Still think that the Constitution Class refit as shown in "Star Trek the Motion Picture" is one, if not the most majestic of all the variations of the Starship Enterprise.

Actually the largest nuclear test was the ~50MT Tsar Bomba. The bomb itself was capable of 100MT, but the test required that it be dialed back to about 50MT, just so the plane dropping the damn thing would have a CHANCE of escaping the blast! (which they did by the skin of their teeth!)

The good old Connie. A flying desthtrap but one of the best.

The old Connies were the most reliable, fancy coffins any starfleet officer could ask for and many did

I remember as a kid that the NASA launches board me to death....,then this new TV show StarTrek came on and my parents convinced me to watch and space just might be fun. DAMN IF MY PARENTS WEREN'T RIGHT, I became at TREKKER,TREKKEE, however its spelt the fact is that I have spent nearly sixty years of my life sharing StarTrek with my mom, you know I am absolutely thankful for both......I truly Love the ORGINAL for WITHOUT it, we wouldn't have any of the OTHERS in the TREKK Universe....

"Not a military". Right. Yet the Military structure, Military ranks, Military rules and regulations, and military punishments up to and including court-marshall all confirm the fact that starfleet is in fact a military.

Maybe the technological regression was like in BSG? The Klingons hacked the networks so Starfleet was like “take off those ludicrous angled nacelle pylons with the holes, make the hull less shiny, get rid of that ridiculous window on the bridge, and remove all the bells and whistles. We can’t take the chance that an enemy would exploit any of these technologies in future”. And no enemy in TOS was able to exploit the technology of the Enterprise and use it against the crew. They had to literally take over the ship in order to get access to the Enterprise. Nobody could do it remotely. Probably.

Picard: Starfleet is not a military organization... Wesley: Shut up Picard! Someone had to say it...

The Constitution refit from the first 6 movies is the most beautiful ship in science fiction.

I think Constitution looks better then the Galaxy. I don't think the Galaxy looks bad, the Constitution looks better in my opinion. It some how looks rustic and yet comfy. I also love the "jellybean" buttons and "gameboy color" tapes.

[Edit: Solid breakdown, I hadn't known about the Warp 22 towing bit. Interesting! Oh - and congrats on the new house!] The sabotaged max speed being higher than the normal upper limit might also be due to limitations in sensors. If it's under its own power, the ship has to be on the lookout for obstacles. If those systems are only rated for lower speeds, flying at Warp 15 might risk collisions because it's flying faster than it can see - and at that speed, such an impact would be cataclysmic. 9:23 The largest nuclear weapon ever tested was the Soviet Union's Czar Bomba. This monster was the size of a small bus, and was set off over Novaya Zemlya in 1961. It delivered a yield of *fifty* megatons. If it had been built with a uranium damper (which its design allowed for), it could have delivered twice that. The use of that damper would have resulted in a far higher release of radiation, however, and the Soviets mostly just wanted to prove a point (the most powerful bomb the US had ever tested was the Castle Bravo device that yielded 15 megatons, so the Czar Bomba was a bit of one-upsmanship) so they omitted that component.

Technically, the Constitution Class Starship Defiant that disappeared into interdimensional space, appears with all hands lost in "A Mirror Darkly" part 1 and part 2 of the series "Enterprise" so.... It survived in another parallel universe.... This limb I went so far out on is about to break off....

I wouldn't say the constitution class was inherently more dangerous it's just it went on more dangerous missions

I'd imagine that saucer separation for the constitution class was a last ditch resort and docking with the main hull was either impossible or required a drydock.

The Constitution Class: Probably the MOST ICONIC STARSHIP of most, if not all, science fiction television and/or movie franchises 😀

I would dare say the constitution class ship is the most iconic Science Fiction ship ever designed or seen on any screen. It is completely recognizable at a glance and most anybody who has ever see a television would know what it is. There are only a handful of ships that can claim that fame, and only one comes close to the good old Enterprise for name recognition. The Millennium Falcon.

