TOS Turbolift

[Koloth TOS]

In 2 different episodes we see the turbolift and its intercom and the buttons on the left side and the right side respectively. So did the lifts have two devices or just a single one, either on the right or the left side? I do not remember any episode showing all the walls of the lift at the same time.

 

[Henoch]

Could be car to car variation...older models still in use.

 

[Koloth TOS]

Older model was only in use in S1 (Corbomite Manoeuvre), just 1 (red) button instead of the 4 in later seasons.

 

[Henoch]

Looks to me that they just added three more buttons below the existing red button. Comm is unchanged.

 

[Koloth TOS]

Right, but that doesn't answer the question whether there were 2 comms in each turbolift.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

From a realism standpoint, the turbolifts are incredibly wasteful. You could do without the cars altogether just by having zero-G in the vertical shafts. The problem being, the sets were built on Earth for budgetary reasons.

In universe, artificial gravity must be an all or nothing, ship-wide system, so you can't turn it off in the shafts.

Even so, eliminating the horizontal shafts would make the deck plans a great deal more practical. When what you need is ten feet away, you have to walk 60 feet to go around a horizontal elevator shaft. And that's crazy.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

You'd rather push yourself around a zero-g tunnel than stand still for a few seconds in a turbolift car?

You'd rather walk 300 meters from the bridge to engineering instead of just riding the turbolift horizontally?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

You'd rather push yourself around a zero-g tunnel than stand still for a few seconds in a turbolift car?

You'd rather walk 300 meters from the bridge to engineering instead of just riding the turbolift horizontally?

If there were no cars, just zero-G shafts and walkable corridors, the longest it would take you to get from anywhere to anywhere on the Enterprise would be about 3 minutes, or 3 and a half at the outside.

There just aren't that many situations where that would be a problem. The bridge has remote stations tied into Engineering and Life Support, and if something urgent there has to be done in person, you can call over the intercom.

Eliminating the turbo cars would save on four things:
• The cost of building the ship is reduced.
• The turbo cars' energy needs are eliminated.
• The mass of the ship is reduced, saving fuel.
• Turbo system maintenance is eliminated.

I think all of that would outweigh the rare circumstance of a given person needing to race from Point A to Point B. And in-universe, it proves that artificial gravity is all or nothing ship-wide, making the elevator cars an expensive necessity.

OTOH, when you get to the Enterprise-D, that thing is so ridiculously big, a case can be made for a system that beats walking even if zero-G shafts were possible. It's bigger than many towns.

 

[Mytran]

The turbolift set was composed of 6 curved and 3 flat panels, plus a set of sliding doors which would be simply butted up again an existing set of doors on the Bridge or corridor.
In their standard configuration they looked like this:

However, when assembled for use on set this arrangement was not always followed. There are plenty of instances where the motion indicator panel ended up on the rear centre:
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x04hd/thenakedtimehd0617.jpg
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x13hd/elaanoftroyiushd0038.jpg
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x07hd/dayofthedovehd0279.jpg

Sometimes a partial construction seems to have been used, probably to allow the actors to walk on and off set. However the flats were not always aligned correctly to the doors, as seen in this particularly egregious example from Season One and a similar one from Season Three:

In 2 different episodes we see the turbolift and its intercom and the buttons on the left side and the right side respectively. So did the lifts have two devices or just a single one, either on the right or the left side? I do not remember any episode showing all the walls of the lift at the same time.

I could be wrong but I think the only time controls were seen on left hand panel (when looking into the turbolift) was in Wolf In The Fold, probably because the plot directly called for them. Most likely the right hand panel was just swapped to the left. I say this because when that side of the set was filmed a few episodes later, no controls were to be seen!

In-universe however I am more than happy to imagine the existence of different styles of turbolift cruising the shafts around the ship. It would also help to explain the numerous doorway inconsistencies (which I'm not going to go on about right now, don't worry!)

 

[Doug Otte]

If there were no cars, just zero-G shafts and walkable corridors, the longest it would take you to get from anywhere to anywhere on the Enterprise would be about 3 minutes, or 3 and a half at the outside.

There just aren't that many situations where that would be a problem. The bridge has remote stations tied into Engineering and Life Support, and if something urgent there has to be done in person, you can call over the intercom.

Eliminating the turbo cars would save on four things:
• The cost of building the ship is reduced.
• The turbo cars' energy needs are eliminated.
• The mass of the ship is reduced, saving fuel.
• Turbo system maintenance is eliminated.

I think all of that would outweigh the rare circumstance of a given person needing to race from Point A to Point B. And in-universe, it proves that artificial gravity is all or nothing ship-wide, making the elevator cars an expensive necessity.

OTOH, when you get to the Enterprise-D, that thing is so ridiculously big, a case can be made for a system that beats walking even if zero-G shafts were possible. It's bigger than many towns.

Eliminating the turbo lifts would also be safer. Getting stuck in a 21st-Century elevator is bad enough (when my daughter was little, we were stuck in one with a few other people in my old office building for about a half hour until the firefighters pried open the door and we climbed out, halfway from the floor.). Imagine getting stuck in a turboshaft far from any opening!

 

[Mytran]

Imagine getting stuck in a turboshaft far from any opening!

A rousing French song is usually enough to get Starfleet personnel through such an ordeal, or so I've heard

 

[David cgc]

A rousing French song is usually enough to get Starfleet personnel through such an ordeal, or so I've heard

Plus, the turbolift cabs are airtight, and can be used as a lifeboat if the shaft is breached while some poor person is riding in one.

 

[Metryq]

James P. Hogan's The Gentle Giants of Ganymede is just one sci-fi story featuring "elevator" shafts with gravity engineering. I mention this story because the Giants have both elevators and gravity chutes. On the first visit to the Giants' ship, an elevator is used. The grav chutes are explained later—how to use them, the traffic patterns and protocols. They are not merely "zero G" tubes. They are a kind of linear accelerator that propels the rider along until he makes the gestures needed to debark.

