Star Trek Shuttles

[Captain Joy]

I'm wondering what technology allows for shuttle take-off, landing, and maneuvering when close to the surface. And along those lines, what Piloting specialty would be most appropriate?

Is "Contragravity" the closest analogue? "Vertol" doesn't seem likely as there is no indication of "brute-force application of thrust". "Aerospace" seems a bit low tech for the way they seem to operate.

[Refplace]

I could go with Contra Grav but Impulse might work as well. I dont recall it ever specifying what they use for power besides Impulse drives and if its different from space and on ground.

Star Trek clearly has grav tech, the only question is do they use it for this? What about those flight suits? I think they used grav belts.

[Phantasm]

I'd have the shuttles and runabouts using Contragrav Lifters as one of their (probably mid-section) hull section units if I made them using Spaceships.

For specialties, I'd use Piloting (Aerospace) for shuttles. For runabouts I'd probably use (Aerospace) for transitioning between space and atmo; (Hyperspace) for traveling at warp speed; either (Contragrav), (Heavy Airplane), or (Light Airplane) for atmospheric operations, depending on their final mass, thrust, and handling; and (High-Performance Spacecraft) for operating on thrusters/impulse engines in space.

Personally, in a lot of settings (Contragravity) can be too broad in application. Trek doesn't appear to be one of them, but I'm still wary of using it.

[Flyndaran]

I don't ever remember any exhaust no matter how strongly a shuttle moved during flight or take off. Contragravity and/or "basic" reactionless drives are the only options I can imagine fitting.
Maybe the Contragravity only works either for thrust or for intertial dampening. That way you keep the shaking around during full power lift off, but not when cruising.

[Tyneras]

Star Trek seems to have very weak contragrav. I tend to give Warp pseudovelocity and treat impulse as sub-warp (so also pseudo velocity). Impulse exhaust is more like car exhaust, not rocket exhaust.

So they can counter gravity, but it's less efficient than just zipping away under impulse. So they may maneuver using contragrav for landing and takeoff, but it's not their main source of propulsion.

Or rather that's how I've interpreted it for my own ST adaption (under construction).

[warellis]

Star Trek impulse drives are fursion rockets with lots of mass lightening to allow for their high accelerations. IIRC, it's used by practically all spacecraft including shuttles.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I don't ever remember any exhaust no matter how strongly a shuttle moved during flight or take off. Contragravity and/or "basic" reactionless drives are the only options I can imagine fitting.
Maybe the Contragravity only works either for thrust or for intertial dampening. That way you keep the shaking around during full power lift off, but not when cruising.

You can actually make a good case for warp drive for the TOS shuttles. For ex, in The Menagerie, Kirk and a commodore use a shuttle to pursue a hijacked Enterprise, for quite some time. Presumably the latter was not fleeing on impulse power.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by warellis

Star Trek impulse drives are fursion rockets with lots of mass lightening to allow for their high accelerations. IIRC, it's used by practically all spacecraft including shuttles.

There is absolutely no evidence for them using exhaust spewing reaction mass like that. Even if they specifically mentioned that that was their technology... which I don't particularly remember on screen.
ST:TNG did misuse real terms more often than even original series making it feel a bit more dated, in my opinion. Remember their amazing massive computer that could hold some absurdly tiny amount of data like a terabyte or something?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

You can actually make a good case for warp drive for the TOS shuttles. For ex, in The Menagerie, Kirk and a commodore use a shuttle to pursue a hijacked Enterprise, for quite some time. Presumably the latter was not fleeing on impulse power.

They did have Warp capability but the question was what do they use for manuerving and landing. That is not warp.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

There is absolutely no evidence for them using exhaust spewing reaction mass like that.

Except the whole plot of The Galileo Seven, anyway -- especially the resolution.

In general, though, the episode isn't very helpful: shuttles run on battery power, that can be recharged from phasers?