You Know You're a Trekkie If...")
------------------ Dane
"Mathematicians have long held that a million monkeys banging on a million keyboards would eventually reproduce the collected wisdom of the human race. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Silensky
posted
I thought it was a redress of the baby hortas from TOS "Devil in the Dark."
------------------ Dane
"Mathematicians have long held that a million monkeys banging on a million keyboards would eventually reproduce the collected wisdom of the human race. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Silensky
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