Trekyards EP195 - SS Conestoga (Enterprise Era)

For its very, VERY limited screen time in Star Trek: Enterprise this is one very detailed model. Really love this ship design and over all look. A truly great Star Trek design from Mr. John Eaves. Hope you all enjoy this look at a very cool part of Federation history.
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[@Mayvau]

Conestoga was one of the three best known brands of wagons to be used by early American and Canadian pioneers. Conestoga's were the earliest and saw a lot of action in the earliest western migrations. Although in truth Conestoga's were more often later used to haul freight to already settled pioneers than haul actual families. They were specifically designed to haul freight. The other two eventually most popular brand of wagons used by people were the Murphy and Studebaker wagons. Each had their pluses and minuses. Studebaker evolved into making coaches, both for people and funerals, and then into making automobiles which they did until the mid 1960's. USS Murphy and USS Studebaker probably just didn't have that same cool ring of a name. :)

[@Jack_Stafford]

Gary Tucker thank you for pointing this out. I feel like the entire meaning of the name of the ship was lost on many people. Being a colony ship and naming it after the wagons that brought pioneers to Western North America gives it instant recognition as to its function and reason for existing. I can imagine that another ship of this class may be called Mayflower in the same tradition of taking people into a mostly unknown New Frontier. So much of Star Trek is influenced by North American tradition and I feel like often that is overlooked with names like Constitution, Saratoga, Yorktown, Gettysburg and Intrepid all of which have uniquely important American historical connections. Later Star Trek strayed a bit away from its American roots with names like Yamamoto and Sovereign but at its inception it was clearly a red white and blue future! ;)

[@stevenkuski5916]

I find it amazing that this ship is only 60 years in the future. it is as far from our present as Sputnik. this ship is closer to the present than it is to Enterprise. it makes me excited.

[@WilliamJakespeareProps]

I love this ship! I wish it had appeared on the show in a greater capacity

[@raphaelwolff885]

William Jakespeare I love this Ship ist so beautiful

[@jonathonearl482]

Thank you Trekyards for this episode! I've been patiently waiting on this one. I especially like the designs of simple single hulled ships. I absolutely love the designs of these pre-warp ships. I like the Warp Delta better but the Conestoga is very nicely designed. I wanted to see much more of these ships in the series. Star Trek just didn't show enough of these early Earth vessels. I really wanted to see the inside of this ship, the schematics, the hall ways, the rooms, the warp core and etc.

[@richardlyons1276]

Jonathon Earl totally agree.

[@davidanttila465]

My vote is the antenna is a Communication antenna and the gun looking one is either a solid ammunition cannon or a pulse cannon.

[@Ccs4646]

We need this in sto... That's a cool design...

[@adamlytle2615]

I really see what Captain Foley is saying about the transition to the cage style nacelles. They even have the spike things on the bussard collectors. Also, I think it looks a bit like David Tennant's Sonic Screwdriver. That was an awesome distraction from the election.

[@CraigAlderson]

don't know if someone has commented but to me., the main hull with the 'intakes' you discussed look to me identical to the warp core in ENT. same oval shape... perhaps as it's old tech, the whole hull is the core

[@jerobriggs6861]

I love the ship. Thanks for the video guys.

[@AwesomeSauceShow]

Thats a realy cool looking ship.

[@shaneedwards596]

its hull looks like the design from NX-01's warp 5 engine and what if the side parts are intakes for atmospheric engines which maybe when out of atmos it could close for protection, during space flight where the booster rockets would kick in and re-open when within atmos?

[@silmarian]

re: the size issue, they could have additional colonists or livestock in cryosleep. It's not used much in Trek, but they had it as far back as Khan.

[@markbernero9302]

I always thought of this as a sleeper ship because of the long voyage it would be at warp 1.

[@silmarian]

Mark Bernero Exactly, and without replicators they'd have a very difficult time feeding themselves. Also, I doubt their shielding is very good and they'd probably be better protected if they're colonisticles.

[@stevenkuski5916]

Agreed, this is most definitely a sleeper ship. as a sleeper ship the people and environmental systems would take up much less space than on other ships. This ship also predates any hostile alien contact so it is reasonable to assume the ship has no offensive or defensive capabilities.

[@jordanedmond5618]

+Trekyards Since this was early warp I would say that the ship is Nuclear Powered, the same as Phoenix, as for the front pointy things could be sub-space transmitters.

[@kwaktak]

I don't know why, but the hull reminds me of the warp core for Enterprise NX-01.

