Why was the Transwarp project abandoned??

"Willem-Jan van Strien" <wjvs DeleteThis @xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3f60fd4b$0$132$e4fe514c@dreader6.news.xs4all.nl...
> To my knowledge, the Excelsior had a working (tested = working enough
for me
> Transwarp Drive System.

They only said "it was supposed to..." but we never saw it actually
work. Nor
did they ever really referred to it as "tested", did they?

--KC
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

in article 3f620a48$0$33812$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net, Graham Kennedy at
graham RemoveThis @ditl.org wrote on 9/12/03 1:02 PM:

> Kasey Chang (remove EATSPAM to reply) wrote:
>
>> "Willem-Jan van Strien" <wjvs RemoveThis @xs4all.nl> wrote in message
>> news:3f60fd4b$0$132$e4fe514c@dreader6.news.xs4all.nl...
>>
>>> To my knowledge, the Excelsior had a working (tested = working enough
>>
>> for me
>>
>>> Transwarp Drive System.
>>
>>
>> They only said "it was supposed to..." but we never saw it actually
>> work. Nor
>> did they ever really referred to it as "tested", did they?
>
> Doesn't it seem rather strange to build an entire, fully
> functional starship with a drive system that has never
> been tested, though?

Sometimes things work in the lab that don't pan out in reality. It could be
also that the Excelsior was always meant to be a regular warp ship and that
the addition of the transwarp stuff was a last minute development.

There are one-off examples like this in the modern US navy. IIRC the nuclear
powered air-craft carrier USS Enterprise was the only carrier in it's class
that was nuke powered until the larger Nimitz class superceded it. In that
way USS Enterprise was a test platform for nuclear carriers eh?
--
"We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement."
-- Richard J. Daley
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

in article 3f624245$0$33795$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net, Graham Kennedy at
graham RemoveThis @ditl.org wrote on 9/12/03 5:01 PM:

> Elvis Gump wrote:
>
>> in article 3f620a48$0$33812$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net, Graham Kennedy at
>> graham RemoveThis @ditl.org wrote on 9/12/03 1:02 PM:
>>
>>
>>> Kasey Chang (remove EATSPAM to reply) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Willem-Jan van Strien" <wjvs RemoveThis @xs4all.nl> wrote in message
>>>> news:3f60fd4b$0$132$e4fe514c@dreader6.news.xs4all.nl...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> To my knowledge, the Excelsior had a working (tested = working enough
>>>>
>>>> for me
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Transwarp Drive System.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> They only said "it was supposed to..." but we never saw it actually
>>>> work. Nor
>>>> did they ever really referred to it as "tested", did they?
>>>
>>> Doesn't it seem rather strange to build an entire, fully
>>> functional starship with a drive system that has never
>>> been tested, though?
>>
>>
>> Sometimes things work in the lab that don't pan out in reality.
>
> Hmm, so you think they *did* have a functional transwarp
> drive on a test rig, but they couldn't get it to work
> on a proper ship?

It could be anything from a problem of scale (casting warp coils or
components and such) to not being economical to operate.

>> It could be also that the Excelsior was always meant to be a regular warp
>> ship and that the addition of the transwarp stuff was a last minute
>> development.
>>
>> There are one-off examples like this in the modern US navy. IIRC the nuclear
>> powered air-craft carrier USS Enterprise was the only carrier in it's class
>> that was nuke powered until the larger Nimitz class superceded it. In that
>> way USS Enterprise was a test platform for nuclear carriers eh?
>
> But not for nuclear power! The first reactor was built in
> the 40s, and nuclear power plants had been operational for
> years. They were even at sea in the Nautilus before the
> Enterprise.

Oh yes, but I didn't say that it wasn't. I don't know what the carrier
production was like in that era, but I assume that either the Enterprise
carrier was the first new construction that was either in the construction
pipeline to use it or budget/logistics made deployment in subs desirable.

There wasn't another carrier in it's class built with nuclear power AFAIK. I
think it was sort of a test bed for the later Nimitz class carrier in regard
to propulsion though that's a big dollop of speculation on my part only in
that running it's reactors full tilt can drive it so fast as to shake it
apart I've heard.

> Yet transwarp is always held up as some great leap forward
> that the Federation has yet to make. It's strange.

