why are drydocks necessary?

[FaxModem1]

can't the ship just float there in orbit of whatever, why do they have that structure surrounding the ship under maintenance or construction

For example:

Enterprise refit in TMP, TWOK

Enterprise B in Generations

Enterprise E in Nemesis

I am probably stupid for askng this, but could somebody explain to me why the structures are needed?

[Warspite]

Well, a drydock isn't just a frame around a ship, it's an infrastructure where all the necessary materials and tools for building/repairing a ship are located, and used. It creates a safe enviroment for the workers, and a powered down ship, protecting them from the space junk.

The clean ones we see several times may represent the final stage, before the ship departs.

Or, the writers and artists don't know shit about shipyards... (I tend to go with this one.)

If they would represent the drydocks like in a modern day shipyard, the amount of materials, scafolding and junk would so much, that we wouldn't be able to see the ship!

[jaeger115]

There's always the threat of micrometeorites.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

There's always the threat of micrometeorites.

Yeah the kinds that will be harmless to something like the ISS, but we cause a contagious outburts of exploding consoles on the E-E.

[Patrick Degan]

I'm sure one of the reasons for it is for station keeping. If a starship's engines/thrusters are offline, it runs the risk of falling down into the atmosphere.

That would not be a reason. It actually is not necessary to run engines or thrusters to maintain an orbit. Once up to the requisite altitude and velocity, an object will tend to stay up where it is until gravitic drag inevitably works its way, but the higher an object is, the longer the orbit will endure.

An object at, say, 500 km. above the surface of a terrestial planet would have an orbit which would endure for a good number of years with no adjustments required. Even at 100km, which is where most space stations are located above Earth, objects will remain up for at least five years.

[jaeger115]

Yeah the kinds that will be harmless to something like the ISS, but we cause a contagious outburts of exploding consoles on the E-E.

True, but there might be exposed systems during construction or repair that you wouldn't want micrometeorites hitting.

[Master of Ossus]

There's always the threat of micrometeorites.

Yeah the kinds that will be harmless to something like the ISS, but we cause a contagious outburts of exploding consoles on the E-E.

They COULD harm workers or damage sensitive construction equipment. Incidentally, a drydock would make it MUCH more easy to steady heavy equipment for working outside the ship, and matching its velocity with the ship itself. Otherwise, station-keeping thrusters would have to be used almost continuously, driving up cost by a heck of a lot (plus you would have to design all of your equipment with such thrusters, whereas a dry-dock holds everything in place). Additionally, the dry-dock would make moving from one ship to the next easier. That way, the next ship can be brought to the equipment, rather than moving lots of heavy and sensitive equipment to the next ship.

[Master of Ossus]

I'm sure one of the reasons for it is for station keeping. If a starship's engines/thrusters are offline, it runs the risk of falling down into the atmosphere.

That would not be a reason. It actually is not necessary to run engines or thrusters to maintain an orbit. Once up to the requisite altitude and velocity, an object will tend to stay up where it is until gravitic drag inevitably works its way, but the higher an object is, the longer the orbit will endure.

An object at, say, 500 km. above the surface of a terrestial planet would have an orbit which would endure for a good number of years with no adjustments required. Even at 100km, which is where most space stations are located above Earth, objects will remain up for at least five years.

True, but whenever one piece of equipment operated on the ship, it would change the trajectory of both the ship and the equipment slightly. Over time, I imagine that this would force the equipment to be moved back to the ship, and for the ship's systems to have to be used to alter the ship's trajectory and velocity from time to time. Since it seems that ships can be in dry-dock for significant amounts of time (several weeks to a few months), I imagine that that would be significant.

[Darth Wong]

If the ship's thrusters are not working, it may be rather difficult to get it into the proper orbit, or keep it there if major operations are being done on it. A drydock would presumably have thrusters and tractor beams to essentially drag the ship into position and keep it there even if it has no working propulsion on its own. Also, it looks cool.

[Sea Skimmer]

They may also have duty transporters or tractor beams to bring equipment and materials up from the planets surface. Worker rest and cafeterias are probably also included.

[Uraniun235]

If a solar flare were to occur unexpectedly, the drydock could theoretically have shields/forcefields that could come up to protect any spacesuited workers that might be working on the ship when it happened. Or it could allow for work to progress relatively uninhibited in the face of a flare.

The ST drydocks also seem (or seemed; I don't remember if they were present on the ones we saw at Utopia Planetia) to have a lot of lights, which could be helpful when the ship was shaded by the planet.

[jaeger115]

The ST drydocks also seem (or seemed; I don't remember if they were present on the ones we saw at Utopia Planetia) to have a lot of lights, which could be helpful when the ship was shaded by the planet.

Reminds me of the difference between ST drydocks and the B5 ones. The ST ones are separate from each other, with one bay floating independently of the other. The B5 docks work as a single unit, with multiple docks connected with ports, habitats, storage areas, etc. Which design is more efficient?

It would be best if we constructed docks in a radial fashion, so ships could get in and out without interfering with each other. Materials could be accessed easily, and easy travel between modules would be possible.