[@H3zzard]

As mjsdecember1990 mentioned, this is very much the same breed as the Discovery class from the ST: Legacy game. Love this ship though, and it deserved more screen time. Maybe the 'intakes' are just that - ramscoops to take in air to allow surface landing in a similar manner to Harrier jump-jets.

[@sanderrod9917]

Just got this as a model. Love it

[@roachman7496]

Another great episode. I think the Captain might be onto something about the front grilling. At the 12:30 mark, he mentioned cooling off the ship. The grilling are probably not vents, but they could be part of a heat dissipation system. When he mentioned cooling, I immediately thought the front grilling reminded me how heat sinks look. So maybe they are panels of heat sinks. The Captain also mentioned solid fuel for the boosters. I think instead of solid fuel, they are using either advance nuclear fission or early fusion engines, hence why they would need heat sinks. As for the protrusions on the front, I am not sure if they are weapons. I think they are probably sensors and antennae. they remind me of the forward non weapon protrusions that the Babylon 5 Omega and Nova class ships had as well as those found on the Colonial battestars from Battlestar Galactica (new series)

[@winkles2314]

My favourite ship in Star Trek legacy.

[@TheVargr]

ENT probably would have been taken more seriously had the Enterprise looked more like this than a 24th century ship.

[@blissex]

i love this look, this is how maybe how kirk's ship the belle reve could look like, kirk older and no longer a starfleet officer and still doing undercover missions for starfleet and having rogue like adventures

[@jedsmith510]

As a Warp 1 colony ship I would suspect that most of the colonists would be in cryosleep to conserve resources. Since Warp 1 is lightspeed, it would take this class of ship roughly 4 years to reach the nearest star so it would seem logical to place the majority of the crew in some form of suspended animation. I could see there being a small number of people awake to maintain the ship's functions, and then, after a certain length of time, they would awaken the next group and enter cryo themselves.

[@NovaScotiaNewfie]

Jed Smith on the Enterprise episode Terra Nov, it took the colonists 9 years to reach their planet. Ensign Maywether who was raised aboard cargo ships mentions a planet or planets took them six years to get to and they never used cryogenic chambers etc.

[@richardlyons1276]

NovaScotiaNewfie I know and it isn’t it crazy? Why would people flush years of their life down the toilet just to sit at warp 1? It reminds me of Midshipman’s Hope.

[@thebkrueger]

I'm with the captain on the scale. The shuttles do throw it off. The front section with the windows looks like a huge two level open area, but it's the size of a runabout. Secondly, looks a little like the defiant with nacelles.

[@timf7413]

I think the thing on the front is probably a navigation weapon of some sort. Not really something that could be used for defense, but just good enough to blast debris and obstacles out of the ship's path.

[@Handlealreadytaken.Trythisone.]

6:50 From this angle, put a saucer onto the forward section and the hull of the ship would make an excellent engineering hull. I think that ship would look awsome.

[@isfj1009]

"...no not THAt much speed." Hahahaha! That was funny!

[@Lokiawa]

I so hope for the possibility of a briefing over the NX era Poseidon class 😁 (as seen in Star Trek: Legacy), that was a cool looking ship for the time. Really hope there's a great cg model of it outside from the game...

[@stephenmorris6590]

reminiscent of the ss valiant from the Star Trek Chronology book.

[@theamused8705]

Maybe it's a refined version of the valiant

[@thribs]

Probably why it is only warp 1 since impulse engines are the devices that provide the thrust later on. You can actually get to near light speed on impulse engines alone but you need the nacelles to create the warp bubble to counteract the time effects.

[@MrYTGuy1]

The nacelles are perfect for bridging the technology and design gap in between ent and tos.

[@Capronice]

I think the big prongs on the front is the old style deflectors.

[@mikestoast]

Great episode, love what you guys are doing. Might it be possible when you compare the ship sizes (more specifically when it comes to length) that you remove any additional length added by the nacelles. They do not really add to the body of the ship and due to their vastly different sizes mean something different for each ship. It would be nice to get a more accurate representation of how long the ship really is, Ent-D to Ent-E as an example and how the E is significantly shorter in length than the D for useable functional space, how the E is only as long as it is because the nacelles extend so far off the back of the ship. I think doing so would give a much better representation of scale for the ship sizes when you do your comparisons.

[@novax-ig9yt]

What if the NX-01 and the EAS Agamemnon from Babylon 5 had a baby? Cool ship!