For the argument of story-telling perhaps it was a promising technology that
didn't pan out. One assumes that Kirk era Warp drive and TNG are the same
when TNG would likely incorporate many new advances including the transwarp
components if not it's newer subspace theory.

As far as series production I think it only popped up in ST III to make Kirk
and crew seem more obsolete and subsequently appears in canon because it's
something in writers minds or in the writers bible...
--
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."
-- Albert Einstein
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

in article 3f624245$0$33795$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net, Graham Kennedy at
graham DeleteThis @ditl.org wrote on 9/12/03 5:01 PM:

> Elvis Gump wrote:
>
>> in article 3f620a48$0$33812$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net, Graham Kennedy at
>> graham DeleteThis @ditl.org wrote on 9/12/03 1:02 PM:
>>
>>
>>> Kasey Chang (remove EATSPAM to reply) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Willem-Jan van Strien" <wjvs DeleteThis @xs4all.nl> wrote in message
>>>> news:3f60fd4b$0$132$e4fe514c@dreader6.news.xs4all.nl...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> To my knowledge, the Excelsior had a working (tested = working enough
>>>>
>>>> for me
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Transwarp Drive System.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> They only said "it was supposed to..." but we never saw it actually
>>>> work. Nor
>>>> did they ever really referred to it as "tested", did they?
>>>
>>> Doesn't it seem rather strange to build an entire, fully
>>> functional starship with a drive system that has never
>>> been tested, though?
>>
>>
>> Sometimes things work in the lab that don't pan out in reality.
>
> Hmm, so you think they *did* have a functional transwarp
> drive on a test rig, but they couldn't get it to work
> on a proper ship?

Yes, that's a plausible case. Also it could be that deleterious effects
emerged from the technology just as they did with regular warp drive late in
TNG. There are analogies like that in the real world. What looks like a
great idea may later turn out to have drawbacks. It's hard to believe that
they would have outfitted the Excelsior if the technology didn't work in the
first place, but it might have not worked well enough to be worth further
deployment.

Every ship in the US Naval fleet COULD be nuclear powered, but it's not
worth doing so.

As far as why we haven't seen or heard much of it since is that the writers
decided not to go there. The thing is that ST is already based on such
miracle technology that to push it any further starts being like Superman.
If they become so fast and invincible how can anything hurt them and then
how do you write stories for that? TNG got in a lot of trouble at times
having the transporter fix things like the artificial aging in the second
season and so on.

>> It could be also that the Excelsior was always meant to be a regular warp
>> ship and that the addition of the transwarp stuff was a last minute
>> development.
>>
>> There are one-off examples like this in the modern US navy. IIRC the nuclear
>> powered air-craft carrier USS Enterprise was the only carrier in it's class
>> that was nuke powered until the larger Nimitz class superceded it. In that
>> way USS Enterprise was a test platform for nuclear carriers eh?
>
> But not for nuclear power! The first reactor was built in
> the 40s, and nuclear power plants had been operational for
> years. They were even at sea in the Nautilus before the
> Enterprise.

Yes, I KNOW that, but at that point the urge to get boomer subs out there
was a greater need. The idea with boomers is they go out for six months and
get lost as far as the Russian fast attacks were concerned so they could
pop-up anywhere and deliver a death blow surprise if needed.

As far as the surface fleet was concerned a nuclear carrier really was all
about making them cost efficient which nukes probably weren't until the 70s.

The Nimitz class nukes don't go much faster than their oil burning
predecessors nor does nuke propulsion really give them any great advantage
other than economy, and even then it may only be in time saved not regularly
refueling like it's escorts have to once or twice a week.

Before that it wasn't that harder to have a lot of bunker ships follow a
hard to hide battle group around refueling them whereas it was great for
nuke subs to go under and stay under without making as much noise as diesels
or having to snorkel to run them occasionally recharge the batteries.

> Yet transwarp is always held up as some great leap forward
> that the Federation has yet to make. It's strange.

Again, an arbitrary invention by writers that wasn't well thought out and
ultimately abandoned. They didn't need it to tell stories other than ST
III...
--
"Now, if you ask most smokers whether or not they want to smoke they'd
probably tell you "no," they hate it. But nicotine couldn't be tougher to
kick if Lucy Van Pelt from "Peanuts" was holding it with her fingertip."
-- Dennis Miller
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

I Believe that in the second World War a lot of battle ship hulls were
converted to Carriers hulls because there was a need to replace sunken
Carrier's. At one point I believe that The USS Enterprise was the only
carrier in use. The Saratoga was in dry dock and Yorktown, Lexington and
Hornet had been sunk.

