Why has warp core safety regressed so much in 80 years?

[Ithekro]

The on topic question would be, why did USS Grissom explode like that in an era when ships just don't explode easily. The frieighter blown up earlier in the film got hit with a bunch of disruptor bolts, and it was tiny. The Bird of Prey and Grissom are I guess roughly the same size.

Did Grissom have an overly large engine for its size? It that was it in the secondary hull that is mostly detached from the rest of the ship? Or is the warp engine in the main hull near the nacelles, and the underslung hull is the ship's massive sensor packages and maybe isolated labs (in case of dangerous experiment or possible contamination)?

We know that almost a century later, starships will tend to explode more often even thought a warp core breach is suppose to be impossible due to safety measures (that do not seem to be all that safe). But older ships still operating in that period tend to get bits blown out of them more than just explode into clouds of energy.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^I think Grissom's demise was something of a freak accident. At the risk of sounding morbid, it's somewhat analogous to someone being hit in the chest and suffering a cardiac arrest (a phenomenon known as commotio cordis). The vessel wasn't hit that hard, but it was hit in just the right (or wrong) spot and exploded.

--Sran

 

[DonIago]

^That's been my take on it.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Oh, for Zarquon's sake! The ship was named for famed late-20th, early-21st century forensic entomologist GIL Grissom. In his honor, there was a super-thorough forensic investigation performed by Starfleet into the ship's destruction.

Happy now?

 

[DWF]

The on topic question would be, why did USS Grissom explode like that in an era when ships just don't explode easily. The frieighter blown up earlier in the film got hit with a bunch of disruptor bolts, and it was tiny. The Bird of Prey and Grissom are I guess roughly the same size.

Did Grissom have an overly large engine for its size? It that was it in the secondary hull that is mostly detached from the rest of the ship? Or is the warp engine in the main hull near the nacelles, and the underslung hull is the ship's massive sensor packages and maybe isolated labs (in case of dangerous experiment or possible contamination)?

We know that almost a century later, starships will tend to explode more often even thought a warp core breach is suppose to be impossible due to safety measures (that do not seem to be all that safe). But older ships still operating in that period tend to get bits blown out of them more than just explode into clouds of energy.

It was a lucky shot that took out the Grissom, the Romulan Warbird in The Face Of The Enemy took out a shipw with one shot as did the Enterprise in Unification. In retrospect it's amazing the Enterprise lasted as long as it did in Generations seeing as how it basically unshielded.

 

[DonIago]

^In that case I always figured the Evil Sisters were toying with the E-D.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

^Yours are valid points; unfortunately, the OP has gotten into his head that the destruction of the USS Grissom was intended as a slight to a real person named Grissom; therefore, we're stuck with this annoying side-bar in what has otherwise been an interesting thread.

--Sran

Tell you what. Find one of Grissom's surviving realtives and say to them. Hey wasn't that cool how they honored the legacy of your husband/dad/brother/uncle by naming a ship after him in the film and then having it completely out of the stars.

If they answer "Sure was" then I'll drop my feelings completely. Somehow I suspect they may feel it wasn't the most tasteful way to do it. Let me know when you finish this task.

And Jesus Christ will you and others get over yourselves. I made my opinion felt and you'd have I thought I had said "Hey let's make nun murder legal" the way you and others pissed and moaned, came at me personally, and made off color jokes about America's first space tragedy to show how my thinking was so incorrect.

I only wish on that episode of TOS where Kirk and Spock met Abraham Lincoln that the writers had had one of the enemies sneak up and shoot Lincoln in the back of the head and have him die slowly so I could read all your comments about how it was a great way to honor Lincoln's legacy and anyone who felt otherwise was clearly full of crap.

And to the gentleman who said the two were nothing related. I don't know you but I feel comfortable in saying that I've forgotten more about the space program in the 60's then you'll never know. I'm well aware they died of suffocation, but there was also a big fireball in the capsule and even if it didn't technically kill them, that is the lasting memory people have. I'm sure some people survived the initial explosion on the Grissom and suffocated in the vacuum of space.

And to the poster who made the crack about to Klingons being involved in the Apollo 1 fire....You're an ass to make a joke about something like that.

Jeez I know Star Trek is our lives and all but sometimes it can make bad choices.

I'm sorry, but for calling a poster an ass, you have earned an infraction. Please cool it and comments to PM, please.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Find one of Grissom's surviving realtives and say to them. Hey wasn't that cool how they honored the legacy of your husband/dad/brother/uncle by naming a ship after him in the film and then having it completely out of the stars.

If they answer "Sure was" then I'll drop my feelings completely. Somehow I suspect they may feel it wasn't the most tasteful way to do it. Let me know when you finish this task.

Find one person who's been outraged by the naming of the Grissom before you in the 30 years since STIII was released.

 

[Cyke101]

Maybe the tribute is IN the fact that these ships were destroyed. Space exploration is dangerous, but these people go anyway, even if they end up making the ultimate sacrifice. And even if it may seem to some like the sacrifice comes sometimes for a triviality or because of a stupid accident, it's worth it because no matter what, they are part of mankind's greatest adventure.

Just like Gus Grissom was.

"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires, both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q

Having just seen Interstellar last week, I'm reminded of (and paraphrase) an exchange:

"We needed the bravest of humans to land on those planets and see if they're suitable."
"How would they return?"
"They don't. Hence the bravery."

(I'm sure I got the wording wrong, but you get the idea. I remember hearing someone in the audience audibly whisper, "Jesus," after the exchange.)

 

[Timo]

...The logistics of that quest were well founded and the suicide missions plausible, if harrowing.

Which is why it was a bit annoying when this "Once it's landed, it stays landed" cargo tug took off so effortlessly again, and when this "Launches from Earth using a three-stage rocket" primary spacecraft landed onto a world with 130% (?) Earth gravity and took off all on its own again, without comment. If you are going to build a plot on hardware limitations, stick to the limitations!

Trek at least goes easy on hardware limits. Most treknology is capable of anything and everything, and the plots build on something else altogether.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SicOne]

And here I thought the Grissom was named after Jack Palance's gangster character from the 1989 Batman movie. Jeez. Shows what the hell I know.

 

[DonIago]

Oh. I'd been assuming it was named in homage to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grissom_Gang.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Every time I see the name of this thread, I keep thinking it is some bit of serious business, like "Why aren't cars made as sturdy as they used to be?" or "Why is e coli on the rise?".

That's all. Just wanted to share that.