So I know that it wasn't just the Enterprise or starfleet vessels, but the Klingons, Romulans and so on also seemed to increase the size of their vessels at a proportional rate.
Do you think though that the ever increasing size of ships like the Enterprise got to the point where it was just ridiculous and impractical.
Personally I think it did after the Excelsior class.
I understand that generally as craft progress they tend to get larger in size. Modern aircraft carriers are much larger than WWII era ones. Modern cruise ships are generally much bigger than ones from 20-30 years ago, modern passenger jets are larger than the first generation ones.....and so on.
But generally these increases in size come in increments and you don't suddenly see a ship or plane come out that is 50% larger or longer than it's predecessor.
I know they're sites that give the measurements of the ships (in meters....damn metric system) but I'm just spitballing with the numbers because I'm too lazy to look it up and I'm going to use feet damn it because that's what we do in America no matter how ridiculous or inefficient out system of weights and measurements is.
So the original Enterprise was about 1000 feet long, about the size of a modern super carrier. I thought that was a nice size because it gave a scale people could relate to since it was an earth based vessel.
The refit added another 100 or so feet. No problem.
The Excelsior comes out and is somewhere around 1400-1500 feet long. I didn't have a problem with that because the Constitution class had been around for a long time so I kind of saw the Excelsior as the "Super Carrier" advancement in starfleet where the new ship was revolutionary and larger than anything before it. And even though it was considerably larger and longer than the Refit Enterprise it still had similar proportions and I thought the increase was within reason.
Then things start to get out of hand. The Ambassador class is considerably longer than the Excelsior, around 2000 feet....but the damn thing is at least 3-4 times as large in size overall. The ship became MUCH bulkier, the proprotions were suddenly much different and it was absolutely huge in comparison to Excelsior.
Then the Galaxy class basically takes that design and makes it even larger. Now it's around 3000 feet long and again looks at least twice as large as he class that preceded it.
The Soverign wasn't as large and bulky as the Galaxy, but again they tacked at least another 500 or so feet in length to it.
So in a century or so you've gone from a ship 1000 feet or so in length and made it at least 3 and a half times longer and ENORMOUS in terms in overall size. The other ships in starfleet seem to reflect that with the TNG Reliant decendent looking many many times bigger than the Miranda class were.
For comparison the first successful US carrier, the Lexington class, was 888 feet long and about 40,000 tons.
The newest carrier class, which will be operational for the next century at least is 1050 feet long and about 110,000 tons.
So in over a century of aircraft carrier construction they've added under 200 feet in length and about tripled the overall size of the ships.
So let's say the refit Enterprise was about 150,000 tons. The Excelsior would probably be double that at 300,000 tons. The Ambassador looked like it was AT LEAST 4 times as large as Excelsior that's 1.2 million tons. The Galaxy looked about 3 times larger than the Ambassador.....3.6 million tons. The Soverign I'll say is a wash because it's longer but not as bulky.
And future incarnations get even more ridiculous.
So, in a similar time frame, aircraft carriers have gotten 20% longer and about 3 times as large, while starships have gotten 4 times as long and 24 TIMES AS LARGE!!!!!!!
Really does each succeeding generation of starships need to be a GIANT increase over the last one.
This is also extremely impractical because of the needs of the ship. If you have a ship 24 times as large you simply can't just say...well we'll build engines 24 times as big and a generator 24 times as large to power it. You actually have to find a stronger power source that can power something that much larger.
Also the facilities to support these ships. The reason the Navy doesn't build carriers 2500 feet in length is because all the facilities, docks, dry docks, repair and refit facilities etc would have to be increased to handle these size ships which would cost billions and take years if not decades.
So starfleet, every 20 years or so has to expand all of it's support facilities to handle ships that are much larger than the ones before it?.....The time and resources to do that would be enormous.
Take the Spacedock from TSFS......I'm guessing it was built to be in orbit a LONG time, probably centuries. Yet the Enterprise didn't have a lot of room passing through the doors, Excelsior barely fit.......There's no way anything much bigger than Excelsior would clear the doors.
So what happens when the Ambassador and Galaxy class ships arrive? They just abandon the space dock and build a new one. The one in TSFS was about 8 miles long. So the one in TNG (which I know was the same one from the film with the ENT-D pasted over the 1701) would be something like 25 miles long and god knows how much larger if we believe the Ent-D could clear the doors and have the amount of room it did inside.
Can't they just stick to a reasonable scale and increase and just have the ships be a little larger, but much more sophisticated instead of deciding they need to be huge in order to show advancement from the previous class?
