Shuttle bay to Decon chamber

[Crewman47]

Just looking at the Enterprise Deck plans created by our very own Anti Drone and I've often wondered, as these plans are a close match to the actual sets, why there is quite a distance between the main shuttle bay and the decon chamber? It's like to get there you have to climb out the top hatch of the shuttle to the upper deck and then walk about 15 or so meters, going through two or three sets of doors just to get to Decon. If you're infected with anything that isn't immediatly detectable then anything you've touched on the way to Decon could also be contaminated even if what you might have can be passed just by breathing.

Shouldn't the Decon chamber be right next to the lower deck to prevent any risk of contamination spread beyond that area or do they have a thorough decomination procedure that Shuttle deck crews perform after each trip?

 

[Pensive]

IIRC, these deck plans also don't have crew quarters on B deck. Trip says in "Shockwave part II" that his, Malcolm's, and T'Pol's rooms are on that deck -- Hoshi and Travis are on C Deck.

 

[Captain X]

The writers couldn't keep stuff like that straight and constantly changed their locations. In Catwalk you can clearly see where T'Pol's quarters are though based on an exterior shot showing Trip looking out through the viewport.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Although the crew could have changed quarters over time to fit their needs. Didn't Hoshi move from one side of the ship to the other?

 

[Pensive]

^ indeed she did, but not from one deck to another

 

[Timo]

Shouldn't the Decon chamber be right next to the lower deck to prevent any risk of contamination spread beyond that area or do they have a thorough decomination procedure that Shuttle deck crews perform after each trip?

One has to remember that the shuttle itself would be contaminated as well. So the personnel working on it in the bay would have to go through Decon, too, and the isolation area on the shuttle side of the Decon doors thus should include all the facilities needed for properly treating the shuttle.

It makes good overall sense to have a sizeable volume of Dirty space available, in addition to the Clean side of the ship. Not all things brought aboard via the shuttlebay need be processed to Clean, at least not immediately; lots of stuff could be kept in store at the Dirty side, and the sets and blueprints would cater nicely for that. Decontaminating every MACO rifle and spacesuit between sorties would not be necessary, not if the goal was to protect the crew; and protection of landing zone B from the germs of landing zone A probably wouldn't be a priority.

The same should of course apply to the transporter. But the NX-01 was probably built before the designers realized the transporter would be used for planetary forays or deploying of boarding parties, so there would be no adjoining Decon facilities there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trekwatcher]

Shouldn't the Decon chamber be right next to the lower deck to prevent any risk of contamination spread beyond that area or do they have a thorough decomination procedure that Shuttle deck crews perform after each trip?

One has to remember that the shuttle itself would be contaminated as well. So the personnel working on it in the bay would have to go through Decon, too, and the isolation area on the shuttle side of the Decon doors thus should include all the facilities needed for properly treating the shuttle.

That was always the biggest problem for me-they never really addressed decontaminating the shuttle itself, although this could be easily done via irradiating the craft itself after it is brought aboard.

 

[Timo]

For most missions, decontaminating probably wouldn't be absolutely necessary in order to protect the occupants during their mission. If the mission was cleared in the first place, the contamination apparently wouldn't be harmful during the intended short exposure. And as said, the danger of moving a contamination from planet A to planet B might not have been a concern for our heroes.

But the shuttle would be visiting some human and Vulcan locales as well, and our heroes wouldn't want to bring alien germs to those. So some decon must have taken place every now and then. And yeah, it could be done more easily than human cleanup, as intense ionizing radiation or quick ozone baths could be used.

Timo Saloniemi