Windows on space-ships

[Urge]

In Startrek, a lot of the species like to have windows on their space-ships. Romulans, federation, Ferrengi - they all have a lot of windows. Klingons have less, Borg have none.

In todays space-shuttles (Those NASA have used until now, the ones with wings) they also have windows, but I have heard that they are going to drop it on the new ones.

If a window is made from something like glass, plastic - the main transparent materials we use today, they will let more in radiation then metal-hull, and they will be weak-spots that can be easily broken. Specialy windows in the direction that you are flying is is risky, since things can crash into the ship at a head-to-head collision. I know that star-trek vessels have powerfull shields, but if flying fast (most space-speeds will be fast, and stones and sand traveling around in space is usualy moving fast in relation to you as well, even if you are in what you define as "full stop", whatever that may be, everything in space is moving) and if something goes through a window, even a small stone or a peace of sand.... it might pass through somebody, injuring or killing them, and leave a atmosphere leak.

Also, the people on the bridge orientate them selves through the instrumentpanels and their various scanners and radars, so windows is mostly for fun. When things go "on screen" it is a combined telescope-camera positioned outside the hull that zoomes into whatever the captain wants to see.

So despite the shields, windows (if made by our materials) is a risk-factor, and it has nothing else then estetic value. I have thought about this, and come to the conclusion that since Star-trek vessels have so many windows, even in the direction they are moving - they must be made by a material that is almost, or as strong as the thing the non-transparent part of the hull is made from (Deranium or something, isnt it? A super-strong metal not yet invented?) not be much more expensive, and have the same raditation-blocking abilities. The windows can not be to much of a extra risk if shields fail, if they had been - they would have been dropped.

Or are they indeed a risk, and its just the Borg and some others that have been reasonable, and dropped windows?

 

[Myasishchev]

Those are load-bearing windows.

No, I think you make some sense, but the Feds at least seem to go out of their way to make things aesthetically pleasing (arboretums, carpet, possible humpback whale tanks), instead of just mechanically functional, so maybe the windows are part of that design imperative.

Plus there's the notion espoused by some that the "structural integrity field," whatever that is, is the real spaceframe, with the metal part just there to house the field generators, and of course the navigational deflector would generally prohibit any head on collisions with micrometeors.

 

[Urge]

The navigational reflector is something else then the main shield? And the structual integrity field is the one that shuts it self on if there is a hull-breach? - Like the one that didnt put it self on before it was to late and Kirk was sucked into space in "generations"?

The Enterprise must use a LOT of energy. I wonder if it would hold up if ALL power was lost, leaving a completly dead ship without gravity, light or annything. Perhaps it would fall apart?

I think I will see if I find out this (the numbers of different shields, I thought it was two - but perhaps its four?) on the startrek-wiki.....

Hm, the shield-article: (about outer shields I think)
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Deflector_shield

Structural integrity-shields:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Structural_integrity_field

Navigational deflector:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Navigational_deflector

Up til now I thought that the navigational deflector was the Warp-drive on enterprise, but it isnt - its the navigational deflector. This explains why the disc-section can continue to fly on Warp even when the engine/weapon section separates. When they did this separation during Warp-flight on the first episode of next generation I thought they just forgot to think about it, but still - La Forge calls the enginesection the "stardrive section" in a later episode where the two parts of enterprise are separated.

But is there a fourth shield? The one that turns it self on to cover hull-breaches?

 

[Myasishchev]

Yeah, those are just standard force fields. Similar tech to the structural integrity and inertial dampening field, but different application.

 

[sojourner]

Yea, considering the fidelity that "viewscreens" must have by the time of star trek, it would be more likely that there would be no actual windows cut into the hulls of the ships. Just use viewscreens inset into the walls of rooms and have them relay a feed of the outside environment.

Oh yea, Orion, NASA's new spacecraft will have windows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Orioncm.jpg

 

[Urge]

I think I have learned some new stuff here. The long blue things on the stardrive-section of enterprise are not the impuls-engines such as I thought, but the Warp-drive. The big blue circle-thing at the bottom fronting foreward is not the Warp-drive, but the navigational deflector, and the red-things at the disc sections back side are the impulse-engines.

But...... The problem remains. Where are the engines that allow the disc-section to travel at Warp, and where are the impuls-engines on the disc-section?

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Impulse_drive

Aha... I messed up. At the next generation Enterprise that can separate, there are two sets of impuls-engines, one at the star-drive section, and even though its not in the article, Im pretty certain that their are still two of them at the back of the disc-section, like it was in the old Enterprise. But what about Disc-section Warp? It must have it, because at the first episode of TNG (Where Q introduces himself) the disc-section arrives at the planet slightly after the stardrive-section does. But there is definitly not a extra pair of long blue engines sticking out of the disc-section on Enterprise. I think maybe I have discovered at Trek-tech error here...

Or not: According to the Wiki-trek article on impuls-drive, one can travel at up to Warp 8 at Impulse, its just not energy-efficient. But there seems to be a disgreement here, where impuls is sometimes always under lightspeed, while it is over at some places:

Slower-then-light explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_drive

Faster-then-light explanation:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Impulse

I like the wikipedia explanation best, because it gives Warp the role of bending space so that Einsteins light-barrier does not break.

Suddenly my head boiled over with confusion...... Hope somebody can help me restore the logic of Trek-tech.

