A familiar exploration design can be enlarged and updated without requiring decades of development. A hull designed around flexible systems and future interchangeability is harder to plan and field. The Ford class provides a comparison because new and adaptable systems contributed to its expense and lengthy route into service. Development time can reflect integration difficulty and future-change architecture rather than sheer size.
Notable Point · 1:25:26-1:28:05
Long development as the price of adaptability
A long Galaxy-class development cycle is interpreted as evidence of a difficult, adaptable design rather than a simple scaled-up explorer.