Yeah, you’ve seen it by now, but I feel I must be complete and show it anyway:
It sure is pretty! This is the only released still of the Enterprise from JJ Abrams’ new Trek movie. I didn’t realize the Enterprise had rotary turbines! I guess that helps for that added boost when you’re in the Mutara Nebula.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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January 17th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Yes, I recognize the source of the title: Kirk, poking Harry Mudd in the ribs during the ellipsis points in “I, Mudd.” Nicely done!
~David D.G.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Go here to see how Trek really began: http://tinyurl.com/3awkzg
January 17th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
The new trek catch phrase “Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed!”
January 17th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Aw, geez. I just pitched a tent.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I’m too jaded on the whole Trek thing to get my hopes up.
But dammit, for some reason I really like that pic. *sigh* Nostalgia is a stronger force than it has any right to be, or something.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
There is supposed to be a teaser for the movie attached to “Cloverfield.”
January 17th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Even better than the picture, Simon Pegg is playing Scottie!!!!
January 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
that thing would make a fine submarine.
Oops?
January 17th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
“I didn’t realize the Enterprise had rotary turbines!”
Didn’t you know, Phil? Those are the Big E’s turbochargers! Useful for a boost when using Bussard ramscopes.
I hope the film lives up to the excitement I’m getting about it.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Even anti-matter drives require some reaction mass, unless you want to run the darn thing at super nova temps,,,
Thus, in an atmosphere, it is handy to have such turbines to suck in that reaction mass and cool the reactors,,,
So there!!!
GAry 7
January 17th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
There is a logical reason for those turbines, but the explanation requires a lot of math, and I don’t have time..(heh)
January 17th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Jeez, gang, am I the only one who noticed that the nacelles are clearly still under construction?
My geek credentials are now affirmed, captain.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
I guess that my husband and I are unique. We both have absolutely no interest in this movie. It may be being jaded after the joy that was Enterprise, I don’t know. Sorry…
January 17th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
You don’t hold the Turbo down! It’s for quick boosts.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
that pic makes the enterprise look more real then the one from the 60’s, which i guees looked real to people back then, hmm
January 17th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
They aren’t turbines, they are Bussard Collectors and AFAIK they are not even exposed as much when the ship is completely assembled…
January 17th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
They aren’t turbines, they are Bussard Collectors and AFAIK they are not even exposed as much when the ship is completely assembled…
Funny they don’t look a thing like the Bussard collectors on my ship.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Something is on fire, just above the letter T. Also, what might be the scale of this picture ? I see no construction worker or anything that could give us a clue.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Anybody notice that it is under construction on Earth? The prevailing mythology up to this point (plus common sense) had the Enterprise and other large ships being constructed in space. After all, the thing can’t land, so how can it take off?
On the other hand, this is a teaser, so it may not represent what’s going to actually be in the movie.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
If you watch the Enterprise in the restored classic Trek episodes that are currently airing, the lights in the ncells (located where those “turbines” are) do spin.
Hey, it makes every bit as much sense as the chompers in Galaxy Quest.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
In fact, there were episodes of TOS, even before the renovated FX, where the nacelles have a spinning turbine effect visible in the domes. (On some other episodes there’s a sparkling effect.)
January 17th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Anybody else notice an Ewok on the bridge? That’s what it looks like to me.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I gotta tell ‘ya, I wasn’t very excited about this picture…until now. Man, what a view!
Regarding previous posts:
–Looks like the ‘fire’ above the T is the result of something hitting the hull and bouncing off. That can’t be good.
–I don’t see anything that indicates the construction site is Earth, but there is definitely gravity (the hoses on the cranes and scaffolding droop) and some kind of atmosphere (the smoke/steam isn’t dissipating immediately, and there is haziness in the distance).
–Regarding scale: zoom in on the bridge. You can peek in between the girders and get a pretty good idea of the distance between the deck and the overhead, and the deck itself is pretty thick–probably to accommodate the step-down into the central well of the bridge. I think I also see a spacesuited figure hovering over the cut-out bit of the saucer’s forward edge–but that doesn’t make sense if there’s gravity and an atmosphere.
–An Ewok? Looks like Jabba the Hutt, to me.
(Oboy, this is fun!)
January 17th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Lugosi and Martin are correct. The Nacelles have always spun. A true fan, Phil, would have known that. Even the Enterprise E used the turbines as ram-scoops as an aggressive defense mechanism in the briar patch in what would someday be historically known as the Riker maneuver.