I've always liked the classic designs. The Connie is a favourite of mine.

I had a friend who was Career navy and he said that the operation of the Constitution Class was basically how modern warships of the U.S. NAVY operate.

The ship in the episode where all the crew - except for the captain - died from a disease (and were not turned into salt) was the USS Exeter (pronounced like "exit-er"), not Executor.

The old girl is still my favorite of all ships. She still fun to go into battles with

"The Constitution Class...is possibly the most recognizable vessel in all of the fleet." It's also probably the most recognizable vessel in all of media. Is there a more famous spaceship? Even The Millenium Falcon isn't as instantly recognizable as The Starship Enterprise.

The M5 test ("The Ultimate Computer") resulted in the death of the crew of the Excalibur, but the ship might have been recovered and put back into service (as might the Exeter if she got a good spring cleaning). The other 3 ships, the Lexington, Hood and Potemkin, were damaged but certainly not destroyed. A consideration of the high casualty rate is well warranted, but that was an overstatement.

The struts for the saucer section are those triangles you see on the underside of the primary hull. Separation is vaguely mentioned in the original series episode The Apple: KIRK: "Then use your imagination. Tie every ounce of power the ship has into the impulse engines. Discard the warp drive nacelles if you have to, and crack out of there with the main section, but get that ship out of there!"

I love the old girl. She's got class.

1:56 🤣 makes me laugh every time, it's simple and silly but I love it 🤣

Never any love for the Saladin class destroyer or Hermes class scout. Someone had to do the light and local work while the big-boy Connies were out exploring deep space.

My favourite bridge was always of the Enterprise in Star Trek 1. I'm not saying it's my favourite movie but for some reason I like the bridge. Not too much of dusty rose colour like next generation. A little more modern-looking then TOS. It's just right to my eyes.

The bridge on top kind of makes sense. Most weapons would probably tear through a hull if the ship is unshielded so burying the bridge say in the middle of saucer section would be kind of pointless. So the ship definitely relied on shields. Now it would be much much harder to erect weapon proof shields inside the hull somewhere since you'd basically be BBQing anyone in the area, not including wrecking components. But having the bridge on top, extra shield emitters could be used to protect the bridge similar to how on enterprise the klingon d5 had extra shielding for their bridge.

Refit Constitution (movies 1-6) is still my favorite, but...yeah, by that point the old girls were hilariously obsolete. Seriously, looking at those things, is like seeing a beautiful poem given form... ...and then you get blasted to bits, because a torpedo went right through your rec room in the saucer...from the opposite side of the saucer.

constitution class: 1 open hailing frequencies, fredom of speech 2 has enough fire power to destroy a planet, right to bear arms

Listen. That Gelato machine is always the most important thing

The Star Trek novel Black Fire featured the Enterprise crew abandoning the saucer section after it was damaged beyond repair by an explosive. All surviving crew crammed into the engine hull and returned to Earth.

Reports that some Constitution Class ships had a lounge aft of the bridge must be apocryphal. According to the published blueprints, that's where the Sherman Tank was kept. Said blueprints also depicted retracted landing legs for the saucer section (but none for the engineering section). The saucer was meant to be able to detach by explosive bolts in case of impending destruction of the engineering section, to serve as a lifeboat or shelter for the surviving crew while awaiting the arrival of rescue ships. Reversible saucer sep didn't become a thing until much, much later.

As Isaac Arthur is known for saying, there is no such thing as an unarmed spaceship. If it has a Propulsion system it is a weapon.

The Constitution: Because somebody has to go under the bus

The stalwart workhorse of the Federation was the Miranda, but the Constitution class is a thoroughbred in comparison

Starfleet was an exploration organization who found out the hard way with the Enterprise NX-01 that space was very dangerous and they would have to the strongest weapons available to protect themselves from those dangers as they explored. Not all galactic civilizations were friendly or tolerant of strangers.

