Green Bridge Dome
- Thread starter albion432
- Start date
I have seen some really cool pictures of the inside of it online (can't remember where)...but it has a little "top view" silhouette of the Enterprise inside it. I think it was meant to serve a navigational / orientation function. If I find any of the pictures I've seen, I'll link to them or post them here.
It's a sort-of artificial horizon. Watch the wormhole scene and you'll see it tipping this way and that.I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but what is known about the green dome hanging from the center of the bridge? Does it have a name? Does it serve a function? I couldn't find anything about it on Memory Alpha.
What's the purpose of an artificial horizon in space?
To make certain that your spacecraft is in the appropriate attitude (i.e., orientation) for, say, firing the impulse engines in the correct direction, or pointing a particular sensor at a particular astronomical object. This instrument would show the offset between instantaneous attitude state compared to programmed attitude state relative to whatever celestial reference system (galactocentric?) Starfleet employs for its interstellar-capable spacecraft. The fact that it is located on the bridge ceiling would make it of limited use for the helmsman, though.
Incidentally, a primer on the spacecraft body frame coordinate system appears in the Volume 1 - User's Guide for IPOST (Interplanetary Program for the Simulation of Optimized Trajectories) that can be downloaded from the NASA Technical Report Server. 
Also, for making sure you’re on the same plane as all the other ships you meet in space, making it nice and neat and understandable for a movie audience
This is its primary function.
I never noticed that before! or if I had I never realized its significance. The detail they added to that movie is impressive. Too bad they didn't continue with that level of detail in the sequel's. They could have used it to good effect here:
After that, colored lights were put on the solar wings to avoid any repetition.
It's an interesting idea. I wonder who uses it? Surely it's not the helmsman, who would have to stop what he's doing and look over his head and behind him to get information from it.
Not exactly; the two action shots above show he would merely have to tilt his head back. Still, this would mean taking his eyes off his controls - but since when has he been looking at those anyway? His eyes are on the main viewer or the pop-up scope when he does his TOS button-pushing, even though the former provides virtually no information in the usual case.
A much more rational setup would place the artificial horizon on the main viewer, just like in today's HUDs and presumably in the Kelvinverse/DSC ships, too. Perhaps the viewer projects customized visuals directly to each pair of eyes, depending on need, and Sulu gets the HUD overlay while Kirk gets the raw uncluttered starfield, Chekov the navigation data, and Ensign Ricky the weekly webcomic?
Timo Saloniemi
A much more rational setup would place the artificial horizon on the main viewer, just like in today's HUDs and presumably in the Kelvinverse/DSC ships, too. Perhaps the viewer projects customized visuals directly to each pair of eyes, depending on need, and Sulu gets the HUD overlay while Kirk gets the raw uncluttered starfield, Chekov the navigation data, and Ensign Ricky the weekly webcomic?
Timo Saloniemi
