Rick Sternbach, Rick Sternbach, Rick Sternbach...

[Christopher]

You wouldn't use vents for heat dispersal in space, because then you'd be wasting precious atmosphere (not to mention the unbalanced thrust, which would be minimal but could still affect the ship's attitude). Plus, in vacuum, there's no convection, so venting gases wouldn't be as effective a means of thermal regulation anyway.

What spaceships would need for heat dispersal would be large radiator fins, ideally extending perpendicularly to the ship (so they could radiate into space from both sides) and adjustable to lie parallel to the rays of the nearest star (so the surfaces would be out of direct sunlight and could thus radiate heat instead of absorbing it). Some kind of radiator fins would be pretty much essential for any spacecraft operating anywhere near a star (the Space Shuttles' radiators were inside the cargo doors, which is why they always had the doors open while in orbit), and yet Hollywood designers almost universally exclude them from spacecraft designs, which is a real shame because they could be very beautiful and give starships a sort of "Age of Sail" flavor. The Discovery in 2001 was going to have radiator fins, because the designers were striving for maximum realism, but they ultimately ended up ditching them (though I'm not sure whether it was for aesthetic reasons or because they couldn't get them to work on the miniature).

 

[Squiggy]

One thing I'm afraid of with TNG remastering, is that they go too far i.e. TOS-R, where we see ships zipping around like atmospheric fighters as well as unusual and space un-natural bobbing around scenes, almost like a ship on waves. You're proposition sounds more spacey realistic.

So you're afraid that they'll replace one imaginary thing with another imaginary thing?

One is neither more-or-less unnatural or unrealistic than the other. If a million metric-ton vessel can travel thousands of times the speed of light because of a magical crystal and encounter a bunch of humans with funny foreheads then there's nothing wrong with having it make a tight turn.

 

[Timo]

You wouldn't use vents for heat dispersal in space, because then you'd be wasting precious atmosphere

Are you sure? Heat transfer via ejected gas might be such a superior way to do it (vs. radiation of heat) that it would pay to replicate ventable gas for this very purpose. Energy on a starship is essentially free, after all - warp drive already supposedly requires such insane amounts of it that a few extra meals' worth of fluid (perhaps something like ammonia) would represent an affordable fraction.

you know these starships don't have any toasters

Yet apparently starbases do, so that Data could be judged to be one without everybody going "Huh, what's a toaster? An automated glass-raising and speech-making machine? Well, yeah, Data can do that, but-"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

but I was going for a system with the capability of blowing the atmosphere out of multiple decks simultaneously (if necessary) including the main hanger... in one big hurry.

Do you recall in which cases it would be necessary to blow out the atmosphere?

 

[Forbin]

Massive radiation leak. Poison gas. Fire. Worf farts (which counts as all of the above).

 

[Christopher]

Massive radiation leak.

Again, I think you mean a leak of radioactive material, which is not the same thing as radiation any more than a flashlight is the same thing as its beam. I'm not sure how much good venting the atmosphere would do in the case of such a leak. I suppose if the radiogenic substance were in particulate or gaseous form, that would clear out the worst of it, but there could still be some residual contamination on the walls and floor.

And really, I'm not sure what kind of radioactive vapors you could get on a 24th-century starship. The impulse reactors are fusion-based, not fission, so you wouldn't have the kind of contaminated steam you'd get if a fission reactor blew. Tritium is radioactive, but Starfleet impulse reactors reportedly use pure deuterium fusion, not deuterium-tritium. Naturally the intense energies inside the warp reactor would cause some transmutation and create some radioisotopes on the interior of the reactor chamber, but that would be part of the solid structure, I'd think.

 

[David cgc]

The Discovery in 2001 was going to have radiator fins, because the designers were striving for maximum realism, but they ultimately ended up ditching them (though I'm not sure whether it was for aesthetic reasons or because they couldn't get them to work on the miniature).

I've always read that it was because Kubrick wanted to avoid the appearance of aerodynamics, and the radiators were too evocative of wings.

 

[Christopher]

^Then they could've just made them more rectangular in shape, or positioned them "vertically" relative to the camera's POV (though the latter could've potentially blocked the communication dish's line of sight with Earth).

 

[sojourner]

^Guess they didn't think of that.

