Emergency waste disposal?

[MarsWeeps]

In The Conscience of the King, we see Kirk take a phaser on overload and drop it in some kind of emergency waste disposal which dumps it off the ship.

Here's a screenshot, I couldn't get one that makes out the words on it.



Nice and convenient.

Other than being used for phasers on overload, can anyone think of a valid use for this? Isn't it a bit like throwing empty beer cans out of your car window? Do people in the future still litter in space?

After watching this scene again, I noticed a few other issues:

1) How did the phaser get put inside the red alert lighting box? The scenes immediately before this show Kirk, Spock and McCoy talking in Kirk's quarters. There is a scene break and then it's Kirk and Spock talking when all of a sudden we hear the hum of the phaser on overload. Since it's inside Kirk's quarters, someone must have placed it there when nobody was around. Then, apparently it must have some type of time delay setting before the overload starts. How did the killer (Karidian's daughter) know exactly when Kirk would be in his quarters in order to set the overload for when he was there?

2) When Kirk and Spock first hear the hum, why do they tear apart Kirk's quarters looking for the phaser? At least Spock's sensitive hearing should have been able to pinpoint the general location of the humming noise.

But...yeah...having that garbage-disposal-out-into-space was really a life saver!

 

[T'Girl]

It was the 1960's. maybe all the ship's garbage was dumped overboard?

 

[CrazyMatt]

Thank goodness, I saw the title of this thread and thought it was about needing to......

 

[Richard Baker]

That scene could have played so differently without that perfect sized emergency disposal chute right next to his door- maybe installed after earlier assassination attempts.
I wonder what would have happened if it exploded mid-transit to the outside or if the thing about to explode was larger that the chute door?

 

[GSchnitzer]

It's hard to believe that that chute opens to the vacuum of space. (It would be hard to open the little door against the regular ship's atmospheric pressure.)

Find a pic of the "Pressure Vent Disposal" door that was recreated for the "tribbles" episode of Deep Space Nine.

http://archive.propworx.com/1008/199

 

[MarsWeeps]

It's hard to believe that that chute opens to the vacuum of space. (It would be hard to open the little door against the regular ship's atmospheric pressure.)

I'm sure it didn't open to the vacuum of space. I always imagined there was some type of airlock system where once you closed the main door, another opened...or possibly there was a container of some type that was shot out into space.

Find a pic of the "Pressure Vent Disposal" door that was recreated for the "tribbles" episode of Deep Space Nine.

http://archive.propworx.com/1008/199

Cool...so any ideas on a valid use for this?

 

[Shawnster]

On Kirk's Enterprise? No idea. On Picard's Enterprise with families - rapid disposal of stinky dipers.

 

[Marsden]

Did they say it was ejected into space? That was not said in the episode.

I assumed it went into the system to contain hazardous materials. The energy of the exploding phaser was probably stored in special batteries that absorb excess energy for use in emergencies.

 

[MarsWeeps]

I assumed it went into the system to contain hazardous materials. The energy of the exploding phaser was probably stored in special batteries that absorb excess energy for use in emergencies.

 

[Marsden]

The ships batteries?

"We're running on battery power."

I don't think Scotty slapped a pair of Energizers/Duracells into his console to keep the lights on.

 

[MarsWeeps]

The ships batteries?

"We're running on battery power."

I don't think Scotty slapped a pair of Energizers/Duracells into his console to keep the lights on.

Yes, I know about the ship's batteries. It was just your explanation about a special area of the ship that could contain a phaser explosion and then store the energy in the batteries that made me go !

Still, it's an explanation that's no more far fetched than having an emergency waste disposal that ejects things into space!

 

[Marsden]

Well, alright you got me.

