Star Trek Shuttles

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by warellis

Considering we know Star Trek has ubiquitous anti-gravity, why wouldn't they have it for close manuevering for shuttles?

Because it's an additional component that might not be necessary or even useful.

Which isn't to say they couldn't use it, just that they could not use it.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

At this point, I think I'd rather add GURPS contragravity to explain low-power shuttle flight, than to add fine attitude control and low(zero?) velocity maneuvering to the same drive that propels the ship to near light speeds.

And I wouldn't take you to task for that decision, as that also seems reasonable to me :) As someone else mentioned, Trek also has many references to "thrusters", and there's no real detail on how they work. Thrusters do work in deep space, though, which might limit the concept of contragrav. The sort of contragrav that only opposes local gravity fields wouldn't work so well for station-keeping in the middle of nowhere.

There is a reference in The Cage to rockets -- yes, rockets, despite those having been disparaged by Cmdr. Tucker a century earlier -- that can blast the Enterprise out of orbit in an emergency escape. But I'd put that in the category of simple inconsistency, especially since that script was so early. Thrusters might be chemical rockets, but they might not. Since these rockets are used as an alternative to the warp drive, they're probably really what we're calling the impulse drive, and not a fourth kind of motive power for the Constitution class. You wouldn't bat an eye if Spock said "Switch to impulse" in that bit:

SPOCK: Address intercraft.
GARISON: Open, sir.
SPOCK: This is the acting captain speaking. We have no choice now but to consider the safety of this vessel and the remainder of the crew. We're leaving. All decks prepare for hyperdrive. Time warp factor --
TYLER: Mister Spock, the ship's controls have gone dead.
(The lights go out)
SPOCK: Engine room!
GARISON: Open.
SPOCK: Mister Spock here. Switch to rockets. We're blasting out.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

If I remember correctly the starship Voyager had "antigrav thrusters" they used when landing on a planet in some episodes, which to me implies some sort of contragravity. I'd second the suggestion that only vessels with contragravity lifters could land on a planet.

Any ship can land on a planet - see the saucer section of the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: Generations for an example. (Shields, inertial dampeners, and structural integrity fields make a lot of otherwise-risky maneuvers possible.) You only need contragravity lifters if you want to be able to take off again.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Any ship can land on a planet - see the saucer section of the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: Generations for an example. (Shields, inertial dampeners, and structural integrity fields make a lot of otherwise-risky maneuvers possible.) You only need contragravity lifters if you want to be able to take off again.

I wouldn't exactly call the saucer crashing into a planet a controlled landing, especially not one that's meant to act as anything other than a giant one-time lifeboat.

A true "starship landing" for the saucer would have had the crew deploy landing gear - such as we see on the Voyager - and come in at a an angle to avoid digging up the dirt for kilometers.

By your logic, we could land the no-letter Enterprise on a planet. My rebuttal to that is: where is the landing gear?

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I wouldn't exactly call the saucer crashing into a planet a controlled landing, ...

Who said "controlled"? Put the goalposts back where they were, please.

[Rindis]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

There is a reference in The Cage to rockets -- yes, rockets, despite those having been disparaged by Cmdr. Tucker a century earlier -- that can blast the Enterprise out of orbit in an emergency escape. But I'd put that in the category of simple inconsistency, especially since that script was so early. Thrusters might be chemical rockets, but they might not. Since these rockets are used as an alternative to the warp drive, they're probably really what we're calling the impulse drive, and not a fourth kind of motive power for the Constitution class. You wouldn't bat an eye if Spock said "Switch to impulse" in that bit:

Keep in mind that one of the editorial decisions between the two pilots ("The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before") was to move away from some real-world terminology so people couldn't say 'you can't do that!'. So they changed from lasers to phasers and rockets to impulse.

I'd say impulse drive is really a type of reactionless drive, and that's the primary drive for the shuttles (warp drive is optional, depending on source...). For fine maneuvering... whatever it is, just assume that they're equivalent in effort and space to any other built-in trim system (like a starship's maneuvering thrusters).

The real question is for moving in an atmosphere without falling like a thrown brick. From the looks of it (i.e., on-screen motion) it almost has to be gravitic in nature. But one could assume a really big 'downward' facing maneuver thruster that work in concert with the ones for yaw, pitch, roll, etc.

[Stormcrow]

When the Bounty lands and takes off in San Francisco there's a great deal of wind associated with the events. That sounds like a reaction drive.

When shuttles land or lift off from planets there's no wind. That sounds like anti-grav.

When writers contribute to a long-running science-fiction series decades apart, that sounds like fiction.

[Phantasm]

I suppose the real question is: what explanation fits the game best?

When it comes to shuttles, particularly when said shuttles are between the size of a minivan and that of a small moving van, having them operate as contragravity in atmo matches the feel of what we see best. This also fits for "good starting PC" ships like the Danube-class runabout.

If we need an explanation, we can say that larger vessels - such as the various Enterprises and the Klingon B'rel-class bird of prey - are too heavy for contragravity lifters to lift, at least through the TOS-cast movie era and possibly into the early TNG era. (I don't recall if Voyager's atmospheric maneuvering was shown or described as using thrusters/impulse engines or contragrav.)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

(I don't recall if Voyager's atmospheric maneuvering was shown or described as using thrusters/impulse engines or contragrav.)

It definitely wasn't Warp. They had to take the warp core off-line to safely enter a planetary atmosphere.

[warellis]

Isn't there also the fact that Voyager is a much smaller ship compared to say a Galaxy-class? It's a small, speedy scoutship really that was supposed to be small enough to be able to enter and move about in that plasma storm in the Badlands to take on the Maquis hiding there whereas a bigger more powerful ship like a Galaxy or Sovereign-class were just not manueverable or agile enough or something from what I remember.