The design of the Enterprise

[paladin]

Apart from trying to look out the Enterprise from TOS, what would be the purpose of having the ship's hull shaped like a disc?

It just seems silly to me to use a disc shape.

[neoolong]

Smaller profile while still having a decent surface area?

[Patrick Degan]

The purpose, originated in TOS and finally depicted in the movie Generations, was that the primary hull would serve as the lifeboat for the ship's crew and be able to glide-land planetside. However, unlike the E-D's saucer section, the E-nil's primary hull is actually designed to accomplish this. The shape of the lower section of that hull, which is curved like the underside of an airplane wing, accomodates aerodynamic breaking and acts as a lifting-body to enable the saucer to glide downward in a spiral descent. I think it was based on a saucer idea the Air Force and NASA were working on at the time.

In the Franz Joseph blueprints, there are three thrust-units designed to provide breaking for final landing, and three legs which deploy for the saucer to set down. The saucer would not be able to lift off the surface again, but could be recovered.

The E-D's saucer does not have an aerodynamic shape; the underside doesn't curve inward to help facilitate lift. In reality, that thing should simply have tumbled all the way to the ground at Veridian III in a totally out of control fall instead of a glide.

[paladin]

thanks. I guess the disc shape makes sense now.

[BenRG]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the original idea for the TOS-era Enterprise-nil was a 'flying saucer', like the one in "Forbidden Planet". After Matt Jeffries got his hands on it, the design changed a lot, of course.

I think that, in many ways, the Intrepid-class design from VOY is much closer to what the TOS art department might have come up with if they had a bigger budget, especially with the planetary landing capability.