TOS Turbolift

[Christopher]

One thing that bothered about the insides of the turbolift shsfts ee saw in ST-V and in 'Disaster' TNG, namely why is there gravity in that shaft at all?
The natural condition of the ship is no gravity, gravity is present through controlled technology, gravity plates built into the decks and operated by the ship's computer systems. The only place you could put the gravity plates is at the base of the vertical tube, but why?

Realistically, it makes no sense to have gravity in some parts of the ship but not others. Gravity doesn't work that way. A mass's gravitational pull is felt from every direction, so if you were off to the side of a "gravity plate," you'd be pulled sideways and down toward it. If you were over a gap between two equidistant gravity plates on either side of you, the sideways would cancel out and you'd be pulled down the same as usual, just a little bit more gently.

Also, of course, matter doesn't block gravity, so the ship's gravitational pull should be felt outside of it as well. Something like ENT: "Minefield" where they're weightless on top of the ship makes no sense, because they'd feel weight if they were just a few meters lower down, and there's no way the hull could be opaque to the gravity being generated directly below them. So they should be walking on top of the saucer like in TMP, not floating and needing magnetic boots.

 

[aridas sofia]

Realistically, it makes no sense to have gravity in some parts of the ship but not others. Gravity doesn't work that way. A mass's gravitational pull is felt from every direction, so if you were off to the side of a "gravity plate," you'd be pulled sideways and down toward it. If you were over a gap between two equidistant gravity plates on either side of you, the sideways would cancel out and you'd be pulled down the same as usual, just a little bit more gently.

Also, of course, matter doesn't block gravity, so the ship's gravitational pull should be felt outside of it as well. Something like ENT: "Minefield" where they're weightless on top of the ship makes no sense, because they'd feel weight if they were just a few meters lower down, and there's no way the hull could be opaque to the gravity being generated directly below them. So they should be walking on top of the saucer like in TMP, not floating and needing magnetic boots.

I think a better way of thinking about what Richard Baker wants is not to simply leave the artificial gravity off in certain areas, but rather to nullify the artificial gravity in those areas with antigravity - a negative form of whatever technology is being employed to create finely controlled earth-normal gravity inside the ship. That antigravity technology - perhaps employing the negative energy mentioned in "By Any Other Name" and "The Immunity Syndrome" - would presumably also be used to prevent the internal artificial gravity from distorting the warp bubble surrounding the ship (much as Alcubierre, Thorne, and others prescribe).

 

[scotpens]

Realistically, it makes no sense to have gravity in some parts of the ship but not others. Gravity doesn't work that way. A mass's gravitational pull is felt from every direction, so if you were off to the side of a "gravity plate," you'd be pulled sideways and down toward it. If you were over a gap between two equidistant gravity plates on either side of you, the sideways would cancel out and you'd be pulled down the same as usual, just a little bit more gently.

Also, of course, matter doesn't block gravity, so the ship's gravitational pull should be felt outside of it as well.

My headcanon is that artifical "gravity" aboard a starship is actually some sort of energy field that simulates or has the same effect as gravity. Unlike actual gravity, it can be switched on and off, dialed up or down, directionally controlled, and blocked by certain materials (Cavorite? )

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Of course my favorite turbolift-related wackiness comes from The Enterprise Incident, an episode so silly that I prefer to write it off as a fever dream by Kirk or Spock while fighting off an illness, rather than reconcile it to existing continuity in any way. But in any event, Spock and the Romulan commander take about two minutes to go from the bridge to "Deck Two."

Maybe one of the grab handle switch settings is "joyride."

 

[Ron M]

My headcanon is that artifical "gravity" aboard a starship is actually some sort of energy field that simulates or has the same effect as gravity. Unlike actual gravity, it can be switched on and off, dialed up or down, directionally controlled, and blocked by certain materials (Cavorite? )

I was just thinking the same thing--that what's true for "natural" gravity may not be true for the artificial gravity in Star Trek. Maybe the so-called "gravity generators" on starships create something that feels superficially like gravity over a short range, but is actually an entirely different force (unknown to our current science), and functions differently--like the way that the spinning space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey uses centrifugal force to create a sensation that feels like gravity and might be casually referred to as "gravity," but isn't. Is there enough canon information about ST gravity generators to draw a conclusion either way?