Long haired freaky person from Texas here, and thanks for reminding me of "WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE " .I consider it one of the best episodes in the original series, and Sally Kellerman was just so pretty in that uniform. For a ship,yeah I'd rather have a Starfleet built frigate than just about anything in sci-fi. They just make good ships. Any old Magee class would tickle me pink, and I could manage most of the upgrades myself, though it looks like I'd need a few extra people to reweave the warp coils...I found an old Tesla design online that would scale up nicely..... Seriously, that guy is STILL ahead of his and our times. Great video, and may the great bird of the galaxy fly with you. 💯

actually Excalibur and Lexington were heavily damaged not destoryed. heck Constellation may have been salvagable

Excellent video, as usual. The only thing I would disagree with is the notion that the Enterprise was (I can’t remember your exact wording) disassociated or rejecting of any form of religion. The fact that the Enterprise is shown to have a chapel in “Balance of Terror,” that Lt. Martine is seen praying in that chapel in the same episode, would tend to contradict that. Furthermore, the main characters refer to God rather frequently throughout the series. In one instance, Uhura specifically references Christ rather reverently. Whether or not she considers herself Christian is not entirely clear, but when Kirk confronts Apollo, saying, “We consider the one God quite sufficient,” that pretty solidly implies some level of belief. It’s been said (mostly by TNG fans) that the TOS era is just as atheistic as the TNG era, but there’s really no evidence of that-indeed, quite the opposite. Much like Picard’s claim that Starfleet is not a military. The TOS era Starfleet never operated under such pretense. Kirk was upfront when, in “Errand of Mercy,” he stated, “I’m a soldier, not a diplomat.” TOS and TNG were two very different eras. A lot can change in 100 years.

IIRC you could rig the warp drive on a contitution class to travel thru time as well and this is partly why they where phased out...to powerfull

🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and very well informatively explained and executed in every detail and way shape and form possibly provided indeed, And the Constitution class is and always will be my most favorite starship design as well as the Refit design indeed👌.

An interesting note regarding the TOS version of the Constitution is how much of the Warp Nacelles are dedicated to equipment other than the warp coils. The display seen in the Enterprise episode "In a Mirror Darkly" shows that nearly half the Nacelle is dedicated to other equipment. This is something we don't see on later vessels until the Sovereign-Class (look closely at the tail-end of the nacelle's equipment on the Sovereign's LCARS Master Display and you see a structure similar to the ball in the back-end of the Constitution's nacelle). It may be that this equipment is what lets the Constitution fine-tune its warp field to attain such unusual performance beyond its rated output, and might be related to how the ships were able to not only fight at warp speed, but could even go to warp *in* *reverse* (TOS: "Balance of Terror"). It could even be that this equipment for fine-tuning warp fields meant that, unlike later models, this version of Warp Drive could have been more ecologically friendly. The Master Display of the Enterprise-D does not show any such structures aft of the warp coils. Even the Master Display of the Enterprise-B Excelsior-class ship also shows no additional structures behind the warp coils, though leaves a mystery as to what is in the boxy structures atop the tail end of the nacelle contains. It may be that as later ships used the Excelsior-style warp engine layout, there was less need for such fine-tuning due to better control of the plasma feed to the warp coils, resulting in engines that didn't even try to mitigate what the engines were doing to space-time and thus causing the damage to subspace. In fact, the first new ship we see that has equipment installed behind the coils again is the Intrepid, which has Aft Warp Field Controllers and an Oscillation Invers(something - text is blurry). It may be that the more extensive equipment on the Sovereign is why its nacelles do not need to use variable geometry to reduce ecological damage and reach higher top speeds. Unfortunately, the Prometheus' Master Display does not show us the Warp Nacelle's interior layout, so we cannot know for certain whether it uses the Sovereign-style expanded equipment or not (though it does have an extended non-glowing tail segment).

Starfleet began as an exploration and research branch but growing tensions with the Klingons and others made the Federation finally get serious about building a ship that could fight. I think Constitution was the DS9 Defiant of its day.

