TOS Turbolift
- Thread starter Koloth TOS
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I remember being annoyed when this NBC sci-fi miniseries from the '80s called Something is Out There (which starred Maryam d'Abo and spawned a short-lived weekly series) referred to the alien spaceship having "turbo-fusion engines," which sounded very silly to me at the time. On reflection, though, I can almost see it making sense, since fusion reactors can involve accelerating particles in a ring, so maybe there's a design of fusion engine that's analogous to a turbocharger or actually involves a turbine in some way.
And heck, it's no dumber than "quantum slipstream drive" or "coaxial warp drive."
And heck, it's no dumber than "quantum slipstream drive" or "coaxial warp drive."
It seems that the inside of the turbolift cars are oval-ish (see below)...possibly fitting into the five sided wedges seen in the turbolift shaft scene.And finally, as much as it pains me to invoke the very worst of the classic-crew feature films, this scene does suggest a large, arterial shaft whose distorted hexagonal cross-section is perhaps best explained by having capacity for three cabs abreast:
The oval car needs to move to the center of the shaft while moving, hence the asymmetric fit while at the door.
One other thing that's always bugged me about turbolifts is that they only seem to have one set of sliding doors instead of two.
Two? Car and station? How often do you actually pay attention to that feature of current elevators? It's something we tend to ignore, just as you ignore your own appendix (until it goes bad).
That's exactly my point. They assume we won't notice, so they only put in one set of doors. But detail-oriented people like me do notice, and it bugs me. And this thread is devoted to discussing details about turbolifts, after all.
Yes, and all they'd really have to do would be to have thicker door panels, and a black stripe to represent the gap between inner and outer doors.
Oh come on, Sulu has a "boop boop" light.
Colloquially people today don't think about a turbine when they hear the word turbo. They think of speed. Yes, a turbocharger has a turbine, but that is irrelevant because the lay person probably isn't aware of that. Perhaps, as suggested above, each car is powered by an independent turbine engine instead of a pulley/cable system. Or turbo just means fast.
In that image from Star Trek V, that entire shaft looks big enough for only 1 car.
With regards pneumatic pressure, we've seen multiple times crew in the actual shaft or doors accidentally opening to the empty shaft. There was never evidence of a continuous high pressure system. Although, did we ever see the empty shaft in TOS?
If we go by the ideas suggested in the Franz Joseph plans, then the turbolifts have pockets or stations that are just set off adjacent to the shaft. This allows one car to load or unload passengers or standby while another car passes. In some locations there are spots for a second car to be standing by and ready to slide into position. This cab explain how some scenes show multiple cars arriving or departing quickly. In other locations a car can have multiple arrival points on the same deck necessitating only a short walk. Tell the computer you want to go to Deck 5 and you might arrive at one of 3 locations. Tell the computer you want to go to Sickbay and you might arrive at one of two closest terminal locations.
Here is the ink to the plans. https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/star-trek-blueprints.php
In that image from Star Trek V, that entire shaft looks big enough for only 1 car.
With regards pneumatic pressure, we've seen multiple times crew in the actual shaft or doors accidentally opening to the empty shaft. There was never evidence of a continuous high pressure system. Although, did we ever see the empty shaft in TOS?
If we go by the ideas suggested in the Franz Joseph plans, then the turbolifts have pockets or stations that are just set off adjacent to the shaft. This allows one car to load or unload passengers or standby while another car passes. In some locations there are spots for a second car to be standing by and ready to slide into position. This cab explain how some scenes show multiple cars arriving or departing quickly. In other locations a car can have multiple arrival points on the same deck necessitating only a short walk. Tell the computer you want to go to Deck 5 and you might arrive at one of 3 locations. Tell the computer you want to go to Sickbay and you might arrive at one of two closest terminal locations.
Here is the ink to the plans. https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/star-trek-blueprints.php
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Except in TOS - starting with the series episodes, all turbolifts featured 2 sets of double doors.
Yes, that's the whole problem. It's an inaccurate colloquial usage, so it's unlikely that an actual device with no turbines involved would be formally, officially named a "turbolift" or a "turbolaser" or a "turbo-fusion engine." If it were a brand name, sure, since brand names are often inaccurate and silly. But not as the actual technical term for the thing. That should be a more accurate description of what it actually is. The problem is when writers with only a lay understanding of science or technology attempt to coin technical terms that end up being nonsense.
Well, unless it's the sort of thing where something that started out as a trademarked name has become universally accepted as a generic name, like escalator or yo-yo. But that would seem frivolous for Starfleet usage.
Didn't we already cover that possibility? Honestly, turbine engines seem a bit antiquated in an era that has antigravs. I'd expect it to be at least a maglev system of some kind, for a frictionless ride (aside from air friction).
Maybe it's an acronym? Ummm... Telemetrically Unified Radially Balanced Omnidirectional Lift? Or... something better than that?
Not that I recall.
Oh, they did? I was hoping someone could prove me wrong. Ideally with pictures.
Regarding turbo-elevator shaft choke poke points.
Given the existence of inertial dampeners, the slow speed that turbo-elevators are often shown to travel at is really implausible. There's a scene in Star Trek (2009), IIRC it's right before the launch of Enterprise, when Spock takes a turbolift from the hangar area to the bridge, and it's a very short ride. It should be like that, zipping around the ship very quickly, with only inertial dampeners keeping the passengers from getting flattened into paste.
Forget the canonical slow speed usually shown. The point is, with technology like that, you might not actually need many lane redundancies at all to avoid choke points. The computer would be able to time movements and sequence the lifts so that each potential choke point always had a lift zipping through it, if there was a need.
Given the existence of inertial dampeners, the slow speed that turbo-elevators are often shown to travel at is really implausible. There's a scene in Star Trek (2009), IIRC it's right before the launch of Enterprise, when Spock takes a turbolift from the hangar area to the bridge, and it's a very short ride. It should be like that, zipping around the ship very quickly, with only inertial dampeners keeping the passengers from getting flattened into paste.
Forget the canonical slow speed usually shown. The point is, with technology like that, you might not actually need many lane redundancies at all to avoid choke points. The computer would be able to time movements and sequence the lifts so that each potential choke point always had a lift zipping through it, if there was a need.
In The Corbomite Maneuver, about 7 minutes in, when Kirk enters the bridge from the lift, the camera is tracking him from behind, you see the double doors very clearly. Less than a minute later, a crewman enters and you can briefly see the grey inner door close before the red outer door does.
Tomorrow is Yesterday at 9:28, Kirk and Capt. Christopher enter the turbolift and we see the double doors. In fact they move and sound a like a contemporary elevator door (you can hear the mechanism "jiggle").
The Man Trap: you can see edges of the open inner doors if you look, but we don't see them move.
There aren't many examples and I'm hard pressed to think of any more. Sorry, I can't find any pics to post, TrekCore didn't capture those shots.
That's where the stand goes
But this last bit is certainly not the hill I want to die on. That movie was crap.
For spacedock--the scene would be fine.
Any excuse to break out my obsessive collection of the TOS sets
The Corbomite Maneuver
The Naked Time
Tomorrow is Yesterday
Amok Time
Is There In Truth No Beauty?
And in case you're wondering, the Bridge doors were also converted to doubles when the series was commissioned. Comparison from WNMHGB and TCM:
Okay, nice to see they were that detail-oriented with the doors. How about the movies and later shows? Single or double pairs of lift doors?
From TMP onwards I've only ever seen single sets of doors.
We got double doors in the Kelvin movie Enterprise bridge turbolift! Not sure they were consistent with it, though, when we saw turbolift stations in corridors or the plaza.
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