Space Station K-7

[Robert Comsol]

"It also seems (to me, anyway) to at least swing the door open a little further about the existence of 22-person transporter rooms."

I don't think so at all. The station manager's office can only receive two visitors at a time beaming in, already three visitors will be a 'problem'.

Unlike the Enterprise the station does not appear to have the capability to warp space and take in interstellar matter as fuel or to simply be refueled like a starship at the earliest next convenience - at a station or starbase!

Thus, most likely, you have to bring everything to the station (compare to an oil drilling platform) and energy saving should be a major issue where the corporeal transfer of people to the station appears to be the favorable means, IMHO.

@ Forbin

Nice link and visualization. Thanks

Bob

 

[Timo]

While bringing in goods was something of an issue for DS9, we never heard of risks or difficulties associated with delayed fuel shipments. It appeared that the onboard power generators were quite capable of operating systems such as personnel transporters (for apparent daily commuting of large numbers of Bajoran laborers, back in ye olden days), shields and phasers (for fighting multiple starships), even in a siege situation...

Where the comparable powerplant of K-7 might be located is an interesting question, with many possibilities. K-7 is significantly smaller than DS9 regardless of what exact size we choose for the two ill-scaled structures, within the apparent limits. It's not smaller than Kirk's ship, though, and could plausibly mount a "starship-category" powerplant or three in, say, the hangar section, with significant fuel tankage along the booms.

The station manager's office can only receive two visitors at a time beaming in, already three visitors will be a 'problem'.

Which is a very good limitation to have for a station manager's office! The mall transporter might be quite capable of receiving parties of 58 people at one stroke, though.

This is assuming that the platforms on the station handle the transport, of course. Kirk could have beamed in with at least five friends if he didn't bother with Lurry' platforms - and with twenty-one if the larger units are assumed to exist. A problem, definitely, but only for Lurry...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Robert Comsol]

Had a thought the other day which I felt to be a good opportunity to revive this interesting thread.

Obviously the three extending pylons of Space Station K-7 (or the one from "The Ultimate Computer", TOS-R ignored) do not serve a useful purpose such as providing artificial gravity by rotation of the station.

Another subject I talked about a longer time ago were the rectangular bottom markings on the Enterprise's engineering hull many assume to be cargo hatches.

I'll now go one step further and theorize that these are actually cargo containers. There are some episodes where the Enterprise has a rendezvous with one of her sister ships to transfer cargo.

Trying to imagine a quick exchange I somehow think a basic swap of cargo containers between both ships would do the job.

Which, of course, brings us to the question where these containers were picked up in the first place. Considering the spherical nature of a starship's engineering hull bottom, the extending pylons of a K-7 type space station could actually hold clusters of such containers.

I haven't checked out, yet, how this would impact the actual dimensions of the K-7 type space station but it might be a hint.

The cargo container idea would also help to rationalize the difference in color of the "cargo hatch" at the bottom of the 11-footer Enterprise and the smaller model - these were just differently colored cargo containers...

Bob

 

[Mario de Monti]

That´s a truly interesting idea, that I´d get on board with immediately. Unfortunately however, it´s not going to work and for a very simple reason: The "arms" of the space station are cylindrical, while the engineering hull of the Enterprise is conical. So the radius of the curved surface of such a container would be the same on both ends in the space station arms, but in the Enterprise the forward ends of the containers would have a bigger radius than the aft ends. That just wouldn´t fit together.

Mario

 

[Robert Comsol]

@ Mario de Monti

Blast! You're right. Okay, I invoke Plan B.

I can't help but notice the oversized rectangular station hangar door on the lower module or element. If there were only one hangar door (as suggested by the AMT model kit which is practically all we have on the station as a "whole") you'd have to devote precious space for transport purposes, i.e. to get something stored on the other side of the element to the area with the large hangar door.

And since this is TOS with compression / decompression techniques this looks like a hangar way too big to do the compression / decompression procedure just to take onboard Cyrano Jones' merchant ship or smaller vessels in general, IMHO. There might be smaller hangars on the other and unseen side.

Bob

 

[Mario de Monti]

I guess you are implying that these smaller (unseen) hangars could be used to store these containers that fit into the Enterprise. That works for me, although your initial idea would have been more elegant

Another thought on the container idea: each type of starship would need its own type of container. For example, the containers that fit into the secondary hull of the Enterprise wouldn´t fit into a TOS Miranda type ship. Depending on the actual number of starship classes in TOS, there might be quite a few different types of containers a station like K-7 might have to have in store. So a standardized container (shape) might make more sense. Or you say, that these containers are merely limited to the top-of-the-line starships, which need to exchange cargo quickly and be on their way again.

But that should maybe be discussed in a thread of its own - along with the actual meaning of all the hull markings on the Enterprise

Mario

 

[Robert Comsol]

But that should maybe be discussed in a thread of its own - along with the actual meaning of all the hull markings on the Enterprise

Guess you're right. Here it is: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=190540

I'm not yet sure whether a container of the Enterprise couldn't be inserted into one of those huge 2 stern openings of a Miranda Class starship (which I never believed to be shuttlebays: in this case two would mean that one is probably redundant, IMHO)

Bob

 

[Mario de Monti]

Thanks for pointing out that thread. Interesting, though it somehow turned into a discussion about the ion pod

 

[Irishman]

Or maybe the ships aren't in proportion to their (presumed) 100 km proximity to the station, meaning the station could be larger on the outside than appearances suggest.

I had gathered that only the Klingon ship was said to be 100km away when they arrived initially. After two or three scenes they could've moved closer to the station...

As aggressive and militant as the Klingons are, I could easily see them having an option for orbiting like a shark, starting out, and spiraling in closer with each run, as an intimidating factor. This imaginary thing I've just made up could explain why the D7 looked closer than 100km.

 

[Timo]

The Klingons might also, as a matter of habit, only make a half-hearted attempt at braking when arriving, leaving their ship deliberately on a very slow collision course... A perfect combination of cruelty and crudity.

Timo Saloniemi