Man the casualty list of the constitution class gives me the impression that starfleet lost as many of them as they did galaxy class on the dominion war

I swear, this constant clip of Picard absolutely killed me😂😂😂

Great video your dedication shows!😊

Well yah see the old Connies were the safest ships for their day - and that is precisely why about 4 of 13 survive!! But hey, at least they weren't old D-7's which almost always find a way to die when they show up!

The TOS and TMP eras are my favorite eras in Star Trek. I just love everything about them. I also really like the Lost Era too.

2:45 Kinda like being Rangers and SAS, SEALs, Delta Force, Legion Entrangiere, 4 Para, Marine Recon, Fighter Pilots, Firemen, Rescue Divers. Astronauts, Cosmonauts, Taikonauts. Prestige is borne not from softness, but from difficulty.

I do love this ship and the design. I like the breakdown of that you technically had a leveling down in terms if tech after the klingons kick starfleet's ass the big wigs realized we need better ships or more modular ship consoles. The best example is the TOS episode Where No Man Has Gone Before, where most of the Enterprise is recked by an unknown force leaving it crippled but by going to a nearby planet and taking a ninning station's main consoles the crew is able to repair the ship completely. While I do also get that Starfleet even in this era looked at itself as an organization that was both scientific and law enforcement based a ship like the Constitution does call that into question. But when you have races like the Klingons, and Romulans that are expanding aggressive powers you need something that can stand up to them. It's the old saying if an army of mechs are coming at you get yourself a gundam and you'll be fine. And that's what the Constitution is the gundam if the federation.

Connies we’re both the explorer, and front line battle cruiser. No wonder many were lost.

I liked your explanation of the design difference between Disco and TOS.

Starfleet/UFP seems to sway between periods of peaceful technological advancement, (where they're willing to risk functionality for all the bells and whistles), and chaotic/war eras where they only focus on the essentials. Which makes sense when you understand human mentality and history. In times of prosperity, they splurge and experiment. In times of hardship, they stick to what works.

Gallifreyan - Starfleet alliance ha

I seem to remember an authorized blueprint book for Star Tek ships being released maybe early 80's that showed landing struts on the Constitution class.

To be fair, part of me envisions Voyager having a giant replicator that simply replicated delta flyers. Much like how in TOS they had one that created random redshirts.

Early in the video, when you mention the Constitution class vessels destroyed in action, I miss the Enterprise. AFAIK, it was destructed in orbit of the "Genesis Planet." And later you say the strongest nuke ever tested was about 25MT TNT-equivalent, which is probably wrong. The USSR hydrogen bomb tested on october 30, 1961 is estimated to have been 2 to 4 times more powerful than that.

Tsar Bomba enters the chat -- 55 megatons.

Being assigned to any ship of the line,particularly any ship class destined to become an Enterprise,was bound to be a dangerous assignment,primarily because they were the frontline exploratory,diplomatic and defensive capital ships of the Federation,the best of the best.

I've not the biggest Connie fan, but this is a terrific look at this ship.

I think many videos like this one, while providing great observations from a particular angle, over look something that's in plain site. Sometimes its not always about the ship or what the ship can do, its about the crew too. For example if you ever look into some of these 'Cave-Diving' stories, its absolutely amazing how far people can get with very little to work with and still be successful in the end. And so it is here, yeah the Constitution has its issues but to a competent crew and commander these are challenges to overcome and not permanent obstacles.

Russia actually detonated a 58 megaton bomb in October 1961. The test of the Tsar Bomb was originally to be 100 megaton yield but was dialed back to reduce fallout. It was determined that anything larger would not increase damage because more of the blast would simply go into space.

"The largest nuclear weapon tested to date" was supposed to be a hundred megatons but the Russians chickened out and replaced a chunk of the reaction mass with lead. Depending on whose data you trust the most, it was either 58 megatons or 50 megatons, with 50 being the figure supplied by the Russians.