Many other sci-fi writers included gravity/suspension shafts, and side-stepped explaining them in any great detail. Heinlein was famous for this kind of shorthand: "He stepped off into the bounce chute ahead of me, giving me time to consider my reply before we reached the lobby."

 

[Ssosmcin]

If there were no cars, just zero-G shafts and walkable corridors, the longest it would take you to get from anywhere to anywhere on the Enterprise would be about 3 minutes, or 3 and a half at the outside.

There just aren't that many situations where that would be a problem.

"Oh shit, I missed!" Clunk!

I do agree that zero G would work for propelling the car. A quick jet puff from the top, bottom or side would be just enough to get you where you need to go. But just a bunch of people floating in any direction loosely is begging for mishaps.

Differences in details can be boiled down to different cars. I'm on board for multiple cars standing by, which is what the big bumboat is on the outside of the bridge that others have postulated. A waiting car which slides into place when the tube is vacant, explaining why there's always one available seconds after someone leaves.

I'm more interested to know if those lighted lines actually represented decks. They whiz by pretty fast and in great numbers going from the bridge to deck 5.

 

[Mytran]

I'm more interested to know if those lighted lines actually represented decks. They whiz by pretty fast and in great numbers going from the bridge to deck 5.

The speed and intervals would seem to indicate about one light per deck, but that creates enormous scale issues with the Enterprise.

For instance, in The Corbormite Manoeuvre Kirk would have travelled up around 32 decks from Sickbay towards the Bridge, before changing the direction towards "Captain's Quarters" instead. Later, McCoy and Kirk would travel down 51 decks before disembarking on the "Captain's Quarters" level.
In Tomorrow Is Yesterday Kirk and Capt Christopher would be riding up 64 decks from the Transporter Room level to the Bridge.

In Season Two the directors tended to shy away from directly showing the light bars for too long. The horizontal light bar was also introduced, visualising the 3-D travel abilities of the turbolift system.
By Any Other Name had the crew travel from Engineering to the Bridge in just 7 vertical "decks" (after 10 horizontal ones), about right from a location in the after saucer.
The The Ultimate Computer had a trip from the Bridge to Engineering last approx 16 "decks" (11 directly visible), about right to a destination in the secondary hull (if it were not for the huge curved corridor)

Then in Season Three's Elaan Of Troyius a trip for Kirk and Elaan from the Bridge to Sickbay, explicitly called out as "Deck 5" lasted 21 vertical pseudo-decks. Oh, well

So to me, I tend to see the light bars as a general motion indicator for the benefit of the passengers - it shows a direction of travel (or freefall, seen in Wolf In The Fold) but that is all.

 

[Phaser Two]

I agree that each light bar represents nothing more than progress in general. Or perhaps there's some other benchmark like meters/feet traveled, but it certainly doesn't seem to be decks.

Of course my favorite turbolift-related wackiness comes from The Enterprise Incident, an episode so silly that I prefer to write it off as a fever dream by Kirk or Spock while fighting off an illness, rather than reconcile it to existing continuity in any way. But in any event, Spock and the Romulan commander take about two minutes to go from the bridge to "Deck Two."

Count me, by the way, among those glad that the turbolifts didn't involve some sort of zero G. That's the sort of thing that looks good on the page for Heinlein - although as noted even he didn't really spend much time trying to explain it - but would just be absolutely preposterous on screen and not necessarily even that practical in "real life," I suspect. As some of you know Discovery tried something like this in the second season (I think) and it was quite (unintentionally) comical.

 

[Mytran]

...But in any event, Spock and the Romulan commander take about two minutes to go from the bridge to "Deck Two."

At least the episode had the good sense not to show the light bars moving, so it's conceivable that the turbolift was paused/stuck in traffic etc

 

[Phaser Two]

At least the episode had the good sense not to show the light bars moving, so it's conceivable that the turbolift was paused/stuck in traffic etc

Quite - I figured the computer understood the sensitivity of Spock's intimate, UST-suffused conversation with a high-ranking enemy, and kindly proceeded at a snail's pace until the conversational possibilities seemed exhausted.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

"Oh shit, I missed!" Clunk!

I do agree that zero G would work for propelling the car. A quick jet puff from the top, bottom or side would be just enough to get you where you need to go. But just a bunch of people floating in any direction loosely is begging for mishaps.

When people are traveling through wide zero-G shafts, they just have to watch where they're going, keep to a moderate speed, and stay in reach of the handholds. Astronauts doing that get along just fine and don't slam into each other. For a good portrayal of how it works, check out The Martian (2015).

Count me, by the way, among those glad that the turbolifts didn't involve some sort of zero G. That's the sort of thing that looks good on the page for Heinlein - although as noted even he didn't really spend much time trying to explain it - but would just be absolutely preposterous on screen and not necessarily even that practical in "real life," I suspect. As some of you know Discovery tried something like this in the second season (I think) and it was quite (unintentionally) comical.

TOS could never film zero-G personal transit on time and on budget, we all agree on that, but practicality on a realistic spacecraft is not even in question. Astronauts are doing it right now on the ISS.

 

[Phaser Two]

When people are traveling through wide zero-G shafts, they just have to watch where they're going, keep to a moderate speed, and stay in reach of the handholds. Astronauts doing that get along just fine and don't slam into each other. For a good portrayal of how it works, check out The Martian (2015).



TOS could never film zero-G personal transit on time and on budget, we all agree on that, but practicality on a realistic spacecraft is not even in question. Astronauts are doing it right now on the ISS.

Which has no artificial gravity, correct?