Spluh.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Well, judging by this one picture, it’ll be a great movie.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Well, judging by this one picture, it will be a great movie
January 17th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Has the Federation always stamped U.S.S. on its ships?
January 17th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Impium Orexis says: “Has the Federation always stamped U.S.S. on its ships?”
United Space Ship.
- Jack
January 18th, 2008 at 12:09 am
@Jack Hagerty:
“Impium Orexis says: “Has the Federation always stamped U.S.S. on its ships?”
United Space Ship.
- Jack”
Which, while silly, made sense in TOS, but got increasingly strange in the post-TNG series, since they always seemed to introduce themselves as “of the Federation Star Ship” whatever.
But then, Roddenberry was just making most of it up as he went along, in the early days.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Has nobody noticed that the Enterprise pictured looks like a cross between The Original Series & The Motion Picture? The nacelles are TOS-ish, while the bridge dome more closely resembles TMP. Not to mention the ‘aztec’ hull plates, the typeface–er, sorry, font–used on the name & registry.
Is this supposed to be the original E under construction, or the original E being uprated prior to the V’Ger encounter?
Ah, that’s right. Retcon in action, the current Star Trek standard… my bad.
Know what the worst part is? I actually don’t care. I’m with Mena & her husband.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:06 am
“Has nobody noticed that the Enterprise pictured looks like a cross between The Original Series & The Motion Picture?”
Well, evidently someone has noticed: you.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Well, as for the gravity..IIRC They always stated that the original Enterprise was built at San Francisco Shipyards…so maybe it literally was built in San Fran, and that wasn’t just a space station name or something?
January 18th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Another possibility is that the San Fransisco shipyard has a drydock. No reason you can’t have a huge space-borne volume with atmosphere and gravity for convenience. When it’s time to launch the thing – void the atmosphere, turn off the gravity and open the doors.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:11 am
I always seem to come in towards the end of these discussions, but the ramscopes suck in hydrogen, to be used as fuel. They do this magnetically, of course, but some sort of turbine is interesting and must more exciting than a magnet. And TOS did have a spinning effect going on. Looking at the rest of the nacelle it appears to be round, whereas the TMP nacelles were not round, but rectangular along the entire length. As i recall those pipes coming out at the extreme rear are intercoolers. I used to have a model of TOS Enterprise and i believe that’s what they were called. Shouldn’t that fire over the ‘T’ be someone welding or something? I must admit i’m intrigued! Lars
January 18th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Ram SCOOPS, people! SCOPES are those things with lenses that astronomers use.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Actually its funny but the theory that the Ships where built in space was always a Fanon thing and never actually stated on the shows. The Animated series actually had Captain April stating the Enterprise main componates where built at the San Fransisco Fleet Yards and launch up, and Parallels from TNG has Utopia Planetia Fleet Yards with a Galaxy Class ship main componates being built on Mars, in pieces.
It makes sense honestly because the Trek verse both has anti-gravity, and its a heck of a lot easier to build something with gravity and minus space suits.
If NASA had launchers big enough to send up huge chunks of the station, you know they would be doing it too.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:56 am
If the nacelles didn’t have spinny parts like in TOS, it would hurt their revenue since The Comic Book Store Guy would be offended and only see it three times on release day.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:04 am
No, I had not seen this before, and from this one picture I have much higher hopes for the film now. It reminds me of a pic I saw a few years ago of a starship being constructed in the Newport News construction yard. I didn’t save it at the time and had been looking for a decent hi-res version of it ever since.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:05 am
I like how they did the paint job on the hull before the ship was even fully constructed. Some janitors gonna flip when they get to deck 10 and find all that black paint that was supposed to be an “E” splattered all over the walls…
January 18th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Hey! The name curves the wrong way!
If I remember correctly, in the past, all the ships with saucers had the name of the ship follow the arc of the panels it was written on. This one curves the other way.
And it’s not just a bow in the saucer: The print crosses what should be concentric rings of panels.
Now it’s ruined for me. (”Worst CGI, EVER!”)
January 18th, 2008 at 9:27 am
J. J. Abrams at it again, chucks this beauty of a teaser in front of Cloverfield, damn stirrer. I was sitting with friends and we thought it was an Iron Man trailer. Abrams knows how to entertain. I’m not a trekkie but this movie looks cool and will watch it
No Cloverfield review BA?