A good reason that The Transwarp Drive may have been abandon is that it was
just over kill. There was no need at that point for a Ship that could
travel that fast.

The most likely reason that the Federation cut Starfleet's budget.

--
Have Fun
Dale McGill

Life must be lived with every ounce of your being. So when you rejoice let
the heavens be filled with your laughter and when you mourn let the heavens
be filled with your tears
"Elvis Gump" <elvisgump DeleteThis @NOhotmailSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:BB87E0D2.1917E%elvisgump@NOhotmailSPAM.com...
> in article 3f624245$0$33795$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net, Graham Kennedy
at
> graham DeleteThis @ditl.org wrote on 9/12/03 5:01 PM:
>
> > Elvis Gump wrote:
> >
> >> in article 3f620a48$0$33812$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net, Graham
Kennedy at
> >> graham DeleteThis @ditl.org wrote on 9/12/03 1:02 PM:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Kasey Chang (remove EATSPAM to reply) wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> "Willem-Jan van Strien" <wjvs DeleteThis @xs4all.nl> wrote in message
> >>>> news:3f60fd4b$0$132$e4fe514c@dreader6.news.xs4all.nl...
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> To my knowledge, the Excelsior had a working (tested = working
enough
> >>>>
> >>>> for me
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Transwarp Drive System.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> They only said "it was supposed to..." but we never saw it actually
> >>>> work. Nor
> >>>> did they ever really referred to it as "tested", did they?
> >>>
> >>> Doesn't it seem rather strange to build an entire, fully
> >>> functional starship with a drive system that has never
> >>> been tested, though?
> >>
> >>
> >> Sometimes things work in the lab that don't pan out in reality.
> >
> > Hmm, so you think they *did* have a functional transwarp
> > drive on a test rig, but they couldn't get it to work
> > on a proper ship?
>
> Yes, that's a plausible case. Also it could be that deleterious effects
> emerged from the technology just as they did with regular warp drive late
in
> TNG. There are analogies like that in the real world. What looks like a
> great idea may later turn out to have drawbacks. It's hard to believe that
> they would have outfitted the Excelsior if the technology didn't work in
the
> first place, but it might have not worked well enough to be worth further
> deployment.
>
> Every ship in the US Naval fleet COULD be nuclear powered, but it's not
> worth doing so.
>
> As far as why we haven't seen or heard much of it since is that the
writers
> decided not to go there. The thing is that ST is already based on such
> miracle technology that to push it any further starts being like Superman.
> If they become so fast and invincible how can anything hurt them and then
> how do you write stories for that? TNG got in a lot of trouble at times
> having the transporter fix things like the artificial aging in the second
> season and so on.
>
> >> It could be also that the Excelsior was always meant to be a regular
warp
> >> ship and that the addition of the transwarp stuff was a last minute
> >> development.
> >>
> >> There are one-off examples like this in the modern US navy. IIRC the
nuclear
> >> powered air-craft carrier USS Enterprise was the only carrier in it's
class
> >> that was nuke powered until the larger Nimitz class superceded it. In
that
> >> way USS Enterprise was a test platform for nuclear carriers eh?
> >
> > But not for nuclear power! The first reactor was built in
> > the 40s, and nuclear power plants had been operational for
> > years. They were even at sea in the Nautilus before the
> > Enterprise.
>
> Yes, I KNOW that, but at that point the urge to get boomer subs out there
> was a greater need. The idea with boomers is they go out for six months
and
> get lost as far as the Russian fast attacks were concerned so they could
> pop-up anywhere and deliver a death blow surprise if needed.
>
> As far as the surface fleet was concerned a nuclear carrier really was all
> about making them cost efficient which nukes probably weren't until the
70s.
>
> The Nimitz class nukes don't go much faster than their oil burning
> predecessors nor does nuke propulsion really give them any great advantage
> other than economy, and even then it may only be in time saved not
regularly
> refueling like it's escorts have to once or twice a week.
>
> Before that it wasn't that harder to have a lot of bunker ships follow a
> hard to hide battle group around refueling them whereas it was great for
> nuke subs to go under and stay under without making as much noise as
diesels
> or having to snorkel to run them occasionally recharge the batteries.
>
> > Yet transwarp is always held up as some great leap forward
> > that the Federation has yet to make. It's strange.
>
> Again, an arbitrary invention by writers that wasn't well thought out and
> ultimately abandoned. They didn't need it to tell stories other than ST
> III...
> --
> "Now, if you ask most smokers whether or not they want to smoke they'd
> probably tell you "no," they hate it. But nicotine couldn't be tougher to
> kick if Lucy Van Pelt from "Peanuts" was holding it with her fingertip."
> -- Dennis Miller
>
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

