The first five year mission?

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I don't know where the idea that the Enterprise is the first Starfleet ship ever to undertake a five year mission came from, but it's been roundly dismissed since. (Real world because they were expecting to make 5 seasons?)

The phrase "its five year mission" could have suggested they were the first, perhaps, or alternately, that the Enterprise's particular task for the next five years, as opposed to, say, mapping the J'bruus Sector, is one of general exploration and discovery, along with whatever else they're needed to and able to assist with when asked.

Into Darkness depicts the five year mission as a brand new program, that no ship has ever had a five year mission (of this scope and focus) before. And perhaps in that reality, it's true; the Kelvin disaster may have delayed exploration in favor of securing current colonies, monitoring Romulan activity more than ever, and building the fleet/innovating in tech.

Back to the prime reality. According to PIC, Matt Decker had three five year missions on the Constellation, beginning in 2245. Plus 3x5, that's about 2260 - five years or so before Kirk. Pike had also been on a five year mission, leaving him too far away to participate in the Klingon War in DSC.

So what was it supposed to be in-universe, in TOS? New and unique or one of many?

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Five-year_mission

 

[JonnyQuest037]

In my mind, one of many. Maybe not every ship was on a five year mission, but lots of other ships were besides the Enterprise.

And the TOS Enterprise wasn't the flagship, either!

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

For that matter, who says a mission has to be ship-specific? Perhaps it's a fleet-wide mission. Just because it's the Enterprise's doesn't mean it isn't also the mission of the other ships Enterprise runs into out there, within comm-spitting-distance.

 

[C.E. Evans]

To me, a five-year mission is simply a single deployment for the Enterprise. Exploration could be the ship's primary mission, but the vessel is really a multipurpose starship and is expected to carry out s wide variety of other missions as well during that time, including colony & space facility support, emergency search & rescue, diplomatic endeavors, Federation defense, and even fairly mundane cargo & passenger transport when needed. As such, the Enterprise's theater of operations alternates between unexplored space and well-established Federation territory.

IMO, Star Trek Beyond was really the only instance that indicated the Enterprise's five-year mission was exploration and not much else. And even then, she was still capable of returning to a starbase along the frontier for crew R&R and likely routine resupply, so it's not like she's just out there in the wilderness and totally cut off from the Federation the whole time like Voyager was...

 

[F. King Daniel]

I recall Simon Pegg bringing up the old fandom story that the Enterprise was the first of the NCC-17 series of ships, designed for the 5 year mission of exploration back in 2016. But really it was just a thing that sounded cool in 1966 and Trek has woven itself around it ever since.

IIRC from the TNG tech manual, the Enterprise-D was supposed to be a 30-year mission but that never ever made it to screen.

 

[Tallguy]

According to Gene Roddenberry "Kirk commanded the U.S.S. Enterprise on its historic five-year voyage and became the first starship captain in history to bring back both his vessel and his crew relatively intact after such a mission."

 

[Timofnine]

Perhaps the Enterprise and earlier 5 year mission ships only had enough renewable essential resources to last 5 years, which would result in them having to return to earth/spacedock after this period of exploration time, so therefore being complications of potential extended periods of space travel? Or perhaps 5 years was chosen for social reasons, giving early Starfleet exploratory crews a chance to return home to their families and friends after serving their term? Also, if you would like me to truly complicate things, 5 years of early space travel at warp speed may end up being 20 years of time expanded ‘back home’ on earth due to the effects of temporal relatively, which Star Trek and Einstein may have gotten wrong, mixed up and complicated.

Did you know that the faster that we travel, the slower that time becomes?

There may also be crew safeguarding reasons for keeping the mission lengths at a particular duration of 5 years, with starships experiencing extra terrestrial forces and radiations which may prevent journeys of more than 5 years before the technology and medication is invented to counter such effects.

 

[Jedi Marso]

According to Gene Roddenberry "Kirk commanded the U.S.S. Enterprise on its historic five-year voyage and became the first starship captain in history to bring back both his vessel and his crew relatively intact after such a mission."

Except for Pike and April before him, eh?

I always thought of it like this: Given the VAST distances between systems, especially when you get 'out there' away from the UFP's core systems, short-duration missions make little sense, as does a lot of crew turnover, etc. So I figure that the crew of a starship signs on for a 5 year commission, committing to remain aboard for that length of time. At the end of the five years, the ship returns home for refit and the crew is free to move on to new assignments or sign up for the next one.

Of course, it doesn't work that way in practice because the ship moves at the speed of plot, returning to Earth in five minutes if that is what the story calls for.

 

[Tallguy]

Of course, it doesn't work that way in practice because the ship moves at the speed of plot, returning to Earth in five minutes if that is what the story calls for.

