ALL SCI-FI

larryfoster · Space Ranger Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 104

Another design flaw of the TOS Enterprise is the offset-angled command bridge. This was done to include the bridge elevator in most bridge filming shots.

IMO (and by logic)... the elevator should have been located directly behind the Captains chair - directly across the bridge from the main view-screen. Thus, allowing the bridge to correctly align with the ship's 'real' bow direction.

Fans say that placing the elevator at that location is a security threat to the Captain. To that I say... restore the 'elevator security guard', as was used in "The Cage" pilot episode. Seen in the background of this capture image:

I liked that idea. However, I might prefer the elevator guard to be robot - as Dr. Morbius had, to guard the door of his house. Wink

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Tired of waiting on NASA to adopt Flying Saucer technology! Sick of human political-representative government! I want 1970: COLOSSUS (The Forbin Project) A.I. - as World Control government! Providing flying saucer tech, "For the betterment of man."

Rocky Jones · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 12:04 pm Post subject:

I recall when I first saw the Enterprise ship design I was hoping we finally would have TV series that depicted plausible artificial gravity in a spacecraft. The saucer section would obviously be an enormous centrifuge, allowing the crew to have some semblance of gravity for much of their day. Then, of course, I had to realize the ship was simply a really oddly shaped office building and the saucer shape had no significance whatsoever. Oh, well. I still glued the AMT model together and watched every episode (and all succeeding Trek stuff).

I'm still kind of sore at them for using barely explained phantom artificial gravity. The concept is still used today, and nobody really seems to care much, still. I thought there was hope when I saw a centrifuge section on the space station in the current series The 100. Then I realized they had phantom artificial gravity in all the sections not rotating as well. It never ends.

larryfoster · Space Ranger Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 104

The "enormous centrifuge" would not work on a space-ship, which must frequently make changes to it's flight course. It's like trying to force a spinning gyroscope to tilt - the mechanism resists any change, when it is spinning.

It only works for a stationary platform... like a space-station.
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Tired of waiting on NASA to adopt Flying Saucer technology! Sick of human political-representative government! I want 1970: COLOSSUS (The Forbin Project) A.I. - as World Control government! Providing flying saucer tech, "For the betterment of man."

Rocky Jones · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 10:15 pm Post subject:

Yes, I was couple of years from my first physics class when I was 13. I've always thought the idea of rapidly changing direction on space would be iffy anyway, though. At the very least it would seem to take a lot of fuel.

Pow · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 5:15 am Post subject:

Guards permanently posted by the door of the Bridge. Could you imagine a more boring duty? Wonder how long their shifts would be?

larryfoster · Space Ranger Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 104

scotpens · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:42 pm Post subject:

Rocky Jones · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:22 pm Post subject:

Well, there may be loopholes around the light speed limit, but gravity is a basic phenomenon, not a force and it's pretty unlikely we'll ever have a handy switch that will turn it on and off. I won't rule anything out, but I wouldn't bank on it. I suspect our first real interstellar craft will be almost all storage and engine, with a relatively tiny section for crew and at least one centrifuge. Hopefully by that time, though, we'll be able to reduce ourselves to data strings for almost volume-less transport and easy regeneration at the destination with no sense of time passage.

orzel-w · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865

larryfoster · Space Ranger Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 104

I don't think so. I'm not sure, but I think that would only double the resistance to its axle orientation change.
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Tired of waiting on NASA to adopt Flying Saucer technology! Sick of human political-representative government! I want 1970: COLOSSUS (The Forbin Project) A.I. - as World Control government! Providing flying saucer tech, "For the betterment of man."

Robert (Butch) Day · Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 11:17 pm Post subject:

Two (or more) centrifuges would only create more nodes of axis. This was a problem with the early ICBMs and the predecessors the IRBMs.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

Pow · Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:36 am Post subject:

I never could quite warm up to the shuttlecraft design for ST:TOS. I didn't hate it but it was just okay for me. My fantasy would be that the Enterprise shuttlecrafts would have been the Eagles from Space: 1999.

Rocky Jones · Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 7:23 pm Post subject:

I have to agree on the shuttlecraft. It would have been great to have something like the similarly shaped, but vastly cooler Spacemobile from the Space Family Robinson comics:

Pow · Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 6:16 am Post subject:

I'm a collector of the Dell/Gold Key Comics. Always liked the design for the Robinson spacecraft in the comics as well as their shuttles.

scotpens · Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 11:20 pm Post subject: