Did the NCC-1701 carry different types of Shuttles ?

[TransporterBeam]

Did the original Enterprise carry different types of Shuttlecraft ? How many shuttles did it carry? Was the Engineering crew able to fabricate more shuttles while the ship was out in space ?
I am startibng to build a TOS model kit of the shuttlecraft. My dad bought it when i was tiny. It is a 25th anniversaty edition kit.

 

[doctorwho 03]

The only time we saw different types of shuttlecraft in the TOS era was during the animated series. If you consider TAS part of official canon, then yes.

 

[SchwEnt]

When the Exeter was discovered and investigated, it was remarked that "all four" of the shuttlecraft were present and accounted for. Assuming that's standard for all Constitution class ships, I'd guess you could say the Enterprise carried four shuttlecraft as well (which I further like to arbitrarily designate NCC-1701/1 NCC-1701/3
NCC-1701/5 and NCC-1701/7).

Of course I also consider TAS canon, so I accept the other types of shuttles and then what the hell do I do?

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Well, given the loss of shuttles AND the usual placement of TAS after the events of TOS, then you could have that funky steroid shuttle be a replacement for a lost auxilliary, or an added craft to the inventory.

The TOS writer's bible states that the Enterprise (and by extension, all Constitution class ships) carry four shuttles. Per EAS, these are:

Columbus NCC-1701/2
Copernicus NCC-1701/3
Einstein NCC-1701/6
Galileo NCC-1701/7 (followed by Galileo II, same number)

There was never any real explanation as to why the numbers are so ordained. Presumably there were shuttles numbered 1, 4, 5, and possibly above 7, but who knows where they are now...

Mark

 

[Forbin]

I was under the impression the E carried 7 shuttles total (though where they parked them is a mystery). Or do I think that only because of the "7" on the Galileo?

 

[Timo]

We could argue that the maximum number of shuttles stowable aboard a Constitution is much higher than the number of shuttles operable from such a vessel. Sure, you could jam-pack the upper hangar deck with six shuttles, as in TAS "Mudd's Passion", but you'd get fender-benders trying to maneuver one of them out. (You might google for pics of "aircraft transports", old escort carriers with their flight decks packed so full of aircraft that they can get off with the help of a crane only. A viable way of transporting those planes, but not of operating them.)

OTOH, the lower hangar deck must have further spaces, since at least one shuttle in TOS, and possibly three, must be stowed there when we see just a single shuttle depart from the upper level. But the lift between the two levels cannot accommodate anything larger than the TOS shuttle, assuming the lift and the turntable are one and the same. (It could be that there are larger lifts at the forward end of the bay, behind twin rolling doors similar to those we see in the ST5:TFF shuttlebay.)

At least two of the TAS shuttle types are far to large to be taken "below decks", and essentially hog the entire bay for themselves when carried: the aquashuttle from "Ambergris Element" and the long range shuttle from "Slaver Weapon". Still, both carry registries that indicate them to be auxiliary craft to NCC-1701, not just something Kirk loaned from the nearest starbase for the duration of a mission. But we could always say that Kirk did exactly that, and his deckhands then were swift at stenciling in new registries.

I'd argue that a Constitution's shuttle complement would be mission-dependent, and that Kirk offloaded most of his other shuttles for "Ambergris Element" and had a particularly busy day in "Mudd's Passion". One of the craft seen in the latter episode looks a lot like Carter Winston's private yacht from "Survivor", and it might be that Kirk was still hauling that piece of junk at the time but ditched it at earliest convenience.

As for the TOS numbering scheme, it could be more or less arbitrary, but consider this: the Galileo was #7, the unseen Copernicus supposedly was #3, while G and C are the 7th and 3rd letters of the alphabet, respectively... It could be the names are given to match the number, but it could also be vice versa, explaining #7 for the fourth shuttle out of four.

FWIW, the Copernicus from "Slaver Weapon" is #10, the aquashuttle is #12 (in most shots anyway; others have it as #7), and Mudd's shuttle is #12 as well. The originally unseen Columbus from TOS "Galileo Seven" was rendered as #2 in the remastered and re-effected version of that episode.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Meredith]

Well, given the loss of shuttles AND the usual placement of TAS after the events of TOS, then you could have that funky steroid shuttle be a replacement for a lost auxilliary, or an added craft to the inventory.