January 18th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Librarybuy:
> There is a logical reason for those turbines, but the explanation
> requires a lot of math, and I don’t have time..(heh)
Cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Look at the ladder on the scaffold.
Well, I do hope somebody with a red shirt survives this time. I also hope somebody who has been on an actual warship has something to do with combat scenes, dialog, and the way the bridge crew operates. Nearly everyone gets it wrong because of the mistaken idea that the audience coming to see this flick won’t know what’s right.
For instance, the way an American submarine engages a target is amazing. It takes literally seconds to get to battle stations, because the whole boat is built and maintained to get there in seconds. There’s a lot of suspense and cold calculating on the approach to the firing point. The skipper makes the call, then there’s the flip of a switch, a pop-pssht-zhoom of the torpedo leaving, and then you continue calculations for any other targets and the one you fired on; you have a few minutes to figure out if what you did was right, as the Weapons Officer’s guy steers the fish as long as he can. In the meantime, nobody gets to relax because the problem continues, uninterrupted by ads for Claritin, etc. For some reason, this has never been on-screen.
Something like it would be mandatory for the conduct of operations in space. Anybody in armor will tell you that the warhead usually wins if it reaches you, and so the object of battle is to shoot first and straight. That requires serious teamwork.
Modern technology is actually more advanced than is shown on Star Trek except for the gizmos granted: Warp drive, antigravity, transporter and some medical gadgets. Bad Astronomers of their day would easily find enemy vessels several AU away and engage them. They would also recognize that big ships like Enterprise don’t have to close on a planet to wipe it out – they only have to nudge a bunch of big rocks in the right direction for a “time-on-target” solution.
There are lots of neat ideas still to be explored in the series, neglected in boy-girl, boy-boy, girl-girl fighting found in any bar on Earth. Yes, Susan Oliver was h-a-w-t on-screen and off, but space is the Final Frontier, man, let’s show it!
January 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Ummm… I’m afraid I may be overgeeking here, but I seem to recall the the Enterprise was built at the Planitia shipyards on Mars. Or did I hallucinate that after too many cheetos?
January 18th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Anyone who have spent just a few days on a construction site, will know that the ceiling panels will go in before plumbers, electricians, everyone and his dog have finished their work above them. Why would the future be any different?
January 18th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Meh…
Someone needs to do a Lensman series. Just about all space opera today is derived from those classics. The inertialess Bergenholm drive is still one of the best FTL doohickeys.
A single Third Stage Lensman could wake up, pwn the entire Starfleet by 11 in the morning, and then go out and bring down the Borg during his lunch hour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensman
But, oh, there’s telepathy involved so I guess we’re not supposed to like it anymore.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I just spent the last eight minutes searching for a pix of Susan Oliver; none of the Wikipedia or other on-line bios have a single image of her. I finally found ONE on the Internet Movie Database: it is a still from a Star Trek episode called People Are Alike All Over. She is in the background with a very young Roddy McDowell camera front. She may have been a hottie, but it is hard to tell from this image.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
imo paramount should just hand the entire setup to Ronald Moore to redo just like the new bsg stuff
let us have characters that are actually human(even if they are not) and not just cardboard cutouts
January 18th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
This is the first I’ve heard that the starships of Star Trek sucked in interstellar matter into the front of the two horizontal engine pylons. So this is supposed to be a Bussard ramjet type of propulsion? My previous understanding is that the engine pylons warp space ahead of the ship so that 2,400,000 kilometers get squeezed down to 1 kilometer. Presumably the ship is propelled forward by its normal impulse engines at say 1 kilometer per second which actually becomes 2,400,000 kilometers per second = 8 times the speed of light = warp factor 2.
The role of antimatter and dilithium crystals in this method of propulsion is somewhat vague but the overall scheme was my impression on how the whole thing worked. Did anyone else have the same understanding of the propulsion scheme on Star Trek?
January 18th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Wow, lots of good comments. I shouldn’t have stayed away from this one so long.
Lars Bruchmann says: “TOS did have a spinning effect going on. Looking at the rest of the nacelle it appears to be round, whereas the TMP nacelles were not round, but rectangular along the entire length.”
When I saw “TMP” there, I immediately thought “Turbo Molecular Pump” which is what you’d need to compress interstellar hydrogen to any sort of usable pressure. They’re not turbines, like in jet engines, but gigantic turbo pumps!
