Hi Ric here and today I’m going to ask a very complex question that is definitely going
to take ten minutes to answer. What is the contents of a Starship’s shuttlebay? Shuttles,
no wait come back! So yes, obviously shuttles which I will be
looking at, but I was also talking about other vessels and the like that a Starship would
carry. Of course these vary with the type of vessel too. Craft such as the Galaxy-Class
had three shuttlebays with two in the main hull and one large one at the rear of the
saucer section. Something smaller like an intrepid only had a single shuttlebay and
it was a rather conservative one at that. Generally however, a large Starship would
have a loadout of four types of small craft, not counting personal vessels or the captain’s
yacht. We’ll start with those craft with the shortest range and single purpose, the
“Worker-Bees” as they’re known. These can come in several varieties and have been
a part of Starfleet’s workforce since practically its inception. These small one -pilot vessels
serve several purposes from maintenance to cargo transference. They lack a warp drive
and in most cases even environmental regulation, often requiring the operator to don an EVA
suit inside its cockpit. In the mid-23rd century, these small craft
were equipped with manipulation arms which themselves featured numerous tools. These
tools were interchangeable and adapted for various purposes but could include cutting
lasers or plasma torches for slicing into ship hulls or cutting up debris. They were
deployed to repair external damage, salvage operations or even to ferry cargo, basically
small utility craft. By the late 23rd century around 2268, these
had been phased out in favour of the Cargo Management Units, CMUs that were in operation
at Starbases, such as the San Francisco Fleet Yards before expanding to see regular duty
aboard ships. These served the same purpose as the early Workerbees, even adopting the
name, but originally had a focus on transferring large amounts of Cargo via their stronger
impulse engines. However when these vessels were outfitted with manipulator arms too,
it would have been apparent that they served equally well in ship maintenance and construction.
By 2319, these new craft were part of every new Starship’s complement and soon a regular
inclusion aboard Starships in general. Much like their predecessor, their arms could
be removed or changed for a variety of other tools, however for the most part; they lacked
an internal atmosphere allowing the space-suit clad pilot to easily enter and exit the capsule
to conduct affairs with greater finesse if needed, I guess. Large ships like the Galaxy
class often carried around four of these small ships for maintenance.
The next craft we see are the “shuttlepods”. These are defined as non-warp craft that are
smaller than shuttles and designed specifically for ferrying people. Usually two people would
crew these craft, but they could hold up to four. These included the Type 15 and the Type
18s and were used often to travel to and from a planet’s surface, starbase or between
ships. Basically any time warp was not required. The designation seems to have carried over
from the basic non-warp shuttlepods seen on craft like the pre-Federation NX-01 Enterprise.
Moving up in scale from the shuttlepods, we have the shuttles themselves. These were the
primary warp capable sub-craft of a Starship and made up the majority of the capacity of
a shuttlebay. Space Stations and the like did maintain a supply of them, but due to
their longer range nature, it was actually less common to see them in use around Starbases,
where shuttlepods and other specialised inspection craft did just fine.
There are so many types of shuttle to warrant their own video, but Generally, they fit into
two categories, big and small. Not every shuttle was warp capable, but most are and as such,
designed for longer term occupants, being able to run independent missions from their
mothership. Such craft featured replicators, transporters and the full range of environmental
controls. They also had offensive and defensive capabilities and a wide array of sensors,
in essence, everything a Starship needed to function, just on a far smaller scale, running
of a mini warp core. So, shuttles were deployed for a variety of
reasons but often as transport to and from the main ship when it was impractical or dangerous
for the Starship to make the journey itself. We often saw crew utilise a shuttles to visit
locations when the Enterprise was unable to deviate from its course or when transporters
were not an option. Variations in mission profile of the main ship often dictated what
kind of shuttles were loaded aboard, for example there were specific medical orientated shuttles,
survey craft and even experimental ones and ones designed to deploy ground vehicles.
Starfleet divided its shuttles into numbered classes. Smaller shuttles, such as the Class
2, often made room for a pilot and co-pilot and were fast, agile and great for quick runs
to and from a planet, however they were not designed for comfort so long term usage was
possible but unfavourable. Such cramped conditions gave rise to terms like “Class 2 Claustrophobia”.