 

[Santaman]

You wouldn't use vents for heat dispersal in space, because then you'd be wasting precious atmosphere

Are you sure? Heat transfer via ejected gas might be such a superior way to do it (vs. radiation of heat) that it would pay to replicate ventable gas for this very purpose. Energy on a starship is essentially free, after all - warp drive already supposedly requires such insane amounts of it that a few extra meals' worth of fluid (perhaps something like ammonia) would represent an affordable fraction.


Timo Saloniemi

Gasses plenty, the exhaust from the impulse engines... which is what I believe they use to get rid of excess heat, even moreso since its already vented through a convenient exhaust pipe...

 

[Maurice]

^^^As I recall they did think of that. I think the reality is Kubrick just liked it better without them, but I don't think the ship's resemblance to a bone (like the one thrown in the 4-million-year jump cut) was accidental, and those radiators would have diminished that.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, the Discovery resembles a spinal column with a head atop it.

 

[Christopher]

You wouldn't use vents for heat dispersal in space, because then you'd be wasting precious atmosphere

Are you sure? Heat transfer via ejected gas might be such a superior way to do it (vs. radiation of heat) that it would pay to replicate ventable gas for this very purpose. Energy on a starship is essentially free, after all - warp drive already supposedly requires such insane amounts of it that a few extra meals' worth of fluid (perhaps something like ammonia) would represent an affordable fraction.

Replicators don't turn energy into matter. That's a silly notion, considering that you'd need a Hiroshima bomb's worth of energy to make even a single gram of matter (or actually twice that, since you'd also have to generate a gram of antimatter in the process to avoid violating conservation laws -- and that's obviously not happening). Replicators draw on a pre-existing stock of particulate matter and rearrange the atoms. So whether they're ejecting atmosphere or replicator stock, they're still venting finite resources into space. It's just as wasteful either way.

 

[Forbin]

Massive radiation leak.

Again, I think you mean a leak of radioactive material, which is not the same thing as radiation any more than a flashlight is the same thing as its beam. I'm not sure how much good venting the atmosphere would do in the case of such a leak. I suppose if the radiogenic substance were in particulate or gaseous form, that would clear out the worst of it, but there could still be some residual contamination on the walls and floor.

Well, yeah, that's what I was thinking of.

 

[Forbin]

Maybe they were specifically designed to vent to occasional gaseous vampire cloud creature. Never can be too careful, ya know.

 

[DonIago]

Little did Kirk realize that his off-the-cuff mention of such an idea shortly after "Obsession" would so radically alter the future of starship design theory...

"Vents. We need more and bigger vents."

 

[Christopher]

Little did Kirk realize that his off-the-cuff mention of such an idea shortly after "Obsession" would so radically alter the future of starship design theory...

"Vents. We need more and bigger vents."

And then he went on to design a submarine with screen doors.

 

[DonIago]

^If you write it I'll edit it for free.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Some kind of radiator fins would be pretty much essential for any spacecraft operating anywhere near a star (the Space Shuttles' radiators were inside the cargo doors, which is why they always had the doors open while in orbit), and yet Hollywood designers almost universally exclude them from spacecraft designs, which is a real shame because they could be very beautiful and give starships a sort of "Age of Sail" flavor.

While not a space-faring craft, Babylon 5 had six radiators fins, flanking each side of the station in sets of three.

However, Babylon 4 had its own propulsion system and also had a ring of radiator fins at its stern. While a space station, Babylon 4 was envisioned at one point to become a mobile base capable of intersteller flight in an early idea for a sequel series, BABYLON PRIME.

There is some indication this happened during the first Shadow War with Valen, where Babylon 4 served as a base of operations ("In Valen's Name" DC Comics).

Although, BABYLON PRIME wasn't going to take place in the past. The series had Sinclair and Delenn stealing the station from the past to use in the "present" after the destruction of Babylon 5. In fact, you can see the threads of this in "Babylon Squared" even though events turned out quite differently in the series proper.

 

[Christopher]

While not a space-faring craft, Babylon 5 had six radiators fins, flanking each side of the station in sets of three.

If those were actually meant to be radiator fins and not solar panels as I've always figured, there are two major problems with their design. One, a number of the images I find online show them facing the direction of sunlight, which would defeat the purpose of heat radiators because they'd be absorbing more thermal energy than they were emitting. Two, their inner faces are directly opposite each other, so the heat given off by one would simply be reabsorbed by its opposite rather than released into space.