TNG s6e12 "Ship in a Bottle"
It’s standard space garage door height. No the federation’s problem if you roll in a nonstandard size craft.
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
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Actually makes a lot of sense.
It works like this:
The shuttle bay door is constructed, and dimensions are standardized across federation vessels. New Shuttles variants are constructed and grow to the maximum size that still fits the bay doors.
see Suesmax
Yeah your ship is a good example. So many can't get to the east coast US due to size, some countries just can't/wont accept them, can't fit through Panama, or unloaded efficiently...
The height is the suez/Panama canal, nearest river, etc... it's a choke point.
yes, the point is, thing grows to infrastructure size, no matter what size you make your infrastructure.
See also: more lanes =/= less congestion
So larger shuttle bays induce demand for larger shuttles?
hmm. semantics maybe, but i wouldn't say "induce demands".
more like "oh, look, we can make shuttles 10mm higher, and the Ritual travel luggage of Soyletvandis will fit vertically inside, using much less space."
The real reason why Tuvok vetoed the wing fins.
Luckily every sentient species in the galaxy has close to the same height and sits in the same position...
I know that they actually have a bit on trek canon that most life in the galaxy was preceded by a progenitor race, which explains why all the aliens look like humans with junk glued to their heads.
But my head canon has always been that in Star Trek, there are actually innumerable alien species of all sorts of body plans and configurations. Hell, we meet plenty of non-humanoid aliens in the series. (Any number of floating energy creatures, plus some number of non-bipedal creatures, aquatics, etc.) What we see on screen is simply not a representative sample of the galaxy's denizens.
My head canon is that the Federation deals primarily with humanoid species. They're not racist; they'll happily let in non-humanoids and treat them with full equality and respect. But the truth is that when working with aliens, the more alien they are, the more difficult it is to find common ground. And further, there's just less reason to form complex diplomatic relationships.
Imagine a species of nonhuman aliens that can only exist in the crushing depths of the atmospheres of gas giants. They communicate primarily by passing radio waves between each other, they are completely blind and deaf, and they have a communication structure that makes the Darmok problem look simple.
It would be very difficult to see such a species joining the Federation. First, they can't communicate effectively. There aren't even auditory sounds for the universal translator to translate. Second, there's little reason to communicate. This is a species that has zero interest in the Earthlike terrestrial worlds inhabited by most Federation species. This species and the Humans and Vulcans aren't competing for the same real estate and resources. There's no need to carefully negotiate territories and access. Such a species could operate their own independent federation right on top of Federation territory. Two parallel interstellar empires could be operating out of the same systems and yet barely need to interact with each other.
This is my head canon for why most aliens in Start Trek are humanoid. The truly alien aliens? There's just not much to negotiate over. There's little need for diplomacy. If your minds are so alien that your cultures mean nothing to each other? If your biology is so different that you're not even competing for the same resources? If you have trouble telling if the alien entity you're interacting with is even sentient? Then no, there's just very little reason for such a species to join the Federation.
We do sometimes see non-humanoids in Star Trek, but these are likely the outliers. The most gregarious of non-humanoid species. They get involved with the Federation simply because they want to. They're naturally curious and want to understand these weird humanoid aliens, even if there's little practical reason to do so.
Species 8472
The Undine arent native to our galaxy though.
Or the Q
What's your point though? Did you think I meant that non-humanoids don't exist in Star Trek? They clearly do.
Yes, they exist, but look how much difficulty the Federation had in even reaching the most basic level of understanding with 8472. They illustrate my point exactly. 8472 inhabitants an entirely different universe - fluidic space. There's no real competition between humanoid species and them. And they also have radically different morphology and communication. In fact, if it weren't some very unique circumstances involving the Borg, 8472 and the Federation never would have
Yes I was naming an example…
Ah. Your comment didn't indicate that.
I mean, I don’t hate your head cannon, but I have always felt it was more just a limitation of the show and my head cannon is that we just aren’t seeing the diversity that exists on screen.