[@chrisgurney2467]

I reckon the pylon things under the bridge could be more likely cranes and derricks to help with deconstruction of the ship.

[@delboy5258]

I believe it should be mentioned that it took the ship 9 years to reach Terra Nova which is 20 ly away from Earth. That would give the ship's speed little bit above warp 1 (1.3 to be exact). I know it doesn't sound as much faster but it's actually more than twice as fast. Which is obvious from the 9-year journey for 20 ly distance.

[@GartheKnightReturns]

It makes me think someone took the Solaco from Aliens and turned it on its side and added nacelles. Or The Pillar of Autumn from Halo on its side. You guys may mention those, but I'm only four minutes or so into the video.

[@AnnexSoto]

i've loved conestoga from the moment i saw it (my favorite series star trek is enterprise). when you guys mentioned the protrusions on the front possibly being weapons, i wouldn't figure they would be as i don't think earth would have had em-based weapons in the 2070's. also, something nobody ever seems to point out about the disassembly of the ship- there seems to be a hull separation plane in the aft section. it would make sense that they did not take this part down to the planet. also just judging by the portholes and the fact that there are no good ventral views of conestoga means the ship could be in fact taller than nx, added with the fact that it was equipped solely as a colonial craft, the ship has plenty of space for both a good amount of colonists as well as all the necessary supplies.

[@donaldhill3823]

This ship and other pre-NX01 ships we see are why I would love to see a series that started with or just after the Pheonix (with no Borg or time travel) so we could see the progression towards TOS from the real starting point.

[@TheCastellan]

THIS should have been the NX class. I feel.

[@jyralnadreth4442]

As I am aware ships before the Warp 2 barrier was broken were all fusion powered and that to get past Warp 2they needed a new power generation system. This ties in with the ENT novel about the failed Ion Drive project 10 years before in 2140 as they mentioned the Ion Drive (Not todays Ion drive) was competing with Matter/Antimatter projects to break warp 5.

[@Чёртик-э3т]

1:35 The SS Contestoga was launched in 2069, not in 2078. In 2078 they established the Terra Nova colony.

[@watchthe1369]

The warp Nacelles, I think you are looking at a mass produced product vs. a prototype product. The nacelles are a warp 1 boggy standard like a duracell battery used for long haul commercial work. I expect the warship engines (Intrepid gunboat?) would be different.

[@sw-gs]

Hmmmm... some shaoes in this ship tells me that them evolved into Defiant class 200 years later.

[@1300l]

Maybe it's the Defiant kitbash factor? :P

[@CommandLineVulpine]

Beautiful ship such a shame they didn't use it more. You think they'd use it for background filler at least

[@ogoglethorp]

The grill things could be atmosphere scoops......maybe?

[@JessHull]

Dang! slap the Nx01 saucer on the conestoga and that would make a bad ass ship!

[@jonathonearl482]

So I assume that with the Conestoga, either the rocket boosters are replacing the impulse drive or the rocket boosters are the impulse drive. Are the rocket boosters relative to NASA? No transporter room for the Conestoga for sure but I wonder if it would have a catwalk or shuttlebay. Also, when I compare the sizes of the Conestoga and the Nova Class it seems like the engine of the Nova Class could fit in the Conestoga. The warp nacelles of the Nova Class and the Conestoga also seem to be angled at the same position and distance from the hull.

[@pathfinderdiscovery9395]

Has a little defiant back behind the bridge or front module, it looks more oval there an i see both ship reminisces you guys see , looks kool tho

[@SnowmanTF2]

From a manufacturing perspective, they probably would be more likely to be able to build multiple ships than be able to build larger. It also may be safer to send 10 or 100 verses 1, since if there is a major failure you still get the vast majority of people and supplies to reach the colony.

[@julienhalleux8659]

Hello guys, i wanted to say that i very like how you talk about trek with taht passion and respect, I do not call myself a trekkie but I'm in love with that universe. Since I'm not all knowing about Star Trek, I'd like to ask you if there was any ''NCC-01'' ship or if the NX-01 is kinda the NCC-01. I hope my question make sense and thank you again!

[@NovaScotiaNewfie]

Halleux Julien well the Columbia was NX-02. Since it was the second ship of the class I'm surprised both weren't given the registry NCC-01 (Enterprise) and Columbia NCC-02. But that policy maybe didn't happen until after the UFP was formed even though Starfleet preexisted before the UFP.