The TOS writer's bible states that the Enterprise (and by extension, all Constitution class ships) carry four shuttles. Per EAS, these are:

Columbus NCC-1701/2
Copernicus NCC-1701/3
Einstein NCC-1701/6
Galileo NCC-1701/7 (followed by Galileo II, same number)

There was never any real explanation as to why the numbers are so ordained. Presumably there were shuttles numbered 1, 4, 5, and possibly above 7, but who knows where they are now...

Mark

Simple, they had 4 shuttles ready to go at any given time and the rest were in a cargo bay all folded up. The TOS shuttles looked a bit like they were made at Ikea and could be like that ready to assemble furniture. This would allow a starship to carry addition shuttles without them having to take up much space. In the space you could put one assembled shuttle, you could put four of them folded up and partially disassembled.

That would explain the completely angular look of the old shuttles, they weren't built for aesthetics, but so you could cram a frontier ship full of them in case you needed a few spares without having to go to a starbase to re-stock your shuttle supply.

I would say they had 12 shuttles, 4 assembled and ready to go and eight packed up a cargo hold near the shuttle bay. When they lost a shuttle they built a new one and assigned it a new name and number, explaing why the numbers on shuttles are higher than 4. They then retired the old number if crew members were lost on the last shuttle's last mission.

 

[David cgc]

Something similar was in the background information for "Enterprise." They never actually used it on the show, but the designer's notes for the NX-01 said that they had two shuttlepods ready to go in the bay (the ones we normally saw), and two more disassembled in the cargo hold that could be made ready to fly in such and such amount of time.

 

[Wingsley]

I was going to say much the same thing as David cgc and Meredith.

It would seem logical that deep-space vessels such as the Constitution-class Enterprise would carry enough spare components on board to repair or replace any shuttlecrafts that would be damaged or lost/destroyed in deep space. Why would the Federation build starships like Enterprise, with elaborate, space-consuming hangar facilities (interior volume on a starship is finite, after all) and have to run for its home base for a replacement shuttlecraft every time one is damaged/lost/destroyed out on the frontier? That wouldn't make sense.

The boxy Class F Shuttlecraft design looks to be very modular and collapsible. Look at it this way: if Galileo's port nacelle were destroyed but the rest of the craft were salvageable, would Kirk order the Galileo dumped off the fantail, like what happened at the end of the Vietnam War? Of course not. Scotty would just pull whatever parts needed replacing out of storage (or replicate them), fit them onto the Galileo, stress-test them, and there's the old girl like new. If the Columbus were wrecked or lost on a mission, Scotty might salvage whatever pieces were worth bothering with, put them in storage or recycle them, and pop a new shuttlecraft kit out of storage (or replicate it, or partially do both) and christen a new shuttlecraft.

So maybe the standard minimum compliment for a Connie is about 4 Class F shuttlecraft, with reserve kits for additional/replacement ones kept in storage or available via replication. And maybe these kits can be reconfigured for different applications (aquashuttle, armored transport, etc.)

One additional thing about TOS nags at me. If a Connie were damaged or otherwise crippled out on the frontier and no help was immediately available, assuming evacuation were neccessary and nothing within transporter range, how would the crew get off the ship? Did the Connies have lifepods? Pop out more shuttlecraft? It would seem with a hanger facility that impressive, a Connie out to be able to put it to use.

 

[Timo]

One would assume lifepods existed, but only because of retroactive precedent from ENT.

If not for the fact that lifepods are deemed feasible in the 22nd century (the Mirror version of it at least!), one could equally well argue that a ship in distress beyond transporter range would simply be considered a complete loss, as Starfleet would be far too sparsely deployed to be able to rescue anybody bailing out in a lifepod. Hell, it took them half a year to go and see what happened to an entire missing starship!

Perhaps lifepods were part of ship design back in the 2150s for anachronistic reasons - they were there only because previous ships, which never operated outside practical search-and-rescue range, had been equipped with them. Perhaps lifepods between the 2150s and 2270s lacked the range and endurance to help the castaways in any practical manner, only serving as inhumane torture devices and thus being omitted from frontier starships.

