Is there a specific feature of the saucer shaped fuselage that most ship-designers require? Is the aesthetic due to a technical disadvantage or does it offer a special advantage?
Largely, it was simply an aesthetic that the Federation adopted, just like the Klingons, Romulans, Ferengi, and Cardassians all had distinctive shapes that appeared, with slight alterations, among most of their classes of ships.
It never really occurred to me until watching the first battle between the Enterprise and the Reliant in The Wrath of Khan, but it helps give it the aesthetic of a sail vessel. The second battle is like two submarines going at each other but the first is like two historical tall ships in battle.
shareThe design was somewhat revolutionary, because up until then, all sci-fi filmed spaceships had been sleek and aerodynamic. But since the Enterprise was designed for deep space only, it didn't have to be aerodynamic, and they were free to invent an eccentric, unique, totally un-aerodynamic shape. And they justified the odd shape by saying the four main shapes were all made to be detachable, the saucer could detach from the rest of the ship, and either of the warp nacelles could be jettisoned if they became a danger. So while I don't think the design is particulaly attractive, I give it enough extra credit for originality that it gets a thumbs up from me.
Of course a few years later "Star Wars" made it look clunky and cheap, but then, I truly believe that the production design on "Star Wars" is the best in the history of cinema. No shame in being outdone by the best ever.
"Of course a few years later "Star Wars" made it look clunky and cheap"
Whether or not it would actually work, the Enterprise, in all its configurations, is the most attractive starship of all time, in movies and television. In comparison, the "Star Wars" ships look like giant dumpsters with all the plumbing fixtures from the local builder's store glued on.
It's so sweet that one person thinks so!
shareIt's ridiculous, just like it is ridiculous to extend your engines out on the end of large struts. It adds mass to your structure and is inherently weak structurally. Whatever locking mechanism they use to secure the saucer section just breaks the structural integrity of the whole ship. The Federation starships are truly build for Hollywood.
Also would would make the protective force shields harder to implement and more power hungry.
Engines that far away for the ship is just asking for trouble. It's not a plausible design. Cool-looking, but extremely dangerous in a real battle. The way to realistically go would be the Defiant.
shareSo the center of mass isn't in the ideal place and when thrust is applied from above the center of mass the starship can flip around and around like silly.
shareI never thought of them as generating thrust, like a jet engine, but rather there to generate a warp field (which I always imagined as a bubble around the ship) that moved the entire thing through space at warp speed.
sharethe sub light engines should be thrust, the warp engine of course generates a bubble that allows space to move around the ship
shareAren't the impulse (non-warp) engines located in the saucer section? (That's why it can separate from the engineering/engine section and go off on its own.)
There were spec sheets drawn up by fans back in the 1970's which assigned locations for the various devices but I have never seen a copy. The remasters assign the impulse engines at the rear of the saucer section. This can be seen in The Doomsday Machine as we see a rear shot of the Constellation as it undergoes a restart of the impulse engines. Remember that the Constellation's warp engines were non repairable under the circumstances therefore non operational. It seems to me that I read Roddenberry had more ambitious ideas for the Enterprise including landing on a planet. Presumably, the saucer section would do the landing while the secondary hull would stay in orbit. Then the explanation of "we can't afford to do that" came from Desilu which spawned the transporter.
shareThen how come the USS Voyager could fly through planetary atmospheres and even land on planets themselves? The "great design" of the USS Enterprise seems nullified as a space-only ship if a variation of it could work in all environments.
Hmm, let me think:
Because there had been new engineering developments in the intervening years?
Because the script called for it?
(Note that Roddenberry was long gone by the time Voyager premiered.)
More likely the special effects, ie. CGI, could easily show that in the 1990s than the 1960s.
Good point! Which is why Federation engineers were finally able to figure out how to land an enormous spaceship on a planet. You remember the scene in the final Next Gen movie, where they actually do land the saucer -- I would imagine that was a fairly realistic representation of how awkward it would really be.
I don't recall any scene like that in Voyager (may have stopped watching by then). Was it also a fairly traumatic event?
The times I remember that Voyager landed on a planet:
"The 37's" - This was the first episode that showed the ship landing, I suppose it was to demonstrate this ability for the viewers, but I don't recall a good reason why it would need to land.
"Basics" - A hostile alien species called the Kazon who have been harassing Voyager for its technology since the show started have finally overwhelmed the crew of Voyager and so land the ship on a primitive planet to maroon them there and claim the ship as their own.
"Dragon's Teeth" - Voyager lands on a desolated planet to evade pursuers, I think. Not sure.
There was also another episode where the ship is landed to overhaul the engines and other systems, so they're taking the nacelles apart and everything, so it's easier to do it on land, but I don't remember which one it was, possibly "Nightingale".
So, unlike TNG, where the saucer separation ability was only used once or twice (same for the Battle Bridge, I might add), Voyager's landing ability was used more.
Thanks for that list!
So -- did the ship land gracefully, something like a battleship-sized aircraft? How did they manage to land (especially in an impromptu location) without damaging the ship? I assume it didn't plow through the landscape as with the 1701-D.
This video shows the landing in "The 37's", they call it a "Blue Alert" (I think there's a Red Dwarf joke in there somewhere):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE5mCKAyBGc
The 1701-D in "Generations" was a crash landing, I think they could've landed the saucer section more safely and with less damage if the explosion of the Engineering section didn't knock them into the atmosphere.
As for Voyager, it had a similar crash to "Generations", but the whole crew was killed in the impact with an ice planet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdG_kxttT0M
I think it was a sort of variant on the classic UFO shape. I mean, before Star Trek, nobody had ever thought of what a ship powered by humans would look like. It might have also been inspired by submarine shapes as well.
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