[@TopHatCat1989]

Maybe those two gun-protrusions are plasma cannons for blasting larger asteroids. 22nd century cargoships were armed with low-yield plasma cannons, which in the words of Mayweather: " armed with nothing more than a pop gun for shooting oncoming meteors." Could maybe have been used to break up meteors and asteroids to mine for resources.

[@stevenkuski5916]

it could be that the deflectors were only effective at moving dust sized particles. the "guns" on the front may be needed to break up rocks greater than some maximum size so the deflector could move them.

[@SoremRasmussen]

Do you guys think solar panels would work at warp? Another great episode!

[@zsnakepliscon4218]

eew eew i bet this ship is real and the govt has one already! man that would be so cool!

[@jsmasters77]

Nova class ships are fun.

[@denvermiller5091]

Looks like 4 atmospheric rocket motors (small bells in the center) and 4 vacuum rocket motors (larger bells). They wouldn't likely be using solid fuel. Solid fuel is rather dangerous. Assuming similar levels of rocket technology, it would be some sort of liquid. Kerosene or methane, maybe? Interesting design choice, as that means it's intended for atmospheric flight to some degree. You said it was a colony ship, so perhaps Mars-like planet initally? They had to terra form it, yea? Thin atmosphere would let them land with just those engines. That engine configuration is, I believe, nearly identical to the BFS module/ship for SpaceX's ITS. The atmospheric motors fire during key points of the circularizing burn, but otherwise only fire during atmospheric flight (go figure). Meanwhile, only the larger bells are fired for deep space burns. This is due to the difference in efficiency for the two bell sizes. Large work better in a vacuum, small in atmo. The "intakes" are likely heat radiators, if I had to hazard a guess. I don't know how Star Trek vessels deal with heat dumping from the warp core, but space craft that generate heat will need a radiator since they can't shed heat easily in a vacuum. It's something we have to deal with even now. If they're radiators, though, it's a little weird that it's flush with the body like it is. They'd ideally be pointing out from the ship, otherwise they wouldn't work well, if I recall. But, advanced tech. Never know, I guess. I think I agree with the idea of a shuttle bay above the radiator assembly, though. I dig the ship. Looks rugged and practical.

[@HorizoSun]

The intakes are hydrogen collectors for the chemical propulsion. Space isn't empty there are particles mostly hydrogen. That's my guess. 2 sets for the big thrusters and small thrusters.

[@stevenkuski5916]

the bussard collectors on the front of the nacelles collect the hydrogen. i suspect they are some how used in landing.

[@HorizoSun]

you're right

[@neilsanghvi5229]

Has anyone suggested that the equipment at the front is terraforming equipment? Can't colonise a planet without making it habitable first

[@enterprise-h312]

3:45 Is the S.S. Valiant's design from Star Trek Chronology canon or would it be this design? 18:15 Here is where I differ. I would say that smaller engines would look more advanced. The sections on the side look like they could be modular building blocks. They remind me somewhat of the buildings in "Star Trek 25th Anniversary".

[@pauln2661]

This looks like something that would have external tanks for the chemical boosters at the rear like the U.S. space shuttle or Soviet Buran. Tankage for boost and deceleration phases that are jettisoned.

[@stevenkuski5916]

I wonder how this ship would land. it has no forward facing engines to slow it down. I wonder if it turns around and uses the engines to slow down. or if perhaps it plunges straight in and the grills on the front open up to reveal some kind of heat shield, or aerobraking system. I have a feeling the nacelles would have to be jettisoned prior to entering the atmosphere, they look to fragile to survive re-entry.

[@jordanreed3675]

Apparently an upgraded version of this class of ship was later used by starfleet in the romulan war

[@NovaScotiaNewfie]

I think the sling shot time travel theory would be after Enterprise era therefore no one aboard this vessel would know of it.

[@theamused8705]

I always liked this ship but imagined it would be a little faster than warp 1. Maybe warp 1.2 or 1.3 and also have the colonists in cryosleep for the voyage..

[@TheHistoryDork]

Could also be that the Colony ships moved together in a group rather than just individually.

[@krisguntner4805]

Such a great looking design,very believable. I could easily see this as a real warp ship based on miguel alcubierre FTL hypothesis.

[@casey9439]

The drive cones would be liquid fuel drive cones. It would make sense that they could use liquid hydrogen from the brussard collectors combined with stored oxygen as fuel. (if they were capable of fusion, they could make their own oxygen as well. It would be horribly inefficient, but would make sense. Also, a conestoga is a type of covered wagon... think Oregon Trail.