I kind of assumed it was ejected into space for a long time, but a bit ago decided that's probably something to do with recycling, it's not a star destroyer. Conservation of material and the ablitie to fabricate many various things like flintlocks and uniforms from any era makes me think there is some kind of production area and they must need raw material or they use something that later on becomes a replicator to create it out of a combination of matter and energy. The ship seems to have limitless energy for most other things, but if you have limited material and transporters, they might make it with something like a transporter with energy fed into a pattern and beamed in creation.

I'm totally making it up, but that's my theory on the op question, it went into the hazardous recycling and siphoned of the energy that exploded in the wall, which shook that area of the ship and made them go against the wall. If went right out to space they wouldn't have felt it.

 

[Timo]

I'd bet on some sort of an incinerator system that performs partial recycling of the ashes. That is, I'd prefer a big, sturdy furnace that can relatively harmlessly absorb an explosion (although it was probably ruined by it anyway) to a delicate system optimized for extracting every last bit of usefulness out of banana peels and spent batteries but not expected to take mechanical or thermal stresses.

I'd also assume every cabin dumps its junk into this system; the hatch in the corridor is not so much an "emergency" system as it is a "contingency" one, allowing the occupants of the deck to continue using the system even when the personal chute in the cabin gets jammed.

Basically, this hatch is for the sort of waste generated by a good meal eaten in the cabin (like we sometimes see Kirk do): napkins, applecores, and ultimately also excrement. But while each cabin has multiple suitably sized and positioned chutes for the stuff, that is, ranging from ashtrays to toilets, the corridor has a generic hatch sized to accommodate the plastic bags found in each cabin, and in dispensers throughout the ship. Outside jam situations, these also help in keeping the corridors clean.

So, just a mislabeled product, not a misdesigned one. Contingency rather than emergency, critical but not time-critical.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marsden]

It's hard to believe that that chute opens to the vacuum of space. (It would be hard to open the little door against the regular ship's atmospheric pressure.)

Find a pic of the "Pressure Vent Disposal" door that was recreated for the "tribbles" episode of Deep Space Nine.

http://archive.propworx.com/1008/199

Not to mention if he did pry it open, it would suck him out face first. That wouldn't be pretty.

 

[Timo]

How did the killer (Karidian's daughter) know exactly when Kirk would be in his quarters in order to set the overload for when he was there?

Regarding this, I don't think it would have to be particularly exact. Three hours either way would probably have been fine, too: Kirk seemed to be resting in his cabin, or trying to. It was just coincidence that the blast almost caught all the Big Three.

The plot doesn't indicate the assassin's mastery of phaser settings, either. Had Lenore Karidian really known her way around a phaser, she would have realized that the sound would be heard, meaning Kirk would have plenty of time to flee. Or would she have been betting on Kirk being heroic and staying behind?

It is more of a mystery where Lenore got that phaser in the first place. I mean, access to certain places should be no problem for her: most of the crew would by that time know that she has every business being in the Captain's quarters, and her visiting Engineering might also be accepted without much thought - but Armory?!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MarsWeeps]

It is more of a mystery where Lenore got that phaser in the first place. I mean, access to certain places should be no problem for her: most of the crew would by that time know that she has every business being in the Captain's quarters, and her visiting Engineering might also be accepted without much thought - but Armory?!

I can imagine her walking into the armory in just a loosely wrapped towel..."Oh, I'm sorry, I thought the showers were on this deck. Oh, what is that, a phaser? How do they work exactly?"

 

[CrazyMatt]

The ships batteries?

"We're running on battery power."

I don't think Scotty slapped a pair of Energizers/Duracells into his console to keep the lights on.

Well, in TWOK, wasn't the main problem that "the energizers are out?"

SCOTT: We're just hanging on, sir. The main energizers are out.
KIRK (on intercom): Try auxiliary power.

????????

 

[Marsden]

I think there was some redesign between Conscience of the King and Wrath of Khan.

 

[Timo]

Should we assume anything major really changed, though? "Batteries" are still going strong in ST2. And "energizers" in TOS already had to do with main power, as in "The Alternative Factor".

Timo Saloniemi