Elvis Gump wrote:

> Yes, that's a plausible case. Also it could be that deleterious effects
> emerged from the technology just as they did with regular warp drive late in
> TNG. There are analogies like that in the real world. What looks like a
> great idea may later turn out to have drawbacks. It's hard to believe that
> they would have outfitted the Excelsior if the technology didn't work in the
> first place, but it might have not worked well enough to be worth further
> deployment.

Remember the words.

Admiral Kirk: "My friends: the Great Experiment. Excelsior. Ready for
trial runs"

Scotty: "Aye, and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon"

From these words there seemed to be implied no guarantee of absolute
success for the Excelsior project. Excelsior sounds like a
Proof-of-concept vehicle and failures of such items are indeed very
common, even today.
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

The only comment I heard is that Roddenberry hated the term and threw it
out.
As for technical reasons, type "Excelsior-class" into any search engine, and
you will have more answers than you could hope for.

"Willem-Jan van Strien" <wjvs.RemoveThis@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3f60fd4b$0$132$e4fe514c@dreader6.news.xs4all.nl...
> To my knowledge, the Excelsior had a working (tested = working enough for
me
> Transwarp Drive System.
>
> But when Scotty took out some small part of the system, the drive didn't
> work when it was supposed to.
>
> As to date, no Starfleet ship has transwarp capability, but why?
> Were the scientists and engineers of the late 23rd century too lazy to
check
> the entire system of the Excelsior?
> Or were there other problems?
>
> Can anyone help me out on this one because I think that one minor setback
> (especially this one) would be to insignificant to abandon such a great
> project.
> Are there any 'canon'-resources on this?
>
> WJ
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

>
> The Nimitz class nukes don't go much faster than their oil burning
> predecessors nor does nuke propulsion really give them any great advantage
> other than economy, and even then it may only be in time saved not
regularly
> refueling like it's escorts have to once or twice a week.
>
Not entirley correct. A Nimits has a much greater long range cruise speed.
Whole new classes of escort types had to be made to keep up with her. she
can also steam at high speed without slowing for weeks unlike an oil burner.
and she also stores bunker oil for her escorts.
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

in article QjU8b.240923$2x.67601@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net, Michael Picard
at odepotmike.RemoveThis@comcast.net wrote on 9/14/03 1:57 AM:

>> The Nimitz class nukes don't go much faster than their oil burning
>> predecessors nor does nuke propulsion really give them any great advantage
>> other than economy, and even then it may only be in time saved not regularly
>> refueling like it's escorts have to once or twice a week.

> Not entirley correct. A Nimits has a much greater long range cruise speed.
> Whole new classes of escort types had to be made to keep up with her. she
> can also steam at high speed without slowing for weeks unlike an oil burner.
> and she also stores bunker oil for her escorts.

But again, this isn't much of a strategic advantage is it? An aircraft
carrier merely has to get where it's needed and then conduct air operations.
It's not like it really needs endurance to play hide and seek anymore with
another battle group in the satellite age. It's sort of a moot point as I
think USS JFK is the only non-nuke powered carrier in the fleet now isn't
it?
--
Auction: n.: A gyp off the old block.
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