Do you think though that the ever increasing size of ships like the Enterprise got to the point where it was just ridiculous and impractical.
Personally I think it did after the Excelsior class.
I understand that generally as craft progress they tend to get larger in size. Modern aircraft carriers are much larger than WWII era ones. Modern cruise ships are generally much bigger than ones from 20-30 years ago, modern passenger jets are larger than the first generation ones.....and so on.
But generally these increases in size come in increments and you don't suddenly see a ship or plane come out that is 50% larger or longer than it's predecessor.
I know they're sites that give the measurements of the ships (in meters....damn metric system) but I'm just spitballing with the numbers because I'm too lazy to look it up and I'm going to use feet damn it because that's what we do in America no matter how ridiculous or inefficient out system of weights and measurements is.
So the original Enterprise was about 1000 feet long, about the size of a modern super carrier. I thought that was a nice size because it gave a scale people could relate to since it was an earth based vessel.
The refit added another 100 or so feet. No problem.
The Excelsior comes out and is somewhere around 1400-1500 feet long. I didn't have a problem with that because the Constitution class had been around for a long time so I kind of saw the Excelsior as the "Super Carrier" advancement in starfleet where the new ship was revolutionary and larger than anything before it. And even though it was considerably larger and longer than the Refit Enterprise it still had similar proportions and I thought the increase was within reason.
Then things start to get out of hand. The Ambassador class is considerably longer than the Excelsior, around 2000 feet....but the damn thing is at least 3-4 times as large in size overall. The ship became MUCH bulkier, the proprotions were suddenly much different and it was absolutely huge in comparison to Excelsior.
Then the Galaxy class basically takes that design and makes it even larger. Now it's around 3000 feet long and again looks at least twice as large as he class that preceded it.
The Soverign wasn't as large and bulky as the Galaxy, but again they tacked at least another 500 or so feet in length to it.
So in a century or so you've gone from a ship 1000 feet or so in length and made it at least 3 and a half times longer and ENORMOUS in terms in overall size. The other ships in starfleet seem to reflect that with the TNG Reliant decendent looking many many times bigger than the Miranda class were.
For comparison the first successful US carrier, the Lexington class, was 888 feet long and about 40,000 tons.
The newest carrier class, which will be operational for the next century at least is 1050 feet long and about 110,000 tons.
So in over a century of aircraft carrier construction they've added under 200 feet in length and about tripled the overall size of the ships.
So let's say the refit Enterprise was about 150,000 tons. The Excelsior would probably be double that at 300,000 tons. The Ambassador looked like it was AT LEAST 4 times as large as Excelsior that's 1.2 million tons. The Galaxy looked about 3 times larger than the Ambassador.....3.6 million tons. The Soverign I'll say is a wash because it's longer but not as bulky.
And future incarnations get even more ridiculous.
So, in a similar time frame, aircraft carriers have gotten 20% longer and about 3 times as large, while starships have gotten 4 times as long and 24 TIMES AS LARGE!!!!!!!
Really does each succeeding generation of starships need to be a GIANT increase over the last one.
This is also extremely impractical because of the needs of the ship. If you have a ship 24 times as large you simply can't just say...well we'll build engines 24 times as big and a generator 24 times as large to power it. You actually have to find a stronger power source that can power something that much larger.
Also the facilities to support these ships. The reason the Navy doesn't build carriers 2500 feet in length is because all the facilities, docks, dry docks, repair and refit facilities etc would have to be increased to handle these size ships which would cost billions and take years if not decades.
So starfleet, every 20 years or so has to expand all of it's support facilities to handle ships that are much larger than the ones before it?.....The time and resources to do that would be enormous.
Take the Spacedock from TSFS......I'm guessing it was built to be in orbit a LONG time, probably centuries. Yet the Enterprise didn't have a lot of room passing through the doors, Excelsior barely fit.......There's no way anything much bigger than Excelsior would clear the doors.
So what happens when the Ambassador and Galaxy class ships arrive? They just abandon the space dock and build a new one. The one in TSFS was about 8 miles long. So the one in TNG (which I know was the same one from the film with the ENT-D pasted over the 1701) would be something like 25 miles long and god knows how much larger if we believe the Ent-D could clear the doors and have the amount of room it did inside.
Can't they just stick to a reasonable scale and increase and just have the ships be a little larger, but much more sophisticated instead of deciding they need to be huge in order to show advancement from the previous class?
The ships are big enough to do what they need to do, and if they need to do more stuff they get bigger.
