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ST IV-Dead in Space ?

The Yorktown's Captain said that his chief engineer was trying to deploy a solar collector so that they would have some power. I'm guessing he succeeded.

Also, the Saratoga still had enough power left to operate its emergency lights.
 
The Yorktown's Captain said that his chief engineer was trying to deploy a solar collector so that they would have some power. I'm guessing he succeeded.
...Even though we never hear of this Yorktown again? :devil:

Also, the Saratoga still had enough power left to operate its emergency lights.
Those might not have been electric lights, or whatever the primary power distribution type of the ship. Perhaps all lighting on the ship is chemical in nature, primary and emergency alike?

The very idea of emergency lights is somewhat fuzzy in Trek. Why does the ship suddenly go all dark and red in a crisis? It provides no tangible advantage... It's not as if this ship has windows that would provide a view into the dark scene of a night battle, requiring eye-adjusting dimming of lights. Or that the consoles on the bridge would be so faint as to only be visible when lights are dimmed. TNG had it right, with the constantly bright general lighting plus the prominent status signal lights.

Timo Saloniemi
 
The Yorktown's Captain said that his chief engineer was trying to deploy a solar collector so that they would have some power. I'm guessing he succeeded.
...Even though we never hear of this Yorktown again? :devil:

Also, the Saratoga still had enough power left to operate its emergency lights.
Those might not have been electric lights, or whatever the primary power distribution type of the ship. Perhaps all lighting on the ship is chemical in nature, primary and emergency alike?

The very idea of emergency lights is somewhat fuzzy in Trek. Why does the ship suddenly go all dark and red in a crisis? It provides no tangible advantage... It's not as if this ship has windows that would provide a view into the dark scene of a night battle, requiring eye-adjusting dimming of lights. Or that the consoles on the bridge would be so faint as to only be visible when lights are dimmed. TNG had it right, with the constantly bright general lighting plus the prominent status signal lights.

Timo Saloniemi

If *I* had Rick Berman's job, Id light the bridge blue like the CIC rooms of US Navy ships-not the annoying 'red alert' that exists for dramatic license.
 
If *I* had Rick Berman's job, Id light the bridge blue like the CIC rooms of US Navy ships-not the annoying 'red alert' that exists for dramatic license.
Me, too. The parts that weren't holographic displays that let you "see" straight through the ship out to space around you, anyway. :D
 
If *I* had Rick Berman's job, Id light the bridge blue like the CIC rooms of US Navy ships-not the annoying 'red alert' that exists for dramatic license.

Well, Rick Berman doesn't even have Rick Berman's job, any more... :p
Too little, too late Id say.
Ya know what , we have LCD screens today that are bigger than the Enterprise E's viewscreen. Why not have the bridge set up so that the entire bridge space is a holo-rep of the space around the saucer as if the bridge were free-floating in space,to reinforce a post made above.

Im sure it would work as long as you were trained not to panic walking onto the bridge lol
 
Speaking of what we have today, Aviation Week & Space Technology (Jan. 5, p.52-53) describes the state-of-art in helmet displays, introducing a "free-floating" helicopter cockpit where high-rez infrared imagery from multiple cameras is merged in the helmet so that the cockpit disappears and is replaced with a full hemisphere of obstacle-free scenery (plus overlaid symbology). It's flight hardware now, not just paper/vaporware. And it wouldn't be difficult to do that for the full sphere, either.

What practical advantages that offers is another question altogether. It's not as if a "free-floating" cockpit would free you from the necessity of twisting your neck to see bogies at six. And compacting the full 360 degrees or four pi into the field of vision just doesn't work - it's been tried, and only gives infernal headaches and technicolor burps to the pilots. Generally, moderate tunnel vision (aka focus) is a good thing for a pilot, as long as there are peripheral alert systems of some sort.

Timo Saloniemi
 
As previously said, there's enough tech seen operating in the scenes of fallen vessels to show that they had a 'chance.'

Also, a starship or spacestation that doesn't have enough EVA suits to support the entire crew is also impractical. I'm sure every crewmen would be able to get one....quests on the other hand....stiff shit.

Heat and oxygen also, does not instantly disperse. Consider the hulls of a starship, they are several centermeters thick of a futuristic metal Duranimum (for standard designs) and Duranium/Tritanium alloy (for more 'advanced' designs) that gives a good barrier to space and its coldness.

The internal heat at point of power-down would take a little time to die down, especially considering the resonate heat of so much electrical systems running. Think about it, when you walk into a computer room from another room where there's electrical devices turned on at length, its by default warmer than the previous room.

Now onto air, who knows how much air is pumped into the system before shutdown? They coulda had 24 hours left...we don't know.

Back again to heat - sex helps, but simply hugging together will do.

Then, on another note, yes the lights did come on again with that station, but we don;t really know the fate of its crew. They could be fine, but I do really like to use this saying in the current context:

"lights are on, but no ones home!"
 
Also, a starship or spacestation that doesn't have enough EVA suits to support the entire crew is also impractical.

Well, the ISS doesn't. The shuttle doesn't. A passenger aircraft has no parachutes for the passengers, and typically none for the pilots, either. There are alternate survival modes there, though.

Heat and oxygen also, does not instantly disperse.

