Reusable Nuclear Shuttle

The Reusable Nuclear Shuttle, part of an ambitious overall concept called the Integrated Program, would have been launched by a variation of the Saturn V rockets that launched the Apollo missions. You can read more about the Integrated Program and the Nuclear Shuttle at Beyond Apollo:

• Integrated Program Plan (1969)
• Nuclear Flight System Definition studies (1971)

In the Star Trek universe, these concepts could be the perfect way to make sense of the DY-100 spacecraft of the 1990s. The Reusable Nuclear Shuttle could evolve into a system that has its payload arranged along its centerline, similar to the DY-100. As you can see below, removing the submarine-like sail from a DY-100 already makes it look much more like a believable 1990s spacecraft. Whatever the sail actually does (docking, cooling?), there may have been variants that did not have it.

Early space transportation

Enterprise XCV-330

The ringshipEnterprise appeared in The Motion Picture along with a US Navy sailing frigate, the WWII aircraft carrier Enterprise, the Space Shuttle Enterprise and the original starship Enterprise.  The ringship was the only new design in the sequence, appearing to depict a predecessor to the TOS Enterprise. 

It turned out that the ringship Enterprise was originally created by Matt Jefferies for a new concept for a television series called Starship by Gene Roddenberry. Lincoln Enterprises ran the following advertisement in the 1980s to sell a poster and blueprints of the ship glimpsed in TMP:

Gene Roddenberry’s imagination brings you “Starship”. The vessel of the future as only he could picture it. This could be the forerunner of a new TV series, a Starship operated by an enormous computer which is a lifeform itself. Each human aboard is a genius, a highly trained science specialist, part of a team of Galactic trouble shooters. A brand-new concept in future space travel. We also have three different views of the Metatransit system, side elevations of the systems analysis unit, and the Metaflier section of the Starship. Imagine yourself on a mission in space aboard this luxury cruiser. You’ll be spellbound! 
- Full Color poster
- Blueprints (3 different)

These blueprints show the ringship exterior and interior in some detail. The interior ‘blueprints’ appear to actually be outlines for sets for the Starship. They depict the bridge of the ship, called the Command Deck, with a viewscreen and a single computer console dubbed the Omniputer, presumable providing communication with the “enormous computer” described above. The aft of the Command Deck exits onto a circular stairwell, providing access to the top and bottom cylinders. Beyond the stairwell is the Metatransfer Deck, which opens into the spherical module (the Metafier) and long neck leading to the engines. The whole Metatransit System appears to be a kind of virtual environment to remotely explore planets with, sort of a reverse Star Trek transporter. The spherical module is like a precursor to the Next Generation holodeck.

All in all, this provides an interesting glimpse at an idea for a show that appears to have been thought out to some detail, but wich seems to have been lost to obscurity for the most part. The ringship’s appearance in TMP could indicate that the whole concept of the ship as thought out for Starship could have existed in Star Trek’s past. Alternatively, we might choose to just take the outer appearance of the ship at face value, and discard the somewhat high concept idea of the virtual exploration/sentient computer equipped interstellar explorer.

So, without further chattering, here’s the Anhui-class destroyer:

The Anhui class started out as 2 things: first, it tries to fill up a certain ‘gap’ in early 23nd century small starship designs in fandom. Between Spaceflight Chronology’s Romulan War era Marshall class and FASA’s 23rd century Marklin class, there is nothing to go on. Secondly, I’ve tried to come up with a reasonably unique arrangement of parts, which I’ve only seen used on that Challenger-class kitbash from the Wolf 359 battle in TNG. Basically, taking those 2 things into account, a bunch of pencil sketches eventually turned into this:

Filling in this form, I used some elements from aridas sophia’s Horizon class, a cruiser design of the same general era, as well as some elements from Masao Okazaki’s work, most obviously the saucer shape, which is also found on his contemporaneous Gagarin-class light cruiser. The result was this:

I also designed a later ‘refit’ of the Anhui, intended as an early 23rd century upgrade. This update consists mostly of some redesigned nacelles, with wich I am not 100% happy.

Recently, I’ve tentatively started a complete redesign of the Anhui, losing the large nacelles, and going with a slightly more ‘modern’ look, inspired somewhat by the Baton Rouge style:

As you can see, this is still a WIP, and I am not sure what the secondary hull will look like. Probably not very much different from the original, though.