Except in TOS it never did. There were many plots where the distances and the time of communications, let alone time for help to arrive were plot points. Even in TMP Vulcan was three days away from Earth on the newest starship.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Except in TOS it never did. There were many plots where the distances and the time of communications, let alone time for help to arrive were plot points. Even in TMP Vulcan was three days away from Earth on the newest starship.

One of the many pleasing things about TOS.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

IMO, Star Trek Beyond was really the only instance that indicated the Enterprise's five-year mission was exploration and not much else.

Aside from diplomatic overtures to the Teenaxi.

 

[C.E. Evans]

IMO, Star Trek Beyond was really the only instance that indicated the Enterprise's five-year mission was exploration and not much else.

Aside from diplomatic overtures to the Teenaxi.

If the Enterprise is exploring a given region, it stands to reason she would handle the non-Federation contacts there too. In Beyond, Kirk was acting as the Federation's representative rather than some ambassador or special mediator the Enterprise picked up from somewhere.

 

[Commander Troi]

According to Gene Roddenberry "Kirk commanded the U.S.S. Enterprise on its historic five-year voyage and became the first starship captain in history to bring back both his vessel and his crew relatively intact after such a mission."

There is some wiggle room there - "after such a mission" indicates there may have been other 5 year missions sent out where the captain didn't bring back his ship and/or crew "relatively intact."

 

[Tallguy]

There is some wiggle room there - "after such a mission" indicates there may have been other 5 year missions sent out where the captain didn't bring back his ship and/or crew "relatively intact."

Oh no, I assume there were others. I'm assuming that's what the other 11 or 12 Starships were doing as well. And every time (almost every time?) we heard about another ship like the Enterprise it did not go well for that captain and / or crew.

It would be nice to hear about The Twelve again in SNW.

 

[Commander Troi]

It would be nice to hear about The Twelve again in SNW.

Yeah, that would be interesting. I wonder if the Cuyuga was one of them?

 

[Tallguy]

Yeah, that would be interesting. I wonder if the Cuyuga was one of them?

Oh Great Bird, with everything we've had with SNW, please don't go adding names to the Sacred List of Ships. Using Greg Jein's NCC numbers was traumatizing enough.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

There is some wiggle room there - "after such a mission" indicates there may have been other 5 year missions sent out where the captain didn't bring back his ship and/or crew "relatively intact."

Or it could mean a mission of such wide scope and high danger level.

 

[Commander Troi]

Oh Great Bird, with everything we've had with SNW, please don't go adding names to the Sacred List of Ships. Using Greg Jein's NCC numbers was traumatizing enough.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Oh no, I assume there were others. I'm assuming that's what the other 11 or 12 Starships were doing as well. And every time (almost every time?) we heard about another ship like the Enterprise it did not go well for that captain and / or crew.

It would be nice to hear about The Twelve again in SNW.

Well, here's what we know about the original 12 based just on what we saw:

USS Defiant: Ship and crew lost in interphase. (The Tholian Web)
USS Constellation: Ship and crew lost to the Doomsday Machine
USS Lexington: Ship loses 53 crewmembers due to the M-5 computer commanding Enterprise.
USS Excalibur: Loss of entire crew due to the M-5 computer commanding Enterprise.
USS Exeter: Loss of crew due to infection by a crystallizing disease at Omega IV.
USS Intrepid: Ship and crew lost to gigantic space amoeba.
USS Potemkin: No word, other than appearance during "The Ultimate Computer."
USS Hood: No word, other than appearance during "The Ultimate Computer."
USS Yorktown: Mentioned a couple times, but no word as to her final disposition.

There was actually an entire thread on this subject a while back: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/fate-of-the-original-12-constitution-class-starships.282714/

 

[Henoch]

Well, here's what we know about the original 12 based just on what we saw:

USS Defiant: Ship and crew lost in interphase. (The Tholian Web)
USS Constellation: Ship and crew lost to the Doomsday Machine
USS Lexington: Ship loses 53 crewmembers due to the M-5 computer commanding Enterprise.
USS Excalibur: Loss of entire crew due to the M-5 computer commanding Enterprise.
USS Exeter: Loss of crew due to infection by a crystallizing disease at Omega IV.
USS Intrepid: Ship and crew lost to gigantic space amoeba.
USS Potemkin: No word, other than appearance during "The Ultimate Computer."
USS Hood: No word, other than appearance during "The Ultimate Computer."
USS Yorktown: Mentioned a couple times, but no word as to her final disposition.

There was actually an entire thread on this subject a while back: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/fate-of-the-original-12-constitution-class-starships.282714/

USS Carolina: Possibly not a starship. Mentioned once during "Friday's Child."
USS Farragut: Possibly still in service. Topic of "Obsession."
USS Republic: Possibly out of service. Mentioned in "Court Martial.