Those kind of space stations have been around in SciFi paintings since at least the 50’s. I think it was a homage. But let’s be honest, a warp core breach is going to be bad no matter where you park your starship. 😉
Hah, yeah. the first thought i had when the ship was entering the docking bay was ‘what if they have to eject the warp core?’ I did think it a very pretty space station…
This was an issue with the TOS movie/TNG era starbases, and actually did come up in the first season of TNG. The solution was, lay in a course, set the auto navigation, and get the ship out of spacedock really really fast. 😉
Star Trek IV certainly showed the problems of having all your starships inside with only one big ass door that’s closed when the power goes out.
The orbital facility seen in the 2009 film makes more sense I suppose.