Hell, i'd love to have a sonic shower. Seems to be much much quicker and you stay dry.
What about regular showers?
- Thread starter Rye
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I thought it was sonic, water, and golden.
Haha i was totally gonna say that...
Setting up a "regular" shower wouldn't be all that difficult. A closed loop system, say 5-10 gallons of water per system, and just purify/clean the water as it runs through the drainage system.
We can purify water on the ISS now, so just speeding up the process 200 years in the future doesn't seem like a stretch.
We can purify water on the ISS now, so just speeding up the process 200 years in the future doesn't seem like a stretch.
Lol, I beat you to it. Post 11. :P
ninja'd 
To nitpick, you didn't indicate a dialogue reference there yet - in terms of the scene itself, the "sonic shower" could have been like a "perscan belt buckle", a cool backstage idea that never was verified on screen.
Mr. Laser Beam was the first to nail it down as an actual dialogue mention. 
(Okay, background noise mention, but still.)
Timo Saloniemi
To nitpick, you didn't indicate a dialogue reference there yet - in terms of the scene itself, the "sonic shower" could have been like a "perscan belt buckle", a cool backstage idea that never was verified on screen.
(Okay, background noise mention, but still.)
Timo Saloniemi
*Sticks tongue out and makes farting noise.*
I'm beginning to think it's impossible for you to EVER agree with me!
I guess I'll have to agree.
Seriously, though, I didn't realize the sonic shower in ST:TMP was actually called that in the movie itself until Mr. Laser Beam pointed it out. I wonder whether this technology was carefully overthought by somebody like von Puttkamer or Asimov, too, before being included in the film in a manner that leaves out all the hard scifi thinking...
Timo Saloniemi
Seriously, though, I didn't realize the sonic shower in ST:TMP was actually called that in the movie itself until Mr. Laser Beam pointed it out. I wonder whether this technology was carefully overthought by somebody like von Puttkamer or Asimov, too, before being included in the film in a manner that leaves out all the hard scifi thinking...
Timo Saloniemi
The sonic shower reminds me of the movie "Andromeda Strain". When the scientists enter the laboratory for the first time. They go through this lengthy clean-room procedure to get rid of any germs they may have. After they strip naked; they enter a booth that blasts them with high-intensity light that vaporizes the top layer of their skin. Taking with it any sweat or germs. Sounds like a shower-sized microwave oven. Fun.
Not Trek[/b], but in Babylon 5 we get this conversation:
From the dialogue, it seems in the B5 universe, vibe showers don't use water. Though "vibe" does imply vibrations, so maybe they function similar to sonic showers, but somehow use a more pleasing vibration to get the dirt off, but not harm the skin. Of course, in the B5 universe, they don't have replicators, so water reclamation becomes a bigger issue.
From the dialogue, it seems in the B5 universe, vibe showers don't use water. Though "vibe" does imply vibrations, so maybe they function similar to sonic showers, but somehow use a more pleasing vibration to get the dirt off, but not harm the skin. Of course, in the B5 universe, they don't have replicators, so water reclamation becomes a bigger issue.
When I was a kid we joked that the reason there were no bathrooms on the Enterprise was that they just beamed out the waste.
I guess I'll have to agree.
*Mind explodes*
Haha! That one crossed my mind too! Though what did they do for the year of hell...?
Haha! That one crossed my mind too! Though what did they do for the year of hell...?
That why it was "a year of hell"!
Sincerely,
Bill
It shouldn't be that difficult.
All they need to do is replicate and/or recycle water. And obviously water is not a compound that is complex in form. I'm sure Starfleet vessels must store hydrogen and oxygen in quantities, so mix some from each tank and there you go, more than enough for everybody to drink or wash in.
All they need to do is replicate and/or recycle water. And obviously water is not a compound that is complex in form. I'm sure Starfleet vessels must store hydrogen and oxygen in quantities, so mix some from each tank and there you go, more than enough for everybody to drink or wash in.
I'd rather think hydrogen and oxygen are not stored in any quantity - water is. It's so much easier to store, even in space, and can rather trivially be broken to its components as needed. It doesn't even need to be particularly clean to be broken into fusion fuel and breathing air. It could serve in dozens of roles while "waiting" to be broken down: coolant, solvent, beverage, general environmental adjuster, swimming pool filler..
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Now that you mentioned it, does it make sense for the TOS Enterprise to have a swimming pool or not?
A couple of days ago I visited a Soviet Juliett-class sub from the early 1960's. They had a least one shower for the whole crew.
A couple of years ago I saw interior footage of the Soviet Typhoon-class. Quite in contrast to what we saw in "The Hunt for Red October" it had at least a miniature swimming pool, though I thought it rather qualified as an oversized bathtub. (scroll to bottom of the picture collection)
Bob
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Soviet hardware is notoriously robust in certain surprising respects. We got a pair of Riga class escorts in the seventies, to balance out the acquisition of western fighting ships, and it turned out that those at the time modern steam turbine ships were ideal for installing a steam sauna aboard. (Plus they each came equipped with a piano, demonstrating the cultural sophistication of Homo sovieticus...)
FWIW, when I first saw blueprints of Kirk's vessel as a kid, I thought "regulation pool" had something to do with regulating the ship's functions, say, managing the thermal loads - and the crew just took the opportunity to enjoy the lukewarm water...
Timo Saloniemi
FWIW, when I first saw blueprints of Kirk's vessel as a kid, I thought "regulation pool" had something to do with regulating the ship's functions, say, managing the thermal loads - and the crew just took the opportunity to enjoy the lukewarm water...
Timo Saloniemi
I thought at first there might be some similarity to an "endless pool". Now that I see the picture, I agree - but even a large bathtub is better than none! 
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