Then again, I'd like to keep the pods there even for the really, really off chance that they could reach safe haven in time. They can't take up that much room, now can they? Kirk's ship did have enough cubic meters to spare for an arboretum, after all; lots of wasted airspace in Engineering, too.

There have been many innovative ways of "retrofitting" pods onto Kirk's ship. I especially like the one by our own Captain Robert April where the strangely thick outer rim of the saucer is explained to be a series of large, blocky pods firing downwards, although the one where the slightly differently colored forward dorsal saucer panels on the original shooting model hide the pods is another favorite.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[comsol]

One would assume lifepods existed, but only because of retroactive precedent from ENT.

If not for the fact that lifepods are deemed feasible in the 22nd century (the Mirror version of it at least!), one could equally well argue that a ship in distress beyond transporter range would simply be considered a complete loss, as Starfleet would be far too sparsely deployed to be able to rescue anybody bailing out in a lifepod. Hell, it took them half a year to go and see what happened to an entire missing starship!

Perhaps lifepods were part of ship design back in the 2150s for anachronistic reasons - they were there only because previous ships, which never operated outside practical search-and-rescue range, had been equipped with them. Perhaps lifepods between the 2150s and 2270s lacked the range and endurance to help the castaways in any practical manner, only serving as inhumane torture devices and thus being omitted from frontier starships.

Then again, I'd like to keep the pods there even for the really, really off chance that they could reach safe haven in time. They can't take up that much room, now can they? Kirk's ship did have enough cubic meters to spare for an arboretum, after all; lots of wasted airspace in Engineering, too.

There have been many innovative ways of "retrofitting" pods onto Kirk's ship. I especially like the one by our own Captain Robert April where the strangely thick outer rim of the saucer is explained to be a series of large, blocky pods firing downwards, although the one where the slightly differently colored forward dorsal saucer panels on the original shooting model hide the pods is another favorite.

Timo Saloniemi

You don't even have to invoke retroactive precedent from ENT, lifepods were mentioned as early as Where No Man Has Gone Before.

 

[Timo]

...Although not as a feature of Kirk's ship, to be sure.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS KG5]

I think it is fair to assume Kirk's ship had lifepods stored away on board. They never mention them because they never are in a position to use them I would assume.

 

[Major Chord]

A 2260s Connie's lifepods could be stored in the same space as they are thought to be stored in the refit Connies, the interior outter wall of the Engineering hull. I think it was Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise that said they were stored and launched from underneath blow-away panels on the outter hull. Then again, the pre refit Connie's interior hull probably is a lot different than that of the refit. Perhaps they were stored somewhere near the shuttlebay, and launched from there, similar to the Saratoga in DS9 "Emissary". Perhaps during the refit they were moved to the new positions because of how ineffiecient evacuation from the old Constitutions were. It must take time to get everyone to the shuttlebay, get the pods out of storage, ready to launch, loaded, and finally launch them.

Or, the pods were hidden under blow-away pannels scattered through out the ship, and the shuttles were used to supplement an evacuation if there was time to launch them.

 

[James Wright]

In the book "THE MAKING OF STAR TREK" by Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry on page 191 it says there are 6 shuttlecraft on the Enterprise.

JDW

 

[Wingsley]

Then either the Exeter had a different standard shuttlecraft compliment as the Enterprise, or that standard changes for every ship depending on the mission.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, we never quite hear the Exeter complement established as "standard", so yes, there's that possibility. Then again, the mission of the Exeter seemed very much like that of the Enterprise: explore the unknown in places where no man has gone before and where no man will wander again for six months even if your ship goes missing.

I gather things like aquashuttles aren't standard gear, despite the fact that if you encounter a water planet those six months away from civilization, you're pretty much screwed. If Kirk did encounter such a difficult environment during his voyages, he'd just file a report, and the next ship coming that way would have a contingent of aquashuttles. (I wonder how many Class Y planets and the like Kirk did skip during his five-year mission...?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

^No doubt that's why Voyager made sure they had a submersible shuttle!