(I've also always assumed--in my own headcanon--that there was gravity plating in the walls and ceilings as well as in the floors, and that that's how the inertial dampers work: when the ship turns right, the gravity plating in the right wall activates to keep everyone from being thrown to the left relative to the ship, and so forth.)

 

[Christopher]

My headcanon is that artifical "gravity" aboard a starship is actually some sort of energy field that simulates or has the same effect as gravity. Unlike actual gravity, it can be switched on and off, dialed up or down, directionally controlled, and blocked by certain materials (Cavorite? )

In my Trek novels, to rationalize the gravity somehow not reaching to higher decks or outside the ship, I rationalized as the result of the grav plates producing virtual gravitons that decayed after traveling a few meters. I may have also said they're polarized to explain why their effects aren't felt off to the sides.

Still, I would've liked to see a more plausible approach to artificial gravity somewhere. One ship design I came up with once, in my own original SF worldbuilding before my Trek novel career, was built around a cylindrical engine core whose FTL drive leaked gravity as an unavoidable side effect, so the ship's decks were built around it cylindrically and the gravity pulled inward toward the axis of the ship. So it was like the 2001 centrifuge, but pulling inward instead of outward. The floors appeared to curve downward but you felt upright no matter where you stood. And the inner decks had higher gravity than the outer ones, because of the inverse square law. In retrospect, it should've been more of a "ringship" design, with some separation between the core and the inhabited decks to ease the gravity gradient.

 

[Doug Otte]

One thing that bothered about the insides of the turbolift shsfts ee saw in ST-V and in 'Disaster' TNG, namely why is there gravity in that shaft at all?
The natural condition of the ship is no gravity, gravity is present through controlled technology, gravity plates built into the decks and operated by the ship's computer systems. The only place you could put the gravity plates is at the base of the vertical tube, but why?
This would mean you are going to make extra effort to build and power something which would result in making the moving turbolift car have a more difficult job.
Since gravity is created intentionally and in a controlled fashion (ask the Gorn), not having it in certain areas of the ship would make things easier. No gravity in the shafts?- then dock the cars and by opening the doors you have the free float crew system mentioned earlier. No thruster boots or French songs needed.

Others have contributed thoughtful responses to "how" it might work, but I'd like to give a real-world example wondering "why".

I like to take stairs instead of elevators to keep in shape. My office building doesn't heat or air-condition the stairway. Why should they? It's used very rarely, and is separated from the habitable office space by thick concrete walls.

This weekend, we stayed at a hotel. In contrast, the stairway was blasted with heat. Why waste the energy when hardly anyone ever uses it? I don't think it would make it easier to control the entire building's temperature. But, maybe it does, and maybe that's why the turboshafts have gravity.

 

[Henoch]

I like to take stairs instead of elevators to keep in shape.

Kirk uses the ladders to keep in shape.
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x01hd/amoktimehd004.jpg

 

[danellis]

The building I went to university in essentially used the stairwells as chimneys as part of its temperature control, so it's quite possible your hotel did do the same thing.

dJE

 

[Phaser Two]

Forgive me for these questions, as I am just an . . . "engineer of sorts" as a certain visitor to the Enterprise (who might have found this discussion intriguing) once said, but - isn't creating a gravity gradient (from presumably g or close to zero g or close) for each turbolift going to be not only difficult, but potentially dangerous? I'm envisioning something like gravity airlocks at each turbolift entrance, which seems to me to be inefficient and not likely to promote quick movement around the vessel. It seems that the cost of such a system would outweigh the cost savings of operating an elevator system. Then there are the possible medical and safety dangers to the crew.

 

[Hofner]

I used to work as a lab technician at a large research facility called the Amoco Research Center in Naperville, IL.

The place consisted of seven more or less largish buildings up to three stories high spread over an area about a half mile by a quarter mile.

Depending on what your job was, it could be quite a long walk going between buildings.

For one thing, there was only one large cafeteria at the main, 4th building and going from the other end of the complex to eat lunch was a good amount of walking. But I don't recall bikes being used much. Management wasn't very fussy about timeclocks, the time it took to get to and from the cafeteria wasn't counted as your lunch break.

