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This one might prove a challenge, but I know how much you guys love to figure things out

I was up at South Dakota this summer, and got an awesome view of the night sky. While watching some satellites cross the sky, I thought....What would the big shipyard that orbits earth in Star Trek look like from the ground? (sorry...I forgot the name of it )

Would it be as "big" as the moon in the night sky? Half the size of the moon? Twice the size? I'm sure that some of you engineering-types could figure out the distance it orbits away from earth, figure out how big it is...yadda yadda yadda.

Hope someone is up to this...cuz I think it would be interesting

Considering 1 km as its largest dimension (able to fit comfortably a Galaxy), and geoshycronous orbit being in the tens of thousands of kilometres of altitude, we would see it as a small luminous blob larger than Sirius (the brightest star in the sky).

You'd be able to make it out, sort of, with a telescope, much like Cochrane and gang were able to see Enterprise-E in the sky in First Contact. You can sort of see a blob with the warp nacelles sticking out; the shipyard would be much the same, except it'd be a bit of a larger, more rectangular, blob without the warp nacelles. Just depends on how powerful your telescope is, really.

Question: what about Earth Station McKinley (I think that's the name of the Starbase orbiting Earth)?

Or the space dock in the original movies?

Dark Primus wrote:Or the space dock in the original movies?

I don't believe Spacedock orbited Earth-- it was at like Alpha Centauri or someplace else. 'Course, I've only seen a few of the original movies, so I'm not too certain... unless you refer to the one in The Search for Spock? Then, yeah, that one most certainly orbits Earth...

Y'know, I was probably thinking about one of the Starbases. Sorry...

Elheru Aran wrote:

Dark Primus wrote:Or the space dock in the original movies?

I don't believe Spacedock orbited Earth-- it was at like Alpha Centauri or someplace else. 'Course, I've only seen a few of the original movies, so I'm not too certain... unless you refer to the one in The Search for Spock? Then, yeah, that one most certainly orbits Earth...

Y'know, I was probably thinking about one of the Starbases. Sorry...

"Spacedock" is the large facility seen in ST III, IV, V and VI.

Elheru Aran wrote:

Dark Primus wrote:Or the space dock in the original movies?

I don't believe Spacedock orbited Earth-- it was at like Alpha Centauri or someplace else. 'Course, I've only seen a few of the original movies, so I'm not too certain... unless you refer to the one in The Search for Spock? Then, yeah, that one most certainly orbits Earth...

Y'know, I was probably thinking about one of the Starbases. Sorry...

The Space Dock is a large starbase orbiting Earth.

Warspite wrote:Considering 1 km as its largest dimension (able to fit comfortably a Galaxy), and geoshycronous orbit being in the tens of thousands of kilometres of altitude, we would see it as a small luminous blob larger than Sirius (the brightest star in the sky).

I thought spacedock was much bigger than 1 KM in diameter? Sure seemed bigger in III....

I'll have to go look it up in a manual somewhere....

Butterbean569 wrote:

Warspite wrote:Considering 1 km as its largest dimension (able to fit comfortably a Galaxy), and geoshycronous orbit being in the tens of thousands of kilometres of altitude, we would see it as a small luminous blob larger than Sirius (the brightest star in the sky).

I thought spacedock was much bigger than 1 KM in diameter? Sure seemed bigger in III....

I'll have to go look it up in a manual somewhere....

I think it was 3km in length...

Judging by the size of space doors and the Enterprise the Spacedocks appeared more like 5 km to me.

@ Butterbean569

I think Warspite isn't talking about Spacedock, but some other space facility seen in Trek. For example:

Earth station McKinley
http://www.ditl.org/gpgm/GMckinley1.jpg

Spacedock
http://www.ditl.org/gpns/GSBGenral1.jpg
According to DITL, its diameter is 3,810 meters. Bernd Schneider's Ex Astris Scientia confirms this figure.

Drydock
http://www.ditl.org/gpaf/GDrydock3.jpg

Modern drydock (seen in "Nemesis")
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schem ... screen.jpg

Considering the ISS is the brightest object in the night sky at times, (Luna aside) I am certain an object 3km in diameter and 5km in length would reflect significant amounts of light- but no where near as much as the moon I'd figure. Same goes for the drydocks, there are also plenty of orbital office facilities I would assume, I also wonder would a colonised moon look significantly different to the naked eye than it does now (as per Riker's assesment, FC)