Generating 2D line drawings of the Prometheus in “flight mode” went a lot quicker since I’d learned some lessons on the “landed mode.” Two computers took about 6 hours to generate the six new views.
There are two ways to envision the scale of the Prometheus. One way is to compare a full-scale Prometheus with several other full-scale vehicles, like so:
It dwarfs real-world vehicles like the Saturn V and the 747. I wouldn’t bet against it on a collision with the Enterprise, and it’s a safe bet that the Helicarrier would fall out of the sky if the Prometheus landed on it.
UPDATE: due to a few comments expressing surprise at the size of Prometheus, I guess it’s fair to show how I didn’t just handwave the scale. Two pieces of production art have been made public that show the Magellan – as the ship was originally called – was intended to have a length of 560 feet, stated explicitly.Second, another piece of production art shows one of the landing feet with a suited astronaut for scale. After I scaled my model out to 560 feet long, I added a 5′ 10″ human scale figure next to a foot. Put side by side, the two landing-foot-scale reference illustrations look really pretty close. So… 560 feet long.This makes the ship a bit of a monster. Each engine pod is bigger than the S-IC stage of the Saturn V.
Now, consider… the Prometheus is not only a big ship, it would be *massive.* Many times more massive than the Saturn V. Unlike, say, the Galactic Republic capital ships shown in “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith,” Prometheus does not seem to float around on antigravity, but flies under the force of thrust and weight. So on liftoff it would have to generate many times the thrust of the Saturn V. And the Saturn V could damage structures and eardrums *miles* away. The Prometheus would need an exclusion zone with a radius of dozens of miles (20? 30? 50?) around terrestrial landing pads. The bridge seems to be incredibly exposed… whatever that window glass is made from, it’s some tough, sound-absorbent stuff.
Here’s one of the clearest images of the Prometheus, shown with the “hangar” lowered. It’s Really Small compared to the rest of the ship… and some pretty sizable trucks were able to drive in and out with no problem. It’s a bigass ship.
Another way: compare the size of the forthcoming kit to several other kits, most of them also Fantastic Plastic kits. It’s in line with the other sizable kits FP has put out, though still something of a beast.