[@fmlazar]

You wouldn't use the solar panels in transit because in interstellar space there is no appreciable sunlight to fall on them.

[@mjsdecember1990]

It was the discovery class in star trek legacy

[@jonathonearl482]

I was thinking of it as a Colony Class ship.

[@NovaScotiaNewfie]

Jonathon Earl it was, it was mentioned in the Enterprise episode Terra Nova, where Archer goes to try and find out why the colony has not been heard from on 70 years.

[@JimMcCray]

The idea with colony ships which are disassembled upon arrival would be moot, since the reason behind the idea is that the journey is so long and fuel costly that it wouldn't be reasonable to plan a return trip. Warp technology enables multiple trips with the same ship(s) over a reasonably short time, carrying normal payloads of the things needed for the establishment of colonies.

[@pauln2661]

Wouldn't those be refueling probes coming from the front of the Conestoga? Like the refueling probes on the front of military planes and helicopters for inflight refueling.

[@kernel_cataclysm7306]

How and why did the ships evolve from this to having saucers?

[@SkyStarNova]

Guys, this is useful.

[@donaldhill3823]

I do not think the first few warp capable ships used Dylitheum. Earth does not have Dylitheum so the Phoenix and other ships of this time period would have used something else. I assume they came across it on other planets and figured out it worked better at stabilizing the Matter/Antimatter flow or it may be one of the few hint the Vulcan's gave them about Warp Engine design.

[@jonocc5548]

What if the 5 signifies that there were multiple ships sent out at a time, so say there were 6 ships in the convoy then they colonize planets as they go using 1 or 2 ships as needed, my thinking if there was a large resource rich planet then a pair of ships work together to get a larger settlement started, smaller planets just a single ship. Random thoughts as I watch :)

[@JessHull]

I don't think they would be sling shotting around the sun to get ailttle extra past warp 1. As a captain I think you would be aware of "faster than light, no left or right"

[@rover213]

what about the warp engines once they are on a planet do they tear it apart or use the engines has a power source for lights or even equipment?

[@enterprise-h312]

They might use them to collect hydrogen to use in an antimatter powerplant which they could construct out of the engine room. They were allegedly pretty capable of defending themselves from Earth so it is not out of the question.

[@ironwolfF1]

The side-by-side @18:05... IMO, the scaling is off between the two ships. The Conestoga is supposed to carry 200 colonists plus supplies for a nine year journey, PLUS all the necessities required to start a colony (the ship being scrapped aside). There ain't NO WAY all that's gonna fit in a ship smaller than the NX-01 holding twice + the number of bodies, UNLESS the bulk of the people in the ship were in 'cold sleep', and even then it would be a tight fit. At the minimum, the colony ship would need to be a third larger (and all the colonists consigned to cold sleep), and the actual crew kept to minimum (or rotated in & out of cold sleep).

[@firet101]

To me those two front modules look like primitive navigational deflectors

[@pauln2661]

bIg huge ram scoops for collecting hydrogen from low gravity moons atmospheres!

[@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701]

S.S.Valiant will always be the "de facto" warp 1 ship in Star Trek imo.

[@Capronice]

front end looks like the back of the Defiant.

[@aDifferentJT]

They look more like liquid fuel than solid fuel boosters, you can't stop solid fuel boosters so solid fuel would be terribly impractical

[@MrYTGuy1]

To be fair engineering something capable of bending space-time is very different than designing something to give actual thrust in traditional space. These are two very different engineering problems with two equally different engineering Solutions. one could easily be developed far more than the other because they're very much unrelated technology wise.

[@chuchuchip]

In this era of space travel, wouldn't an Ion engine, instead of a solid or liquid fuel engine be used for sublight travel? The Phoenix was a reused ICBM for demonstrating a warp engine, thus the liquid fuel engine.

[@XepherTim]

Perhaps a Nuclear Fusion engine? Was that even something that came about in the Star Trek universe?

[@MediumRareOpinions]

Plausible tech, conventional chemical thrusters would likely mean insufficient fuel storage, nuclear engines lacking the need for an oxidiser are more efficient. Also reusing nuclear material from weapons programs for a colony ship is also very fitting and appropriate for the world of Star Trek too, decommissioning the weapons that brought humanity to the brink of destruction and using them to send them into the stars.

[@rickmeyer9495]

If it's chemical propulsion, how did they power the warp drive?