Picard: Starfleet is not a military organization, it's purpose is exploration. Kirk: Orders Scotty to stun an entire plannet's surface worth of people, and even threatens to sterilize another planet in another episode. Me: Oh I see, so they are just as peaceful as Gandhi in the Civilization video game franchise.

The Enterprise did not travel at 15 warp in TOS. The maximum speed was 14.4 in "That Which Survives." - Your welcome 🖖 LLAP

Factual error at 2:10. During the events of "The Ultimate Computer," of the four Federation star ships Lexington, Excalibur, Hood, and Potemkin, NONE is actually completely destroyed - though the Excalibur was rendered lifeless.

In Star Trek the original series tomorrow’s yesterday Kirk made reference that Starfleet is a combined service and compared it to the United States Air Force, and Star Trek to Kirks son called Starfleet the military,

The Constitution Class is a ship I'd want to take and work on if it were real and I had the resources. I'd have it looking like it originally did in the TV series while filling it with way more modern engines, equipment, etc. Kind of like redoing an old car and then just cruise around the galaxy in it with maybe some a fireball paint scheme accent the busard collectors and fuzzy dice hanging from the view screen and a larger pair hanging on neck section of the ship.

Every Sheldon in the Trekverse called you out for saying the most powerful nuclear test was only twenty-five megatons. 😂

Also my Favorite!

In the context of the time the TV show originally aired the original Constitution class and by proxy the Enterprise were a huge departure where science can spaceships usually had rockets and fins and whatnot with the exception being the Jupiter-2 from Lost in space Still the original Enterprise was relatively gimmick free and it's design was all business.

Erm largest nuclear test was 50 megatons, the Soviet Tsar bomba

The largest nuclear weapon tested to date is around 50 megaton, not 25.

never seen in cannon, meanwhile JJ is over there with the "hold my beer" expression... All them scenes of Scotty on the show in "engineering" was the saucers engineering room. Take note that there is no warp core tube. Kind of reinforces the concept of the saucer being capable if needed, to be on its own without an attached "engineering hull" if you asked me.

Explorers all right.. exploring kicking your ass!

It was established that shuttle Bay was for landing or launching and shuttles were stored below deck and brought up on an elevator platform. Much how an aircraft carrier works. They planes are not left sitting out on the deck. I'm quite positive certain maintenance is performed, like draining the fuel tanks stoing the missiles and ammo.

The Constitution always struck me as being a 'workhorse' vessel - not fancy, but tough and resilient. Something that would last for decades without refit if needed. That if lost in deep space wouldn't expose alien species to the very best of new Federation technology, but had the teeth to fight almost anything if needed. And it was so successful that when Star Fleet needed to rebuild the fleet after the Klingon war they found themselves relying on the older proven technology more then before. Mirandas and Oberths would be resource cheap and quick to build, and would do the job needed just fine during reconstruction. Constitutions are kept in service and become the front line ship of choice, only being replaced once the Excelsior design is properly tested and trialled rather then rushing out the newest thing like they'd done before. Its a bit like how the Iowa Battleships of the US Navy found themselves being in service for so long - they just worked, and it took a huge shift in technology to finally retire them.

Gallifrey… LMAO

Btw, I think the ships themselves were rather safe... They just seem to be magnets for trouble. It's like all the Alpha and Beta quadrant powers have some kind of special radar so they know exactly where every Connie ( or Galaxy, for that matter) are at any given time. It also works on random deadly space anomalies too.

The movie era refit is my favourite, also the fact that the fly by could cause a local earthquake if you have a good sub woofer when watching it.

Good video. Sorry to point out a typo - Ships doesn’t need an apostrophe, unless they own something. Like, this ship’s warp core is outdated. So, “Ships of the Era”.

For a 'not military organization' they sure were rather militarized between 2285 (Wrath of Khan) to 2293 (The Undiscovered Country).

But lore, your forgetting that episode of TNG where picard said that starfleet wasn't a miltary institution and that it primary purpose was recreation or somthing...