Slightly larger are models like the Types sixes or eights. These still had the standard
seating for two occupants, but a much roomier interior. These vessels actually featured
rather comfortable seating in the rear, that could be swapped out for inventory space depending
on mission requirements. A class 6 was given to the time-displaced Captain Scott and if
I had to speculate, I think that these sorts of ships were given out when a mission was
expected to take longer than a day or so. These were more numerous aboard larger Starships,
like a galaxy class while a smaller ship made do with smaller shuttles, see the USS Voyager,
which did have a class 8, but made more use of its numerous Class 2s.
Getting larger, we have the Type Sevens and Elevens. These bigger shuttles were the more
personnel-centric craft made for ferrying multiple people for whatever purpose, often
termed administrative, this would likely have been for diplomatic duties. The Type Eleven
however was designed to be a large, multi-mission vessel with a high degree of adaptability
and manoeuvrability. These vessels saw implementation in the Sovereign-Class Starship and beyond,
likely meaning that their design and function was influenced by the preceding Dominion and
Borg threats, even the shuttles were beefed up.
Larger than the shuttles, is the sub-class of shuttle known as the “Runabouts”. The
first of this classification seen were Danube-Class Runabouts allocated to Deep Space Nine and
similar Federation outposts, but large vessels, again such as the Galaxy-Class would house
several within their hangers as they became more common. Space Stations often had several
of these in their bays as do outposts. Being practically immobile locations, these larger
shuttles were the answer to long range travel in area.
The runabouts are basically a small Starship. They not only feature all the standard systems
of a shuttlecraft, but also several amenities such as more private cabins and mission-specific
rooms that could be outfitted with small labs or tech bays. These were designed to run missions
completely autonomously for weeks, maybe even months at a time and as such had to remain
comfortable for an extended stay. The downside was that they were often rather slow, but
could be modified for increased speed. All of these shuttles, runabouts and worker
pods were capable of operating in atmosphere as well as the depths of space and several
could even be modified to work under greater pressures than a standard M class.
Alongside the vessels themselves, Starfleet shuttlebays had maintenance pits that could
open up an allow the repair or modification of their inventory of small craft and some
vessels even had industrial replicators that could be used to manufacture entire components
to replenish their supply. While the maintenance bays or hangers were found on all vessels
large enough to accommodate shuttles, the industrial replicators were less frequent
and some vessels would simply have to scrap damaged small craft then resupply at the next
opportunity. Shuttles of any size, from the small type
15s to full Runabouts could be independently named from their mother ship. Although the
Danube-Classes were granted their own independent registry number alongside their name, smaller
craft retained the registry number of the starship to which it was assigned and were
simply differentiated by a number. This marks a distinct difference in designation, where
shuttles were regarded as little more than inventory and runabouts as basically a whole
starship, despite serving similar purposes. Shuttle bays on Starship had various methods
of storing their craft too, with some being held in bays akin to a parking lot where the
floor space was not a concern while other ships could retract them into compartments
such as beneath the floor or behind walls. Many vessels would retain some empty space
however for the arrival of visiting craft or any other needed ships that may be encountered
so a starship’s capacity for shuttles was often higher than what was being utilised.
Something like a Defiant Class, a small vessel by itself at only 170 metres, actually had
a special type of compact shuttle called the Type 10, or Chaffee-type shuttlepod designed
for it. These were as utilitarian in design as its mother ship and were less than 10 metres
long. The Defiant carried only 4, while a Galaxy Class Starship carried routinely 8
shuttlecraft, 8 shuttlepods, 4 workerbees and had room for one, maybe several runabouts.
This is unlikely to even be its full capacity as some specs dedicate an entire deck to shuttle
storage which would allow for dozens more. Basically a rule of thumb is that the larger
the vessel, the more shuttles it’s going to have and the larger they’ll be.
So there we have it, a breakdown of the standard small craft that you’d find aboard a Federation
Starship and the reasons for their variety in design. While exact loadout would vary
from ship to ship and even mission to mission, these are the most common things you’d find
down there. Thanks for watching this video on the subject
and I’m currently exploring topics around this sort of thing so that’s why I’m not
going into specifics on the shuttle types themselves here. Thanks again, I’ve been
Ric and until next video, goodbye!