[@power543]

the same way they powered the Pheniox's warp engine

[@stevenkuski5916]

I suspect they have a fusion reactor on board to provide power for the warp drive. The sub light engines being chemical does not make much sense to me, given that even today many spacecraft use ion engines, or electric propulsion. The Conestoga does not seem to have enough room for the fuel tanks if the engines were actually chemical rockets.

[@wierdalien1]

Steven Kuski dont forget that you only need thrust to change direction.

[@markbernero9302]

I think the front area under the bridge section would look better with 1 large deflector/sensor dish and none of the weapon-like arrays -- they DO look too aggressive! The tapered blue-glow section on the nacelles looks WAY out of place on this ship. If it looked more like the blue - glow areas on NX-01, it would look much better.

[@kwaktak]

Is your PC technically capable of rendering fully detailed renderings that you can zoom in or rotate in real time? That would be a useful thing to be able to do in order to focus on details as you discuss them? Even a wireframe model would be interesting. Also, can you do flyby animations?

[@power543]

on older models yes (ish) rendering them is no problem. We always do new custom 3D animations on our main Saturday shows and when we have it ...with the original 3D model used in the show. Mission Briefings do not have those animations done as it is a first look at the ship.

[@kwaktak]

power543 Thanks! I will have to check out those Saturday shows.

[@rain-vo8ib]

this ship doesnt have polorized hull plating

[@newthoughts11]

maybe they are probe launchers from refurb weapons

[@derpytwerpgameryt4955]

discovery class in legacy

[@The_Captain_1.0]

Actuallly the conestoga reached warp 1.3 and carried 200 settlers

[@spudzillah_6175]

Um what about the enterprise j length

[@jankjason]

This kind of design seems odd with nacelles or at least that kind of nacelle.

[@stevenewman1393]

🖖😎👍

[@timothypage252]

I wish it had no artificial gravity. It's the biggest staple in Sci-fi, yet no technology, save (possibly) transporters, is farther away. Heck, NASA is officially working on a REAL warp drive! I would have like to see it use centrifugal "gravity" generation.

[@fmlazar]

Without artificial gravity, you either have to have a spinning cylindrical ship or you simply give up on lengthy space travel altogether. And NASA isn't working on a real warp drive... just playing around with a theoretical concept that is not even CLOSE to the point where we can envision engineering for it. yet.

[@S1nwar]

what they started with warp 1? but thats just speed of light you get nowhere that slow. always assumed even cochranes ship started with at least warp 2.

[@power543]

wa? no the Phoenix was the first earth ship to cross the warp barrier...warp 1. Then they developed from there.

[@kavinskysmith4094]

you know what really bugs me about all of these pre tos designs, they never try to redesign the wheel with the engines, as just because the phoenix was successful doesnt mean a few other people would come out with some different brands and designs of engines, like why not something along the lines of the okinawa class or some really really large engines to reach warp one. as they needed like giant 16 Cylinder Cadillacs to reach a 120 MPH back in the 1930's, so why not apply the same thing here and say that the Phoenix's engine design was a one use thing, and it needed to be rebuilt to even try again with it hence why the design didnt catch on until much latter. like say do a macpherson type engine or something

[@thinkpadBentnoseTheBlind]

Does anyone else think those windows look like the hotel rooms from Sim Tower?

[@TheDetailsMatter]

Not a spoon. Not a pizza cutter. No saucer at all. Must be pre-Federation. But if you take away the cockpit and the nacelles, it kind of resembles a tube of solid underarm deodorant.

[@Yargnit]

Mounting solar panels on a ship that would be spending all of its time traveling from one star to another would not be worth the effort or energy used to mount them. That is because of how fast the effectiveness of solar panels decreases with distance form the sun. By the time the ship reached a distance equal to that of Saturn from the Sun, the solar panels would already only be generating roughly 1% as much power as they would from Earth. That's roughly 1 hours travel at Warp 1. Another 5 or so hours to Pluto's orbit and the solar panels are down to 1/10th of 1% as effective as on earth. So out of a 4 year trip to even the closest neighboring star, the solar panels would be at least 1% as effective as they are on earth for roughly 2 hours (1 12th of 1 of 1500 or so days or 1/18000th of the trip) and they'd be at or above 1/10th of 1% effective for roughly half a day total, or 1/3000th of the trip. Go to a star twice as far away, and you can cut those numbers in half, etc. Basically solar panels don't do anything outside the inner solar system, and wouldn't remotely be worth the compromises they'd have to make to mount them. (Also, they have an anti-matter warp core for power...)

[@botfan78]

S.S. Valiant anyone?

[@theamused8705]

Yeah looks a lot like it