NCC 1701 USS Enterprise

[Startrekanmore]

Something is tickling the back of my mind and I'm looking for an answer.

In the canon of TOS {not the jar jar-verse} exactly where was the Enterprise built? If not broadcast version then the extended version of the books.

[Graham Kennedy]

It was never stated in canon, but the bridge plaque read "U.S.S. Enterprise, Starship Class, San Francisco, Calif."

[McAvoy]

San Francisco. Whether it's up in space or the ground is basically up to. Your personal cannon at this point.

[AlexMcpherson79]

Sorry for the Necro but: We know from Voyager episode "Relativity" that Voyager was built in mars orbit, (likely known as Utopia Planetia) but it is labelled Earth Station McKinley. This means that what is labelled on the dedication plaque likely refers to where it was commissioned, not necessarily were it was built. I'm guessing back then, would be in orbit, with a station in geostationary orbit above san francisco where it is formally commissioned, but could be built anywhere.

[IanKennedy]

"geostationary orbit above san francisco" is an impossibility. You an only have "geostationary" orbits over the equator. Anything else ether "isn't geostationary" or isn't "an orbit".

An orbit has to be around a great circle. Any great circle will do, north south, east west. 10°, 35° anything. You cannot however orbit at a constant latitude, for example over 20°N, as there would be more planet to your right hand side than your left. This would mean that there was more gravitational pull to one side of you than the other. Thus you would be pulled more in that direction than the other. To avoid this you would have to apply constant force to keep you at the location. Once you are doing that you are not in orbit.

To be geostationary you need the ground underneath you to move at the same angular velocity that you are. This means that you must travel in the direction of spin of the planet and that you must sit at a height and speed the stops you moving ahead or behind the speed of the planets rotation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u60osLAaQR8

[AlexMcpherson79]

Maybe the san francisco yards were a special case then? and simply saying 'geo stationary orbit over' is accurate in terms of the layman knowing what's happening, even if its technically incorrect?

special case because guess what city starfleet headquarters is in?

[Graham Kennedy]

The best you could do for a physical association is arrange an orbit to regularly have the yards pass over the city. You could do that... have a polar 24 hour orbit such that the yards pass north to south as the city crosses the orbit east to west. So they'd pass one another once per day... each going in different directions. Not really sure what the point of it would be, though.

The only way an orbital "San Francsico yard" makes sense to me is if it's only named that because the admin offices for the yard are in the city or something.

Or, of course, if they built ships on the ground during TOS...

[McAvoy]

The best you could do for a physical association is arrange an orbit to regularly have the yards pass over the city. You could do that... have a polar 24 hour orbit such that the yards pass north to south as the city crosses the orbit east to west. So they'd pass one another once per day... each going in different directions. Not really sure what the point of it would be, though.

The only way an orbital "San Francsico yard" makes sense to me is if it's only named that because the admin offices for the yard are in the city or something.

Or, of course, if they built ships on the ground during TOS...

I always assumed if the ships were built in orbit then San Francisco shipyards was basically named that because of offices located in San Francisco but also maybe the company/organization is a hold over from the old times.

I mean hell, Trek still calls it drydocking and that doesn't really apply in the space!

[IanKennedy]

You would think that a space dry dock would be to encase the ship in an atmosphere, to allow you to easily work on the outside without a suit, but, that's not what we see.

[Graham Kennedy]

You would think that a space dry dock would be to encase the ship in an atmosphere, to allow you to easily work on the outside without a suit, but, that's not what we see.

I always figured that the inside of Spacedock could be pressurised.

[bladela]

You would think that a space dry dock would be to encase the ship in an atmosphere, to allow you to easily work on the outside without a suit, but, that's not what we see.

they could use forcefields or shields to do just that i think

[Graham Kennedy]

You would think that a space dry dock would be to encase the ship in an atmosphere, to allow you to easily work on the outside without a suit, but, that's not what we see.

they could use forcefields or shields to do just that i think

Sure. But it's an enclosed space, there's a door and everything. The whole thing could be one gigantic airlock.

[IanKennedy]

Not so much this one. Sure it could be force fields. However, we often see people in space suits in these, even standing on the struts.

[Graham Kennedy]

I'm reminded of the Culture novels. Their GSVs aren't the least airtight - the real hull of the ship is a series of ellipsoid forcefields which contain a gigantic bubble of air. The ship sitting inside it is covered in balconies and open windows, with a huge flat upper surface that has a park on it. You can even take an non-airtight aircraft and fly around in the space outside the ship. I could see the Federation evolving towards something like that, in time.

And no, it's not unsafe. It's stated that Culture tech is so reliable that a physical hull is more likely to spontaneously fall apart than all the fields containing the atmosphere fail. This is a society that uses shuttles instead of transporters because quantum uncertainty dictates that there's a something like 30,000,000-1 chance of any given transport going wrong.

[bladela]

could a starfleet ship do such a thing? I intend to raise the shields (in the bubble version) and fill the internal space with replicated air?

i know that the Enterprise has closed leaks in the hull of other ships with its shields on at least one occasion.