For most of shows it was more expensive (or impossible) to have a CG character rather than a human played one. So for instance in Enterprise, we see the human adjacent Xindi species far more often than the Insectoids or the Aquatics and the only real reason is that they were expensive to animate.
Your point is well demonstrated when we see Archer on an Aquatic’s ship later in season 3. But that would suggest to me that we just aren’t seeing the Aquatics at Starfleet Academy, not that they aren’t there.
Eh. I like to create in-universe explanations for things I observe in shows. Obviously the real answer comes down to filming. But who wants that?
Except for that one Klingon.
I assume the shuttle is brought in on tractor beams, rather than trusting random pilots to. Especially because pilots would be less effecient and less aware of what’s going on. Less precise, too.
I’d also assume that they generally don’t take anyone who can’t safely be brought in- that’s what transporters are for, and you wouldn’t want to make a habit of taking in alien shuttles anyway.
That’s how you wind up with a very literal Trojan horse.
I always assumed that they modulated their mass matrix creating conformal resistance across all 3 physical dimensions with dilithium crystal resonance modes which are universal across all species.
Obviously
It's also one of at least three shuttle bays on a Galaxy-class, the largest is high on the hull and has a massive roll-top door. And AFAIK doesn't get used in the show; I don't think a set was built for it.
I think it’s a magical sliding door, but yeah, it’s massive and that’s why they never had a full-size set built for it.
Edit: The thing I never understood is why they don’t just de-replicate them and replicate them as necessary maybe even just have a flat pad on the hull covered with some atmo containment fields so the crew can shirt sleeve to the shuttle.
Here's Shuttle bay 2
And here's some shots of shuttle bay 1.
Under the roll-up door looking at a runabout
Looking towards the roll-up door from deeper in the shuttle bay, viewing lounge windows visible in the upper right 
The space is indeed massive, and as far as I can tell, it never was featured in the show. Shuttle bay 2 had a number of scenes, the most memorable for me was from the TNG episode lower decks where Geordie is getting a Vulcan Ensign to shoot a shuttle with a phaser rifle.
Stage 9 did a great job of demoing the scale of the main shuttle bay. It took up at least two decks and could accommodate a 'runabout' through the door. If I remember, tomorrow I'll load it up and grab a screenshot or two.
I have a memory of a TNG comic book where Data was...something something aliens something something sci-fi. The rest of the bridge crew was talking to him via communicator. Someone noticed that his voice echoed. "Only one place on the ship large enough to have an echo. Shuttle Bay 1."
It really can't be overstated how massive the main shuttlebay was intended to be. Building a set really wouldn't have been an option.
Ultimately it just has to conform to that size in this physical dimension.
Otherwise they can beam them up.
Maybe the fed ships are just the chunky outliers and everyone else just goes with a svelte saucer shape
Do you understand how complex it is to even have a force field? Then to have it be selective to keep air inside but let solid matter pass through? And you want to scale that complexity to a larger size? Just asking for problems.
Don't worry, the door is bigger in scenes shot on the exterior side. It's like an inverted tardis. It's biggen on the outside.
Mmmmm that's a thicc boi
I see you identify as shuttle-sexual. What's your assessment of the Delta Flyer, if I may ask?
Crazy. Fun to ride but temperamental.
They say not to stick it in crazy, but damned if it isn't a good time. Paris knows all about that.
This is what happens when Star Fleet goes with multiple low bidder contracts, despite someone eliminating money. Guddam Ferengi contractors!
People are overthinking it.
When I walk into my job I use the employee entrance. If I'm bringing in a truck I go to the loading dock.
A ship as big as the Enterprise obviously has a much bigger landing bay we haven't seen. Probably near the dick where they keep the whales.
Ships typically have external docking ports for interfacing with plus sized vessels such as another ship of a similar class.
Maybe there's a limit to how big they can build a hole in the ship that leads directly to vacuum.
TOS had a larger clearance.
Whereas the D (being the much larger galaxy class) has 3 bays. 2 small and the main.
Height clearance on the main appears slightly larger, though.
The main shuttle bay must be massive!
Everything is
I mean, how big does a shuttle have to be? Have they ever encountered giants? I mean, other than that 1 time?