The Galileo and the airlock doors

[Wingsley]

In "The Galileo Seven", there is at least one scene in which we seem to hear the shuttlecraft's airlock/exterior man-door opening in the background, and Mr. Boma and/or someone else seems to enter the aft compartment of the craft. The implication here is that the ship has a second door somewhere in the rear.

Where could this door be?

It seems strange that a ship of that size would have only one ingress/egress point, and it isn't clear if it could serve as an actual airlock.

Could there be a trapdoor in the aft compartment, leaving to the underside of the ship, and could the ingress/egress point allow crewmembers enough room to crawl out or "bend low" and walk out?

 

[Melakon]

We rarely saw the starboard side clearly, even with the full sized model, so maybe it's starboard aft. The few times we do see that side, it seems to flipped stock footage.

 

[Wingsley]

I found the scene. It's at about 20 minutes into the episode. This is after Latimer was killed by a spear in the back, and they bury him:

SCOTT: Pressure's dropping. We're losing everything.

SPOCK: What happened?

SCOTT: One of the lines gave. The strain of coming through the atmosphere and the added load when we tried to bypass. Yes, that's done it. We have no fuel.

SPOCK: That would seem to solve the problem of who to leave behind. Consider the alternatives, Mister Scott.

SCOTT: We have no fuel! What alternatives?

SPOCK: Mister Scott, there are always alternatives.

There is the sound of the shuttlecraft exterior door actuating. McCoy enters from the aft compartment, portside.

MCCOY: Mister Spock! Something's happening outside!

This would seem to establish that the (supposed) aft exit is on the port (left) somewhere in the rear of the vehicle.

 

[uniderth]

Maybe there is a hatch on the top?

 

[velour]

Perhaps the rear of the shuttlecraft opens up like a hatchback. The ingress/egress point for TNG shuttlecrafts is located at the aft of the craft. It opens up like a hatchback. I remember that was how Scotty entered the shuttlecraft in "Relics".

The TOS Galileo may be an (much) older model shuttlecraft, but it's possible it had the hatchback feature back then, as well.

 

[Wingsley]

We never actually saw anything in the aft compartment move in that scene, save McCoy come rushing in through the compartment doorway. If the back wall of the ship moved as a unit, we would have seen it.

As for as hatches are concerned, I supposed anything is possible. It could be the Class F shuttles had upper and/or lower hatches; it would also be possible that these hatches (or just one hatch) could be services by a traceable airlock chamber tube on the portside of the ship; we never saw the details of the aft compartment's port area.

 

[velour]

You're right. There didn't appear to be any movement of the back wall of the shuttlecraft. But we only got a partial view of the back wall. The view was through the narrow opening to the aft compartment. It could be that the shuttlecraft had a port and/or starboard side hatchback feature, but it was not a full hatchback.

Who knows. Just let the imagination run wild.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

It's a case of director Robert Gist cheating, either to conserve camera angles or to make the set seem more interesting than it was. The exterior mockup clearly had no provision for a back door of any kind. He just figured the shuttlecraft was a new thing that nobody watching at home was familiar with.

Shatner famously argued with director Herb Wallerstein on the set of "Turnabout Intruder" over something similar but nowhere near as egregious. Wallerstein made Shatner exit the Briefing Room by simply walking off the set. Shatner thought fans would know the room had only one door. In that case, I think the director got away with it.

 

[Warped9]

That's something I just ignore as messed up direction because clearly the design doesn't allow for any hatch in the aft end.

 

[Wingsley]

When you say "aft end", do you also mean the floor and ceiling? We never see any clear detail in those areas in canon, unless I'm mistaken.

 

[Warped9]

The "aft end" is pretty clear. There is no access hatch of any kind other than the one we see. If someone has to exit the craft there only one way. And why would someone use a hatch on the roof, or even under the craft, when there's a perfectly good door not ten feet away?

The director simply messed up. I figure McCoy and Boma were just finishing something in the aft compartment before they went outside only we never saw them. As for any sound of a hatch opening I accept as the actual access hatch opening by someone else.

