Sketches I provided to our mad modeler, the internationally handsome Pierre Drolet, to finish off the NX-01. Pierre built the original final hero model for the series at Foundation Imaging. For the last five years we’ve had the fun of working together on BSG\Caprica.
Please sir, can we have some more???
Your wish is my command.
Who decided that ” rectangular ” warp nacelles were more efficient / aesthetic / futuristic than the cylindrical nacelles of the Original Enterprise, anyway ? I wondered about that since ST – The Motion Picture.
I always assumed regtangles – being in juxtaposition to cylinders – were a quick visual way of shouting “New! Different! Updated! Not like on TV!”. But, really, when you think about it, the cylinders were a better fit to the overall “round
aesthetic of Mr. Jefferies’ baby: round saucer, cylindrical pods, round deflector dish, hemispheres at the end of the nacelles. But me, I like ‘em bowff.
Sorry my typos are so bad today, everybody. I’m really not an idiot. Scout’s honor!
I always wondered if warp scientists made some discovery that rectangular housings for the engines maximized efficiency by a few percentage points for Starfleet vehicles.
There’s a pretty simple explanation for the early choice of cylindrical nacelles, and I have a theory about the rectangular ones.
If you look at Jeffries’ original design, it is essentially a nod to previous spaceship depictions on the screen. He uses a saucer, echoing the flying saucer that had appeared in numerous movies (like Forbidden Planet). And he also used cylinders like rocketships that had appeared in science fiction movies as well (like Destination Moon). Now he put them together in a way that was unique and exciting and I still think that the Enterprise represents probably the most unique spaceship design to come along when compared to what had appeared before it. It was more new, more of a break with the past. Yes, there were unique ships that came afterward, and many of them became iconic. But things like the Discovery and the Orion and the pod in 2001 were not as big a break from before. And by the time we got to Star Wars, it had become much more common to see bulky ships that were not aerodynamic and had lots of things sticking off of them.
The transition to the rectangular nacelles makes a little more sense if you think that a) nobody was thinking of echoing rocketships anymore, because traditional rocketships had not appeared in science fiction movies for over a decade, and b)what the designers were trying to do was differentiate the TMP Enterprise from the TOS Enterprise, so they were making changes where they could.
I personally love the TMP Enterprise to no end. I think it’s a beautiful refinement of the original, which was primarily bold shapes and not much detail.
I’ve heard a story that Matt Jefferies had been told to design a ship that didn’t look “like a saucer, a rocket or an airplane” – so he mixed part of all three (saucer-shaped main section, rocket-shaped engines, and aircraft-front fuselage-like engineering hull).
The original E had round nacelles because they were easier and cheaper to fabricate.
I love the round theme of the TOS E.
I like ‘em bowff 2!
Welll… I prefer the cylindrical ‘old-school’ nacelles too, but the ENT-refit nacelles were pretty nice too. Very ‘streamline moderne’, which I’m a big fan of. Worked well with some of the other streamline/art deco influences such as the parallel lines on the saucer edge and the aztec hull pattern.
whoops! should clarify, USS Enterprise TMP-refit. xD
Nice observations.
Loving it
Tease…
Yes, most definately more.
I’ll confess that I’m not really a fan of this refit design. I don’t like it on aesthetic grounds. I think that the cutback on the bottom of the secondary hull occurs too far forward. I think it should happen farther back. Yes, right now it echoes the angle of the neck down to the secondary hull, but that’s part of the problem, since it makes the forward lines look like a block. It makes the rear of the secondary hull look flattened and pinched, rather than graceful.
The beginning of the design process is always so much fun! I love the way that it points to the heritage of the 1701. I’m curious if you have any other sketches of other possible designs for this addition to the NX-01?
There was a couple of other side views with minor differences.
I like it, Doug!
The tech geek in me is wondering, any idea as to what the new specs on this upgrade would be? At least as far as a deck count? Beautiful work, as always.
It probably would take an afternoon to sort of layout the secondary hull. Might be fun.
I wouldn’t want you to have to go through some extra work because of something I had said (days after the fact, when the comments were posted…), but I did a tiny bit of thinking on it (I am a bit of a nerd that way), and in a conservative estimate (using a best guess, visual style trying to use the saucer rim thickness as a starting point), I’d see the neck having two to three decks (if it has anything there at all, aside from conduits and supports), two to three to the mid point of the secondary hull (where the shuttle bay is on ships of a similar design) and three to four for the rest. Again, that is all a conservative estimate, I have no real way to properly measure it out, or to compare views and angles, and there would probably be a couple half decks in there somewhere too, maybe? That’s just my line of thinking, though, and may not be at all accurate.
Already the sketch is spot-on!
By the way, M. Christopher Freeman came up with a similar original ship (Adamant), only with a Miranda-esque configuration. But if you turn it upside down, it resembles the NX upgrade.
http://www.treknology.org/history1a.htm
That’s rather fun. You know, there was a time when we only had one ship, and it was the TOS E. Any deviation seemed wrong. At this point the shape has been stretched so many different ways that you realize that’s part of the fun.
Wonder if this design update will be reflected in the upcoming Romulan Wars book?
I’d welcome that, for sure. Maybe I’ll ask.
It’s supposed to come out next feb, I think, according to an article at Trekmovie, so there’s probably time?
I would think it great to have them try to incorporate this new ship as part of the ongoing saga.
I look forward to reading that book when it does come out.
Do we know the author?
Micheal A. Martin is writing the sequel ( I believe) to his first book in the series.
according to Trek movie article :
Star Trek Enterprise: Romulan War: In Shariel’s Jaws is coming in October (not February as I previously mentioned)
here’s the article:
http://trekmovie.com/2010/06/19/2011-star-trek-books-schedule-details-revealed/
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about the way you’ve drawn the new secondary hull that REALLY reminds me of the Ambassador/Ent-C’s secondary more than the classic Constitution/E-nil one. Was that intentional, Doug?
My reasoning was that the secondary hull would fill out and grow into the profile of the TOS ship as Federation starships evolved. I did it to give the design somewhere to grow to.
Worst refit of a Starship ever.
Even corrected it looks bad:
[url]http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z2/PeelGodred/Star%20Trek/NX01a.png[/url]
Very nice. I’m sure the crew would appreciate the extra room. And the big deflector must give it better shielding.
OK, my question about the refit is, Where’s the shuttlebay? The warp reactor is placed where the hangar deck was on the TOS E and the interconnecting dorsal connects to the bottom of the saucer where the bay was on the pre-refit Enterprise. One other question, when and how did the TOS E’s “Sensor Array” dish become the Navigational Deflector?
Hi Paul,
Two of the existing pod bays on the bottom of the saucer are still there. There are also two large bays at the trailing edge of the primary hull.
That was my way of telling Pierre that the nav/deflector dish is the same style as the TOS dish.
Does that mean that through the refit, there’s now *more* pod bays?
The two doors on the back of the saucer which were originally dedicated engineering staging bays, are now pod bays. So, yes.
Brilliant! Thank design makes a lot more sense overall.
Hi Doug,
I took a crack at varying the refit diagram, hope you like it. apologies if you dont.
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss257/brandomack/NX01_Refit_Altered-2.jpg