——————————-
Radwaste says: “I hope somebody who has been on an actual warship has something to do with combat scenes, dialog, and the way the bridge crew operates.”
As corny as “Forbidden Planet” seems today, I’m convinced that the reason so many consider it as seriously great SF is the interaction of the crew. It’s hard to see Leslie Nielson without thinking “Frank Drebin” but the crew on the C57-D did have the look and feel of a submarine crew. I got into this in some detail in “The Saucer Fleet” (coming soon!)
——————————-
aiabx says: “I seem to recall the the Enterprise was built at the Planitia shipyards on Mars. Or did I hallucinate that after too many cheetos?”
The Enterprise “E” (TNG) was built around Mars. The original Big E (”no bloody ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ or ‘E’”) was built in the San Francisco Navy Yards. How they got it into space is not explained.
——————————-
Will. M says: “I just spent the last eight minutes searching for a pix of Susan Oliver. I finally found ONE on the Internet Movie Database: it is a still from a Star Trek episode called People Are Alike All Over. ”
That’s actually a Twilight Zone episode. Look up the original pilot “The Menagerie” or it’s production incarnation, “The Cage.” She was Vena, the survivor of an earlier spaceship crash used as bait to get a breeding pair of humans.
- Jack
January 18th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
The collection of intersteller deuterium is to provide the matter part of the matter/antimatter reaction. The engine core combines a stream of deuterium with a stream of antideuterium. A dilithium crystal regulates the reaction (though no one has ever explained why it wasn’t vapourised by the reaction). The resultant plasma is shunted via magneticly constricted tubes out through the warp pylons to the engine nacelles. The individual warp coils in the nacelles use the warp plasma to create a ’subspace’ field around the ship. By manipulating the cycle of warp field creation from one coil to the next, you can shape the field and propel the ship. Think of a catepillar-type system where a piece of subspace is grabbed at the front of the nacelle and released at the rear.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I second Avi’s explanation as to how warp drive works. The warp field is measured in ‘cochrans’, or millicochrans. A field of 1 cochran will move a ship at warp 1. And yes, they are ’scoops’, not scopes, 1 typo… lol.
Impulse drive is like standard Newtonian physics, by comparison, although it’s WAY more efficient than our rockets, of course. Internally Metered Pulse drive…
January 18th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Re: Cloverfield, until Phil posts it in its own entry: Marcus Theatres is refusing to show it (at least in parts of Wisconsin), due to a disagreement of some kind between the distributor & Marcus. Darn it.
Re: the Enterprise name going the wrong direction. Good catch! Ties in with why I said it looked more like the TMP saucer than the TOS saucer. Even the concave curve of the suacer in the pic above is TMP-styled… it was a convex curve leading up to the bridge dome in TOS. (This becomes obvious to anyone who’s built models of both versions, and should have been obvious to the new movie’s producers. Unless, as I suggested, this is the E getting uprated just prior to TMP.)
January 19th, 2008 at 2:46 am
— Avi said: The collection of intersteller deuterium is to provide…
Hmm. Someone got themselves a “Build Your Own Treknobabble” kit for Christmas.
Personally, I think the ship collect the subether hoopa juju and routes it through a pentagonal transfusion crystal to create an intense physical/metaphysical reaction that warps the quantum modality of the intersecting timepsaces surrounding the starship’s imprint on the adjacent reality dimensions.
Or they could just paint the hull with Cavorite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavorite
January 19th, 2008 at 8:08 am
JediBear writes:
[[“Modern technology is actually more advanced than is shown on Star Trek”
Based on what?
” except for the gizmos granted: Warp drive, antigravity, transporter and some medical gadgets.”
Some gizmos? /Everything/ aboard a 23rd-century Starship is more advanced than anything we had in the 80s, and only the most recent advances in 21st-century technology are starting to eclipse some of the less important advances of 24th-Century technology.]]
I can think of an exception — the medical technology. If you remember the episode “Journey to Babel,” they needed a relative of Sarek’s to transfuse blood to the poor guy — apparently the 23rd century hadn’t come up with a blood substitute. And I remember Doctor McCoy in another episode giving an atmospheric pressure reading from a tricorder in “millimeters of mercury.” Any climatologist or meteorologist in the 23rd century should be using pascals, or at least millibars.