>
> >> The Nimitz class nukes don't go much faster than their oil burning
> >> predecessors nor does nuke propulsion really give them any great
advantage
> >> other than economy, and even then it may only be in time saved not
regularly
> >> refueling like it's escorts have to once or twice a week.
>
> > Not entirley correct. A Nimits has a much greater long range cruise
speed.
> > Whole new classes of escort types had to be made to keep up with her.
she
> > can also steam at high speed without slowing for weeks unlike an oil
burner.
> > and she also stores bunker oil for her escorts.
>
> But again, this isn't much of a strategic advantage is it? An aircraft
> carrier merely has to get where it's needed and then conduct air
operations.
> It's not like it really needs endurance to play hide and seek anymore with
> another battle group in the satellite age. It's sort of a moot point as I
> think USS JFK is the only non-nuke powered carrier in the fleet now isn't
> it?
> --
it makes a big diference if you trying to be where the is a hole in the sat
coverage
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

in article Ts09b.440963$YN5.296705@sccrnsc01, Michael Picard at
odepotmike RemoveThis @comcast.net wrote on 9/14/03 11:13 AM:

>>>> The Nimitz class nukes don't go much faster than their oil burning
>>>> predecessors nor does nuke propulsion really give them any great advantage
>>>> other than economy, and even then it may only be in time saved not
>>>> regularly refueling like it's escorts have to once or twice a week.
>>
>>> Not entirley correct. A Nimits has a much greater long range cruise speed.
>>> Whole new classes of escort types had to be made to keep up with her. she
>>> can also steam at high speed without slowing for weeks unlike an oil burner.
>>> and she also stores bunker oil for her escorts.

>> But again, this isn't much of a strategic advantage is it? An aircraft
>> carrier merely has to get where it's needed and then conduct air operations.
>> It's not like it really needs endurance to play hide and seek anymore with
>> another battle group in the satellite age. It's sort of a moot point as I
>> think USS JFK is the only non-nuke powered carrier in the fleet now isn't it?

> it makes a big diference if you trying to be where the is a hole in the sat
> coverage

And just who has those satellites now? Think the Russian really care where
our carriers are other than maybe to ask us to save them from a Chinese
invasion? It would be more likely that we have DoD satellites or ground
based missiles designed to kill any opposing forces satellites in the event
of that kind of war.

Hell, how fast is the USS Cole? Didn't save it at anchor when some lookout
lapsed on spotting the boat coming in packed with explosives.

The threats that fighting ships face now are greatly different from WWII
when being able to steam around and fool the enemy of their location was
important.

We keep carrier battle groups on stations already in the most probable
trouble spots so getting anything other than relief, refuel and rearming
there is mostly the big deal. I think that since we have other assets such
as the B-2s that can do long range bombing endurance runs it's not such a
big deal for the carrier to have speed as much as it is for it to have good
CAP in the form of fighters and anti-ship missiles. And a fast attack sub or
two to keep the enemy fish away.

There's some great stuff in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor" I think it is with
the hypothetical war stuff with Japan that covers a lot of these scenarios.
Really there's not much other naval assets out on the sea that can take on
two of our battle groups. (Hell the Russians can't even tow a defunct sub
without it sinking!) That is unless the rest of the world gangs up on us at
once...

Then again the way our idiot child President has behaved in the last two
years that might happen yet...
--
Neckties strangle clear thinking.
-- Lin Yutang
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

Elvis Gump wrote:
> There's some great stuff in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor" I think it is with
> the hypothetical war stuff with Japan that covers a lot of these scenarios.
> Really there's not much other naval assets out on the sea that can take on
> two of our battle groups. (Hell the Russians can't even tow a defunct sub
> without it sinking!) That is unless the rest of the world gangs up on us at
> once...

Thank you for that reply. May I ask a question, however?

I don't read Clancy novels, so thank you for the insight. But how in
the world could a war with Japan ever take place?? Talk about
hypothetical!

Thanks
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned?? 

Elvis Gump wrote:
> It would have been funny had if it hadn't been quite so realistic. Basically
> it starts when a gas tank welding machine puts out several critically
> weakened tanks which go into cars in America and cause several Ford
> Pinto-like fireballs when rear-ended. This leads to agitation by unions here
> which leads to trade war sort of stuff by a reactionary President and
> Congress which leads to the fall of the moderate Japanese government which
> leads to... Well, I shouldn't tell you the whole book. ;^)

Thanks

Still a stretch, though. Like a 'radical' Japanese government would be
able to break their Constitution to form an overseas army and get away
with it. Clancy was stretching, huh?
 >> Stay informed about: Why was the Transwarp project abandoned??