[Darth Wong]

Mind you, all of the functions performed by a drydock could be easily performed by a large planar thrust/tractor/lighting/power supply/living quarters unit which stands to one side of the ship (with extra mobile lighting units if they need more coverage). There's no need to construct drydocks that fit all the way around the vessel; they would be inflexible in terms of adapting to larger or smaller vessels.

[Patrick Degan]

Mind you, all of the functions performed by a drydock could be easily performed by a large planar thrust/tractor/lighting/power supply/living quarters unit which stands to one side of the ship (with extra mobile lighting units if they need more coverage). There's no need to construct drydocks that fit all the way around the vessel; they would be inflexible in terms of adapting to larger or smaller vessels.

You have to wonder if the concept of the repair ship ever occurred to the TNG writers. No, probably not; why should a collection of scientific ignoramuses be any more cognizant of naval history or logistics?

[Frank Hipper]

What bothers me is not the drydocks, but Spacedock. With the drydocks you have some level of flexibility and ease of access. With the Spacedock, you waste material and manhours to the nth degree for the, what I think, dubious virtue of being indoors, in orbit.

Ever hear of the do it your self-er who built the boat in his garage that was too big for the doors?

Ever notice how E-nil and Excelsior squose threw those doors, and in TNG the E-E was about the same relative size? Carelessness in the FX department for sure, but in an arena where people argue minutiae up the yin-yang, what are we to think?

[Warspite]

Mind you, all of the functions performed by a drydock could be easily performed by a large planar thrust/tractor/lighting/power supply/living quarters unit which stands to one side of the ship (with extra mobile lighting units if they need more coverage). There's no need to construct drydocks that fit all the way around the vessel; they would be inflexible in terms of adapting to larger or smaller vessels.

True, but as I mentioned in my earlier post (and others throuhout this topic), a "wrap-around" drydock creates a safe environment for the ship and the workers. You must also take into acount that ship systems are not allways simetrical, and usually need to be acessed at the same time, either due to it's assembly, or to expedite the time of repair/inspection, so a side structure would have the inconvenience of having to move from one side to the other.

A big enough structure would speed up the repair/inspection/build time, since several parts of the ship would be acessible at the same time, with an equal degree of support from workers, machinery, materials, unlike a side structure, where it could service at most 3/4 of a ship.

Having drydocks stretch/widen/etc. to acomodate bigger ships isn't a too great leap in engineering...
The same could be said (and is done) for floating drydocks, for example, a standard design for a given ship size, can allow sister structures to be connected, increasing the size of ships that can be drydocked, and therefore versatility (which is a much sought after commodity this days...).

[apocolypse]

Darth Wong wrote

There's no need to construct drydocks that fit all the way around the vessel; they would be inflexible in terms of adapting to larger or smaller vessels.

This actually reminded me of a question I once had. Can drydocks modify their structure? The drydock the E-D was in at end of "Best of Both Worlds" (I believe?) looked like an almost spider-like design. Could the "legs" stretch out and/or come closer together to accomodate different vessels?

[THEHOOLIGANJEDI]

Also, it looks cool.

Agreed!

[Col. Crackpot]

What bothers me is not the drydocks, but Spacedock. With the drydocks you have some level of flexibility and ease of access. With the Spacedock, you waste material and manhours to the nth degree for the, what I think, dubious virtue of being indoors, in orbit.

Ever hear of the do it your self-er who built the boat in his garage that was too big for the doors?

Ever notice how E-nil and Excelsior squose threw those doors, and in TNG the E-E was about the same relative size? Carelessness in the FX department for sure, but in an arena where people argue minutiae up the yin-yang, what are we to think?

those are different classes of spacedocks. the old earth dock from the TOS movie era is a type 1 spacedock. Bases like starbase 74 in TNG are a type 2 space dock...more than twice the size.

[Frank Hipper]

What bothers me is not the drydocks, but Spacedock. With the drydocks you have some level of flexibility and ease of access. With the Spacedock, you waste material and manhours to the nth degree for the, what I think, dubious virtue of being indoors, in orbit.

Ever hear of the do it your self-er who built the boat in his garage that was too big for the doors?

Ever notice how E-nil and Excelsior squose threw those doors, and in TNG the E-E was about the same relative size? Carelessness in the FX department for sure, but in an arena where people argue minutiae up the yin-yang, what are we to think?

those are different classes of spacedocks. the old earth dock from the TOS movie era is a type 1 spacedock. Bases like starbase 74 in TNG are a type 2 space dock...more than twice the size.

Yet they are identical in appearance. Carelessness in the FX department. Is there one example of a vehicle or structure posessing twice the size of an earlier model and retaining the same design?

[Warspite]

Yet they are identical in appearance. Carelessness in the FX department. Is there one example of a vehicle or structure posessing twice the size of an earlier model and retaining the same design?

The Bird of Prey got that scale treatment... 50m, 110m, 230m, 350m and 700m.

I think budget constraints would be a better explanation.

[Uraniun235]

Yet they are identical in appearance. Carelessness in the FX department. Is there one example of a vehicle or structure posessing twice the size of an earlier model and retaining the same design?

Well, that one station from TMP was reused as Spacelab (just turned it 'upside-down') in TWOK.

It's budgetary, pure and simple.