One thing I found fascinating about the place was that there were four underground tunnels connecting five of the seven buildings, the 2nd through the 6th, like beads on a string to be used in bad weather. If you worked in the 1st or 7th building, you still had to go outside to reach the nearest building connected by a tunnel.

For a while I worked in the 7th building. When the weather was bad enough, this is how I would get to the cafeteria in the 4th building.

With no tunnel connecting the 7th building, I had to go outside to get to the nearest building, the 6th. Then going through this building, I would go through the tunnel to the 5th building, go through that building and then take another tunnel to the 4th building.

Then guess what, the cafeteria was at the other end of the 4th building, at least 400 feet or more away.

Once the novelty wore off, the weather would have to be pretty bad before I resorted to taking this convoluted route.

One more thing I'll add, the tunnel between the 5th and 6th buildings was quite unusual. It curved down from one end to the middle and then curved up again to the other end. I can tell you what it looked like, in the film 2001, there's a scene where Dr. Floyd is talking to some people on Space Station V.

In that scene, you can see the floor curving up in the distance to disappear beyoung the ceiling as it's supposed to be following the inner rim of the spinning space station.

That's exactly what this tunnel looked like, at one end, you can't see the other end because the floor curves down and then up and out of sight beyound the ceiling in the distance. Of course, the pull of gravity doesn't follow the curvature of the tunnel, you just walk down a slight incline to the middle and then uphill again to the other end, but the first time I saw this tunnel, I immediately thoght of that scene from 2001.

The other three tunnels were straight, I never found out why they had dug this particular tunnel the way they did.

Robert

 

[Christopher]

The other three tunnels were straight, I never found out why they had dug this particular tunnel the way they did.

Maybe to avoid hitting a water or electrical pipe or sewer line? Or maybe to avoid hitting a dense mineral pocket that would be hard to dig through.

Or else it was to avoid waking up the kaiju hibernating there.

 

[Hofner]

Maybe to avoid hitting a water or electrical pipe or sewer line? Or maybe to avoid hitting a dense mineral pocket that would be hard to dig through.

Or else it was to avoid waking up the kaiju hibernating there.

I don't know, outside between the buildings were some grassy lawns, sidewalks and lots of parking spaces, enough to accommodate the number of people working in all of the buildings.

One other thing that commected the buildings underground was a pneumatic tube system where you could send documents and small items to other buildings by shooting a capsule through the tube. I can't remember if all of the buildings were connected to this tube system, I did use it quite a few times though.

Robert

 

[Christopher]

One other thing that commected the buildings underground was a pneumatic tube system where you could send documents and small items to other buildings by shooting a capsule through the tube.

Now, if you scaled that up for humans, it would be awesome.

 

[Phaser Two]

Now, if you scaled that up for humans, it would be awesome.

It would. Sounds sort of like . . . a turbolift

 

[Christopher]

It would. Sounds sort of like . . . a turbolift

Yeah, but with glass walls and you ride it like a bobsled.

 

[1001001]

Rule #1: Don't let Bonz at the controls when she's been drinking...



Re-opening.

 

[DaveyNY]

But in any event, Spock and the Romulan commander take about two minutes to go from the bridge to "Deck Two."

I always thought that the handles were speed controllers which were twisted to increase or decrease the motion of the turbolift.
Spock just slowed the lift down during that conversation to have more time.

 

[Doug Otte]

Kirk uses the ladders to keep in shape.
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x01hd/amoktimehd004.jpg

Challenge accepted! If I ever have to go back to the office (seems unlikely due to our continuing WFH and my nearing retirement), I'll ask security where are the ladders I can use. Then they'll call the nice people in the white suits to escort me away...

The building I went to university in essentially used the stairwells as chimneys as part of its temperature control, so it's quite possible your hotel did do the same thing.

dJE

Do you mean they vent the HVAC CO emissions through the stairways?

 

[Noname Given]

"Yes, it's true. This ship has no deck."
—Dr. Peter Venkman

"Klingons and Tribbles living together...MASS HYSTERYA!"