What about regular showers?

[Robert Comsol]

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!

As a matter of fact I just tried such an endless pool at the hotel where I spent the Easter holidays. The jet turbine at one end creates a current against which you swim as long as you can. Now, I have no doubt that we have something like this on the TOS Enterprise, ideally located between the sports section of the ship and sickbay.

In a certain manner of speaking it's not too dissimilar from the way the TNG holodecks work. Which reminds me that the "Acapulco diving" holodeck program (mentioned in "Conundrum") would require a rather tall holodeck.

Bob

 

[Albertese]

...
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

Wow! Thanks for the link, those images are fascinating!

--Alex

 

[blssdwlf]

Yes, thank you for that link to the russian sub. The control board panels in the engine room remind me alot of the TOS engine room

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's interesting that the interiors of Russian submarines resemble the interiors of their spacecraft. It suggests to me that their spacecraft designers are borrowing influences as much or more from naval architecture as from aeronautics. American spacecraft, by contrast, tend to resemble aircraft more than submarines.

I would guess this has to do with how the two space programs evolved. The American space program was heavily influenced by feedback from test pilots and Air Force aviators who helped design the Apollo capsules as well as the space shuttle. The Soyuz, OTOH, was designed and built like a flying submersible, and the Salyut space modules weren't a whole lot different. Compare one of the corridors on that Typhoon to the inside of the the Zvezda module on the ISS and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Who looks at a shower and thinks "Oh, this could be a little more sonic"?

 

[Saturn0660]

...
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

Wow! Thanks for the link, those images are fascinating!

--Alex

Indeed, seeing stuff like that it is MY idea of taking vacation.

 

[Redfern]

Who looks at a shower and thinks "Oh, this could be a little more sonic"?

The Doctor.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[bryce]

I think maybe in the ENT era we had regualr low-tech water showers. And in TMP, I dunno...they didn't have replicators, but maybe sonic showers saved the energy and equipment space required to clean and recycle water for 300+ crew memeber's showering needs. And then by TNG, when the replicator was invented, water showers were probably available...but maybe sonic had become adopted as well, from decades of use...?

 

[Timo]

I still don't believe the sonic mode serves any particular "spaceship" function - it's just a better type of shower overall, one that everybody in the future likes to use, save for a few oddballs. Much like water closet has totally taken over from the other sort all across the western world (and Star Trek never deals with any other sort of world), but we still add the dubya to the abbreviation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saturn0660]

I still don't believe the sonic mode serves any particular "spaceship" function - it's just a better type of shower overall, one that everybody in the future likes to use, save for a few oddballs. Much like water closet has totally taken over from the other sort all across the western world (and Star Trek never deals with any other sort of world), but we still add the dubya to the abbreviation.

Timo Saloniemi

Indeed I see like the shower vs. bath.. Some people no matter what will only take a bath. While other people will only do showers.. I'm sure it's the same Sonic vs. Water showers.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Who looks at a shower and thinks "Oh, this could be a little more sonic"?

The hedgehog?

 

[Lenny Nurdbol]

In Star Trek, we saw both water showers, as well as sonic showers. Sonic showers were used from TNG onward, if I am correct, but at the same time I must think, did any ships have water showers equipped?

Think about it. In Voyager, Neelix took a water bath. This would suggest that a water shower might be available to those who want it. Anybody agree, or have any information?

Depends on how much you want to take into your personal view on the Trekverse. For instance, going back to the old novels, some had Kirk use a water shower while others a sonic shower. This suggests two settings or perhaps an upgrade. Some fans have suggested that Both are used simultaneously. Treknically sonic showers first appeared in blueprints (either the Klingon Battle Cruiser or Romulan Bird of Prey, by Michael McMaster) in the 1970s. This only makes sense since sonic showers are rather direct, simplistic, solid-state, and quite fitting for Klingons (who originally had sonic-everything in TOS: sonic disruptors, sonic force fields, sonic grenades etc.).
The first literary reference was in a short story I came across in Enterprise Incidents, but I could be mistaken...

 

[mos6507]

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.

Which is kind of what T'Pol did on Enterprise, for the T&A quotient.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The first literary reference was in a short story I came across in Enterprise Incidents, but I could be mistaken...

That sonic showers originated in fanfiction is fascinating. I believe the same is true of Vulcan's Forge and a few other tidbits.

 

[Lenny Nurdbol]

I'm not sure about Vulcan's Forge... I think I first came across that in Alan Dean Foster's novelization of "Yesteryear" or it may have been one of those throwaway lines edited out of the script, but resurfaced in the old Concordance...

 

[_C_]

Then would this count as a handheld shower?

*DUCKS AND RUNS*

 

[Lenny Nurdbol]

If that green thing at the end is an acoustic amplifying/focusing crystal...
Looks more like a sonic screwdriver than a sonic shower...
The ones we're talking about are flush-mounted inside shower cubicals...

 

[_C_]

^ I was being silly. :P Just imagine people lining up to get sonic'ed by the Doctor because the sonic showers broke.

 

[JessDD]

If the showers broke, I guess you could replicate a whole bunch of wet wipes.


Lemony fresh!