Then there’s the fact that soldiers shoot at each other with guns — where are the robot soldiers? How long will human soldiers survive as an institution once governments can field robots that can seek, aim, fire and take down thirty or so opponents every second? The idea of Han Solo getting behind the battle droid in “The Empire Strikes Back” and shooting it while it’s distracted makes for nice special effects, but it isn’t terribly realistic. (Yes, I know we’re discussing Star Trek and not Star Wars. Just making a point about robot soldiers.)
January 19th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
We all know the red shirt thing. A landing party consists of three bridge crewmembers and one person in a red shirt that we never saw before. The three guys from the bridge live to the end of the show.
I recall reading a review – I didn’t study the episode in question – where there were -two- folks in red shirt, a woman and a black guy, and the aliens did a thing to them and only the black guy came out alive. I hope I got that straight.
So if you are the -only- red-shirt person in a scene, is when you ask the captain if you can make a phone call to your loved ones. Otherwise, you could be lucky, and you don’t want to reduce your chances by admitting you -have- loved ones. Or plans to quit the service and go into the shoe business. Or musical ability. (Unless you are good at funeral tunes, then you can play out at the end of the show. Picard and Riker, for instance, have those skills.)
January 20th, 2008 at 3:08 am
“Nobody wore a red uniform in TMP. They all had those awful grey-white things that looked like a cross between a leotard and a leisure suit ”
Point. A meaningless point, to be sure, but a technicality which should be acknowledged in case anyone actually cares.
“I can think of an exception — the medical technology. If you remember the episode “Journey to Babel,” they needed a relative of Sarek’s to transfuse blood to the poor guy — apparently the 23rd century hadn’t come up with a blood substitute. ”
Or they didn’t have any blood substitute in stock which was appropriate to Sarek’s physilology. Modern medicine doesn’t have a vulcan blood substitute either, so no points there.
“And I remember Doctor McCoy in another episode giving an atmospheric pressure reading from a tricorder in “millimeters of mercury.” Any climatologist or meteorologist in the 23rd century should be using pascals, or at least millibars.”
Units of measure are not a matter of technological advance. mmHg is a perfectly serviceable unit of measure for atmospheric pressure, and is still used in the 21st Century.
January 20th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
AIABX writes, “Ummm… I’m afraid I may be overgeeking here, but I seem to recall the the Enterprise was built at the Planitia shipyards on Mars. Or did I hallucinate that after too many cheetos?”
To my ST knowledge, the Enterprise-D (NCC-1701-D) from ST:TNG was constructed at Planetia Utopia on Mars. By contrast, I remember Commodore Robert April in “The Counter-Clock Incident” (Animated Series) saying that he was there “at the San Francisco Navy Yards” when the original Enterprise’s “unit components were built.”
I don’t mean to outgeek you, but there it is.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:54 am
JediBear posts:
[[ mmHg is a perfectly serviceable unit of measure for atmospheric pressure, and is still used in the 21st Century.]]
WHERE? I haven’t seen it used for years, and it certainly isn’t used in the scientific literature.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Actually we use mm/Hg in aviation. Pressure altitude or field elevation is set that way. Standard pressure is 29.92″ or 1013mm of Hg. Most small aircraft altimeters have only inches / Hg in their Kohlsman window, but larger commercial ones normally have mm as well.
I’ll go ask the 4 y.o. next door….
There was a line in Stargate SG-1 in the episode “the other guys” where one of the scientists, realising how precarious the situation is, states that “we may as well be wearing red shirts.”
And my cell phone is MORE advanced than Kirk’s communicator! I have a calculator and a camera in mine. Now if I could just figure out how to use them!
This is a lively debate now, isn’t it?
April 10th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Hey .the turbines make sense, you need thrust to get moving like a jet with little fuel that that injects particles threw the blades as particles that will fire up the magnetic warp coils that will generate a quantum magnetic field around the exaust for plasma to be jetted. The impulse engine is very simple,it is a cooling system or rad for the plasma exaust that is a turbine itself ,like a hydro turbine that very slowly turns with steam from the plasma that is again connected to the main warp coil to generate cooling for the engines.I don’t have a place to send you pictures of these types of engines, but you will need a quantum computer before you can get an engine like this to work, they are coming soon.Oh, and by the way if you want to know about the gravity around the ship just take a magnet and set up some needles pushing up in a negative field with a paper connected , there, there is you anti gravity, in a very small example. I know somethings about these engine designs, they are generally simple,you just need that quantum computer.