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Even if it's nothing but a glorified lifeboat, it's still a major improvement over the pokey little things they'd have to use otherwise - if it's a choice between floating round in a broom cupboard waiting for rescue and floating round in a GCS saucer section waiting for rescue, I which one I'd go for.

I thought you were the one talking about the importance of being able to land?

I think that's useful as well, but even if it can't it's still an improvement over the lifeboats.

Having the ability to seperate takes very little extra space. Just an extra thick wall and some clamps. The ability to land however would take far more space.

Why? All you need are shields and interial dampers - and even then they're unlikely to need to be more powerful for landing on a decent bit of flat ground than for space combat and withstanding typical sublight acceleration. Note that I never said anything about the ability to take off again - it's a lifeboat, not a shuttle.

Note that I never said anything about the ability to take off again - it's a lifeboat, not a shuttle.

Certainly that wouldn't be necessary for the purposes we're discussing.

To land something the size and shape of the saucer you would need some form of landing gears which would need to be of considerable size.

Teaos wrote:To land something the size and shape of the saucer you would need some form of landing gears which would need to be of considerable size.

Again, why? It didn't need landing gear in Generations. As the saying goes: "A good landing is one you can walk away from. A great landing is one where you can use the aeroplane again afterwards." The saucer only needs to be capable of a good landing.

Because if you dont have a system like that you risk substantial damage to a delicate piece of equipment that could then harm the crew. Or just harm the crew in general.

Strong shields and intertial damping should slove that, and you need them anyway for normal spaceflight. Plus the E-D showed that even damaged, out of control, and with power failing the saucer can put down without loss of life.

That was pure luck no one died. The impact of that crash and what we saw should have killed people. Sure no one died that time but I wouldnt bet on that happening again.

True - in that example, with all the problems they had that I pointed out. In a "normal" landing they'd be able to choose a nice flat bit with plenty of open run-off, rather than chopping the tops off hills and going through the middle of a forest.

Teaos wrote:That was pure luck no one died. The impact of that crash and what we saw should have killed people. Sure no one died that time but I wouldnt bet on that happening again.

But just to remind you - it was only a matter of kilometres from a warp core explosion of the biggest warp core in Starfleet (a shuttle's warp core explosion could be felt on Voyager from 1.2 million kilometres away), which sent it hurtling towards a planet.

Most of the crew casualties in the Generations crash, as far as I can remember, seemed to be from people getting thrown about the ship due to the lack of seatbelts.

Well, they had the active "passenger polarized restraint field," but as an active safety system aboard a GCS it went offline at a completely random interval.

Maybe someone was occupying the computer by trying to make tea.