If you read Roddenburys book the saucer and lower section rotated to give artificial gravity. The nacelles were some type of electromagnate thing.

I'm a Constitution Class Starship Man. I love the Constitution Class Starships and mainly the USS NCC 1701 Enterprise, she's beautiful.

No bloody A B C or D. Nice touch.

in terms of the heavy armaments i give a counter argument, space isn't just deadly thanks to hostile aliens, but also asteroids and other space debree. which in those situations would require some weaponry i.e the phasers could do a single target for debree while torpedoes were used to clear a small field

You can use the original style enterprise in star trek vr(dlc). Most of the people I play with are lost using its old school switches and levers. But I absolutetly love it. I bet cylons from Battlestar galactica wouldn't be able to hack its systems.

Ah yes, Starfleets first Explodium based major Starship.

The original Constitution Class is as beautiful as the Clipper Ships in their day but you have to pose it right. As originally drawn it was oriented upside down from what was actually filmed

9:22 The largest nuclear weapon tested was the Tsar Bomba. It was detonated with a yield of 50mt, this was half as powerful as it was capable but they were worried the plane wouldn't be able to escape fast enough and there was some concern about possibly setting fire to the atmosphere and some other things, iirc

The range of the transporters in TOS was stated as 16000 miles (about 25750 km) in early literature from Lincoln Enterprises (Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett's official Star Trek store). How did they make the gravity generators so reliable? They worked even on an otherwise dead ship!

...as well as being mentioned in some books. "A Flag Full of Stars"? Someone is playing your song.

Have you done videos based on engineering sections like your bridge videos?

So I've noticed a lot of comments about the precise yield of the Tzar Bomba. I don't think this is the important pedantic point - Lore was within the order of magnitude. Comparing the yield of a nuclear weapon to the thrust of a fission rocket engine are not the same thing. The yield of a nuclear weapon is measured in a way to compare to the amount of TNT necessary for an explosion of a similar size, where the MT of force of a rocket engine is the measure of the thrust. Assuming the impulse engine is actually a fusion-based rocket engine, a good comparison would be to the Spacex Raptor engine. This is designed for the new Starship, and this engine has a thrust of about 230 T, which is why it makes sense to rate a magic future rocket engine in megatons.

I don't remember the Enterprise in TOS being so detailed looking. Are all those video snippets from the "remastered" series with the digital enhancements?

If I remember correctly, back during the TOS days Starfleet was indeed a military and did not feign otherwise; You went to a military academy for the best and brightest, competed with each other, and eventually-if you succeeded-went out on a five-year tour, just you and your fellow crewmates, all willing to challenge the unknown, and-if necessary-fight. God knows what happened to Starfleet during the interim between TOS and TNG, but clearly they decided that carrying thousands of civilians around dangerous parts of the galaxy was a Great Idea. Now it should be pointed out that the heavy cruiser designation is given to ships built for speed and range like a cruiser but with heaver guns (in comparison, a battlecruiser will have battleship-grade weaponry but still cruiser-grade shields/armor). The Constitution class was never really meant to be the ship of the line, taking and holding territory. As per their mission charter, they were designed to operate on extended tours of duty into the unknown, often operating alone and without support. For war, Starfleet was counting on their Federation-class battleships.. but their budget apparently got cut by the Federation Congress before they could be built.

I ran into someone's design for the interior of the TOS Connie, and it was wonderful. Sadly, it was also private, so I don't feel good about sharing it. I wish I could. But that's a good overview. At the time, we never saw a ship-to-ship weapons exchange from outside, but based on what people said, I imagine that the plan was to point the under-primary-hull phasers at the other vessel and fire from there thus keeping the bridge and the nacesels away from the other vessel's firing arc. I always htought a bowling alley was a dumb idea. Is that in cannon? I hope not. IN Mr. Scott's Guide, they make a big deal about the intermix and the fact that it leads to the impulse engines. So that was something new. Anyway, that's all I've got. It's been a while.

You tell 'em, Jean Luc.