Heat loss is surprisingly rapid on Trek starships, if "The Last Outpost" is any indication. Perhaps the ships are deliberately designed to get freezing cold very rapidly in order to rid them of the waste heat of normal operations - the passive cooling systems are very potent and foolproof, which bites back when power fails.

With oxygen, the problem would be circulation. On today's spacecraft, you can suffocate in no time flat when the fans die down because air doesn't flow much in zero gee. The stale, CO2-rich air accumulates very rapidly around the hapless breathers, unless they constantly wave their hands or move through the air. The Trek ships have artificial gravity to keep convection going, and the thermal gradients of the rapid cooling would probably also help, but there might still be big problems there, bigger than in an Earth-bound office building of comparable size and shape.

Timo Saloniemi
 
To use modern examples if they are to be trusted for the future (possibly unlikely)

There are automatic ways to make a pressurised air chamber without using power or technology, well the use of technology exists, yet once started it operates without power continuously. Who knows if the air systems suddenly stop circulating on a starship. Through a practical windmill design throughout circulation tubes once air circulates the first time and begin the rotation and begin turning these mini-'windmills' the windmills will continue in the confined space forever until the actual hull was breached or there was no more air left. Such is used for solar-heating aqueducts which also cool in the winter which I have installed on several industrial factories over the years; the concept can easily be used for oxygen circulation in a contained environment.

I believe considering their is a requirement for air to live, such system would be on a starship in the future.

Yet probably a lot more advanced than my metal fabricator/viticulturalist/landscaper/construction self can think up on the fly.
 
They all lined up one behind the other and breathed in each others farts. The front guy probably died, but the others had a chance. Actually, the front guy was probably best off.
 
You can survive in a spacecraft with very little power for days.

The Apollo 13 crew survived in the Lunar Excursion Module with no heat and only a couple of CO2 scrubbers working for several days .

Power was only a few watts at best.


That is true! Never understood that in TNG. They would lose power and face death right away. It is a big sealed ship full of oxygen and heat. I would think it would take days. I cant put my finger on the episode it happened in but it has happened like twice and also maybe in Voyager as well.
 
You can survive in a spacecraft with very little power for days.

The Apollo 13 crew survived in the Lunar Excursion Module with no heat and only a couple of CO2 scrubbers working for several days .

Power was only a few watts at best.


That is true! Never understood that in TNG. They would lose power and face death right away. It is a big sealed ship full of oxygen and heat. I would think it would take days. I cant put my finger on the episode it happened in but it has happened like twice and also maybe in Voyager as well.

There's not much a 1913 Ford Model T has in common with a modern day Mustang GTR.Yes,they're cars,but the technology makes different dilemmas.

In the same spirit a 1960's era Apollo space capsule won't share much with a 23rd century starship,and would behave differently therefore under the same emergency.

Apollo 13 was 7 days away from Earth-and is exponentially slower than any ship operated in the 23rd century.A starship encountering the probe will be *much* more than 7 days away from help at sublight(probably decades without decent impulse drive),and will have no power to even so much as call for help(without jury-rigging something).Keep in mind Apollo 13 never went totally dark-the loss of the fuel cell forced some hard compromises ,but they had communications and power .The Yorktown did not-at least,enough power to get home.
 
With regards to antimatter containment, they could use permanent or semi-permanent magnets to compensate for any momentary disruptions in the containment field. The phrase "losing containment" could refer to the primary field going down; this backup method could be capable of slowing (but not stopping or else it would *be* the primary system) the release of antimatter. Hence so many ships surviving a "losing containment!" shout by the chief engineer if they get it repaired fast enough.

Add to that the fact that this system would be *very* closely tied to the warp core, and it might be designed to feed directly off of its own reaction. Even if the power was neutralized quickly after leaving the core, *nearby* systems might not be as severely affected as those further away on the power grid.
 
As per the Tech Manuals, it seems that antimatter is stored in electrically neutral form. So permanent magnets as such wouldn't work - but one could easily argue that Star Trek features closely analogous permanent artificial gravity systems that won't shut down when power is lost, and will keep all matter and antimatter away from the walls by gravitic repulsion.

Nevertheless, this technology could be referred to as "magnetic", even if it was gravitic in nature - much like the boots in ST6. And "magnetic" seals on the antimatter system were said to be idiotproof in TNG "Contagion"...

Timo Saloniemi
 
The Yorktown's Captain said that his chief engineer was trying to deploy a solar collector so that they would have some power. I'm guessing he succeeded.
...Even though we never hear of this Yorktown again? :devil:

Also, the Saratoga still had enough power left to operate its emergency lights.
Those might not have been electric lights, or whatever the primary power distribution type of the ship. Perhaps all lighting on the ship is chemical in nature, primary and emergency alike?

The very idea of emergency lights is somewhat fuzzy in Trek. Why does the ship suddenly go all dark and red in a crisis? It provides no tangible advantage... It's not as if this ship has windows that would provide a view into the dark scene of a night battle, requiring eye-adjusting dimming of lights. Or that the consoles on the bridge would be so faint as to only be visible when lights are dimmed. TNG had it right, with the constantly bright general lighting plus the prominent status signal lights.

Timo Saloniemi

If *I* had Rick Berman's job, Id light the bridge blue like the CIC rooms of US Navy ships-not the annoying 'red alert' that exists for dramatic license.
Since when was Rick Berman involved with the lighting in the TOS movies!?!? :wtf: ;) :p
 
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