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Path: utzoo!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!nsc!voder!kevin
From: kevin@voder.UUCP (The Last Bugfighter)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Enterprise Gravity
Message-ID: <848@voder.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 22:10:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: voder.848
Posted: Wed Aug 14 22:10:48 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 21:13:30 EDT
Reply-To: kevin@voder.UUCP (The Last Bugfighter)
Distribution: na
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Lines: 37
Xref: tektronix net.startrek:04165 

>       Now why wouldn't they talk about something as mind boggling
> as gravity control?  And, even better, in all the times we've
> seen the Enterprise badly damaged isn't it funny that the
> gravity never goes out?  That'd be a scene of quite some
> visual impact -- everyone floating about the bridge and corridors.
>
> Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Painter Hall 3.28, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712

   I think you're completely overlooking reality here. Star Trek was a 
television series.  It did not have a billion dollar budget for each show.
Can you imagine the difficulty of showing everyone floating around the
bridge?  Remember this was 1969 and special effects of this type (like the
movie `2001') were the exception, not the rule.  The only time I can remember
Star Trek attempting to show a weightless environment was in the episode
in which a woman crewperson was taken over by nasties and Bones shoved her
into this gravity/pressure chamber, `Lights Of Zetar' I think it was called.
Maybe also `The Tholian Web', Kirk did some floating around in a space suit.
   Now the animated series showed a loss of artificial gravity on the bridge
at least once, and of course the movies showed an anti-gravity sled and one
person standing on an anti-gravity `step ladder'.  Also Spock floating in
his suit, perhaps Star Trek IV will give us something more.  But a lot of
interesting possibilities don't get done just because of cost.
   Ignoring cost for a moment, it would seem that something like an artificial
gravity system would be as fool-proof as possible, perhaps even having it's
own independent power source.  I can't verify this but I seem to recall that
in `The Making Of Star Trek' by Susan Sackett (s) and Gene Rodenberry there
was a mention that the gravity field that keeps people on the decks was also
partly responsible for actually holding the ship together.  Maybe not to the
point it would fall apart if the gravity were shut off, but at least so that
the ship's maximum velocity and maneuverability would be severly limited.
  Perhaps someone can verify this, or flame me mercilessly if wrong.

---
Kevin Thompson   {ucbvax,ihnp4!nsc}!voder!kevin

"It's a sort of threat, you see.  I've never been very good at them
  myself but I'm told they can be very effective."