 

[Forbin]

"Artistic license." And the director should have had his suspended for that!

And again, nobody dreamed people would be picking the show apart 50 years later.

 

[Timo]

There is the sound of the shuttlecraft exterior door actuating. McCoy enters from the aft compartment, portside.

...Or the sound of McCoy flushing?

That craft ought to have a toilet somewhere, and aft compartment, portside, is the only location where it could plausibly be.

Timo Saloiniemi

 

[ZapBrannigan]

There is the sound of the shuttlecraft exterior door actuating. McCoy enters from the aft compartment, portside.

...Or the sound of McCoy flushing?

That craft ought to have a toilet somewhere, and aft compartment, portside, is the only location where it could plausibly be.

Timo Saloiniemi

There's a lot packed into that port-aft compartment. When you mean to flush the toilet, don't accidentally push the button that flips open the hidden hatch. Especially when you're out in space. We lose so many shuttlecraft passengers that way...

 

[Forbin]

There is the sound of the shuttlecraft exterior door actuating. McCoy enters from the aft compartment, portside.

...Or the sound of McCoy flushing?

That craft ought to have a toilet somewhere, and aft compartment, portside, is the only location where it could plausibly be.

Timo Saloiniemi

Gary Kerr's plans for the upcoming Polar Lights shuttlecraft kit include a fold-away toilet in that very location.

 

[Melakon]

"Artistic license." And the director should have had his suspended for that!

Maybe he was. He never directed another one.

 

[Warped9]

That craft ought to have a toilet somewhere, and aft compartment, portside, is the only location where it could plausibly be.

Timo Saloiniemi

Which is why I added one in my schematics.

 

[Timo]

...Which I personally happen to consider the best-ever adaptation of the various conflicting onscreen and offscreen facts.

I just wanted to point out that McCoy "entering" the scene would be justified by the existence of this facility.

Although I guess there could be a ventral hatch there for some purpose or another, too, the craft need not be provided with an airlock at all - it doesn't appear to be provided with spacesuits, either, after all. There might be lightweight survival aids such as TAS-style forcefield belts for emergencies, but the aft compartment is already going to be pretty crowded without a putative spacesuit locker.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

In integrating the exterior and inteior as close as possible to what we saw onscreen I found the exterior is a lot wider than the interior would suggest. To that end I ended up with quite a bit of space between hulls that allowed for mechanical guts (they have to be there) and storage. The Galileo 7 crew were tossing all sorts of stuff overboard. It had to come from somewhere besides just the small aft compartment.

I'm presently modelling the TOS shuttlecraft in the Arts forum and I'm thinking of putting in a rudimentary interior as I planned it out some years ago just to see what it would look like in 3D.

 

[Wingsley]

I really do not see a problem with the Class F shuttlecraft having more than one ingress/egress point.

"The Galileo Seven" pretty clearly established (1: there is storage aplenty on-board for equipment and supplies, so there must be plenty of interior pockets we don't know about; after all, Scott spent a great deal of the episode working on vital propulsion-related piping and equipment under the cabin's floor, all presumably inside the ship's outer hull... (2: since the port-side of the aft compartment is largely never shown, there are plenty of unseen possibilities there, including retractable restroom facilities, food processor (if they have a toilet, why not also a source of food and water?), a small weapons locker (we see that, but don't know where it is), so why not incorporate a retractable airlock chamber as well? It would make more sense to have an airlock there than in the main cabin of the ship.

We're talking about a seven-passenger craft that can obviously exceed the speed of light, levitate, and provide life support for at least seven people including artificial gravity. Why would it not offer these other features?

As for all the goodies that McCoy and others were carrying out to jettison, they could be supplies or equipment, or both. Who is to say they aren't packs of food material for the food processor, or a water/waste recycler?

Since we know from the arguments between Ferris and Kirk that the crisis lasted at least two or three days, we can assume that the Galileo's mission was intended to be at least a day or so. You don't send out a ship with a crew of seven specialists for a half-hour joyride. They were there to investigate the Murasaki 312 Effect. That requires a ship outfitted with the necessary amenities to accommodate a crew for at least that amount of time.