Technology
The NX-01 utilizes the dual-nacelle design that was first employed by Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix from the film Star Trek: First Contact.
It was originally armed with pulse cannons, which were only used once during the pilot episode "Broken Bow", and Triton-class spatial torpedoes. The ship was protected by polarized hull plating.
Later upgrades saw the Enterprise fitted with more powerful weapons, with plasma cannons being replaced by three phase cannons rated for a maximum power output of 500 gigajoules and the spatial torpedoes with photonic torpedoes. These new weapons systems were still in the experimental stage. Unlike vessels in other versions of Star Trek, Enterprise was not equipped with defensive energy shielding (shields were still in development). Instead, Enterprise added to the defensive power of the (fictional) duranium hull through electromagnetic polarization, a form of reactive armor. This defensive system was upgraded by Starfleet during the NX-01's refit following the Xindi attack on Earth ("The Expanse").
The front of the saucer section is equipped with a "deflector" that protects the ship from space dust and other particles that would otherwise cause significant damage at impulse, or even cruising speeds. A grappling hook was used for purposes more commonly served by a tractor beam in other science fiction series.
The Enterprise carried two shuttlepods named Shuttlepods One and Two. Enterprise also has an incomplete shuttle in launch bay and parts for another one in cargo. It also had a 22nd-century version of Star Trek's signature transporter authorized for biological transportation; however, it was used sparingly in the first two years of the ship's mission due to crew fears over the dangers of its use. The transporter came into more common use during and after the mission to the Delphic Expanse.
Read more about this topic: Enterprise (NX-01)
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“Our technology forces us to live mythically, but we continue to think fragmentarily, and on single, separate planes.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)