rescue chute system

[varek]

rescue chute system (updated)
I have transferred this suggestion here from the General Discussion section, as someone suggested.
I would like to propose a way to fight fires, rescue people and make repairs aboard a starship. I call this system the rescue chute system (RCS). This would be for Damage Control teams.
The RCS consists of pipes made from neutronium or other extremely hard material, each about 3 meters in length. The ends would be made, so they could fit together, to form even longer pipes or chutes, if needed. Fittings like T-junctions, crosses and elbows could also be constructed. Tight fittings on each end would prevent gases and/or fire from getting inside them.
Each pipe and fitting could be 1.5-2 meters or so in diameter, to allow people to move through them.
People could use these chutes to reach people trapped in dangerous areas, to put out fires from up close or to retrieve important documents or objects, without exposing people to the hazardous conditions there.
These chutes and fittings could be stored aboard ships and transported to the damaged section of the ship on antigrav sleds.
What do you think?

 

[Finn]

You seem to be describing Jefferies tubes….

 

[varek]

They could be like Jeffries Tubes, but movable and able to be assembled. (Their material for construction should be tougher, too.)
But, using these chutes would protect the rescuers, workers, and those they were helping from the hazards of that emergency environment.
In fact, Finn, they could also be installed or just loaded inside regular Jeffries Tubes in strategic places around the ship, then extended in emergencies, as needed.
Good point.

 

[Albertese]

Seems like the ship's regular methods of moving around (corridors, jefferies tubes, turbolifts) would already serve this purpose. If the environment is hazardous, wear a space suit.

Also, I would suggest a different acronym as RCS already means "Reaction Control System" and refers to the ship's thrusters.

--Alex

 

[Timo]

Using solid tubes for accessing location X poses the problem of how to access X once you get there. It's a bit unlikely that you would really benefit all that much from having a shirtsleeves environment right down to the last two meters, as opposed to having to abandon this benign environment fifty meters earlier. That is, a tube terminating in an airlock would not be superior to having just the airlock and no tube.

If you only want to install some sort of a shirtsleeves workstation at the end of the tube, you probably are again much better off without the tube. Just make the workstation mobile and self-supporting.

A somewhat more Trek-like analogue to the system you propose would be the planting of transporter enhancers along the damaged corridor, to help with intraship beaming in a disaster situation... Although I trust the corridors are already lined with such enhancers to begin with, in the TNG era at least.

Timo Saloniemi