 

[Kaziarl]

I think I have learned some new stuff here. The long blue things on the stardrive-section of enterprise are not the impuls-engines such as I thought, but the Warp-drive. The big blue circle-thing at the bottom fronting foreward is not the Warp-drive, but the navigational deflector, and the red-things at the disc sections back side are the impulse-engines.

But...... The problem remains. Where are the engines that allow the disc-section to travel at Warp, and where are the impuls-engines on the disc-section?

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Impulse_drive

Aha... I messed up. At the next generation Enterprise that can separate, there are two sets of impuls-engines, one at the star-drive section, and even though its not in the article, Im pretty certain that their are still two of them at the back of the disc-section, like it was in the old Enterprise. But what about Disc-section Warp? It must have it, because at the first episode of TNG (Where Q introduces himself) the disc-section arrives at the planet slightly after the stardrive-section does. But there is definitly not a extra pair of long blue engines sticking out of the disc-section on Enterprise. I think maybe I have discovered at Trek-tech error here...

Or not: According to the Wiki-trek article on impuls-drive, one can travel at up to Warp 8 at Impulse, its just not energy-efficient. But there seems to be a disgreement here, where impuls is sometimes always under lightspeed, while it is over at some places:

Slower-then-light explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_drive

Faster-then-light explanation:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Impulse

I like the wikipedia explanation best, because it gives Warp the role of bending space so that Einsteins light-barrier does not break.

Suddenly my head boiled over with confusion...... Hope somebody can help me restore the logic of Trek-tech.

I think it was said, or implied, in encounter at farpoint that the saucer section didn't travel at warp, but more accurately coasted at warp. It's like when you're driving your car at 80 miles an hour and the engine dies. Pop it in neutral and you're still going to go for a while, Just not as quick as anyone else going at 80 miles an hour with their engines on.

 

[sojourner]

Yea, the coasting theory is probably the best explanation given what is seen and mentioned on screen.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

In Startrek, a lot of the species like to have windows on their space-ships... Or are they indeed a risk, and its just the Borg and some others that have been reasonable, and dropped windows?

Well depending on what mechanical purpose a "window" serves, it CAN be better than metal. For instance, here in Austin, we had a massive hailstorm a few weeks ago. The outer surface of my car is covered with dents and paint-chips now (enough that it is, technically, "totaled" as a result). Plastic trim pieces are cracked and deformed where they were hit. But the window glass, which also provides the majority of the mechanical strength of the upper cockpit region, survived the storm without so much as a flake or chip.

It's a mistake to assume that "metal is always better than ceramic" (and glass is, after all, merely a particular class of ceramic, remember). Ceramic is generally harder than metal. It is, however, not able to survive significant flexure. There's a reason that you see a lot of "composite" materials used... say, glass fibers in a polymer matrix (what we call "fiberglass," somewhat incorrectly) for auto body construction or aerospace structures.

That said... metal has the advantage of being able to deform and recover far more effectively than other materials, for a given load factor.

I have no problem whatsoever, MECHANICALLY, with having lots of windows on the exterior of a starship. A particle hits the hull at any "trekkian" sort of velocity... whether the hull region in question is made of "glass" or "metal"... and you're going to punch right through it.

The radiation question is more relevant, certainly. Metal is far more effective as blocking E/M radiation than ceramics or polymers are. However... just like with a microwave door... this is easily dealt with, through thin-layer metalization, embedded meshwork, or a simple sheetmetal "shutter" for that matter. You don't need much thickness of metal to block this very effectively.

The real question is "how useful are windows on a spacecraft?"

In Trek... the answer is "not at all." You can't navigate by sight, nor can you "drive" by sight, nor can you fire weapons by sight. And given the difference in internal and external lighting, the majority of the time, you would not be able to see anything but pitch black out of any window.

The only time that windows are useful is when you're in orbit of a planet or close to some other visually-interesting phenomenon, and then, primarily for "sightseeing" purposes, not for any practical reason.

I like windows for spacecraft... but in "relaxation/lounge" area, or in "sensor bay" areas only, with the latter having those windows be for sensors, not for visual "lookin' out of 'em" purposes.

Most of the time, there would be no function to having a window at all. But if you're in orbit of an earthlike planet for the first time in six months, it sure would be nice for the crew to be able to look at it during their "downtime." Just to remind them that they're not living inside a tune can.

 

[caisson2delta]

Are we even certain that the windows, shown in trek, are actually windows? Mr. Scott referred to it as transparent aluminum. I wonder if this can change it's traits to mimic a clear object when needed. I am not certain, but I do seem to remember an episode of TNG where the window, in a crew member's quarters, went dark. Perhaps I was mistaken and thinking of something else. If it is indeed some sort of hybrid metal or alloy, I would think that if should be sufficient to shield out many of the things discussed earlier.

 

[sojourner]

^Yeah, most of those reasons are why I like the "viewscreen as window" idea. You could even do things like simulated sunrises and sunsets to help psychological health and help with biological clocks.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

I do think windows are useful in deep space; the psychological state of the officers on board need to be taken in to consideration as well. Who doesn't look at the stars, and wonder...?

 

[JuanBolio]

While windows on a starship might be cool, I am in the camp that says they're unnecessary weak spots and sieves for radiation, and in the radiation-sea that is space (especially with all those antimatter, laser, and particle weapons the bad guys like to throw around, to say nothing about the doppler effect of relativistic speeds) they make about as much sense as a screen door on a submarine.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

Well, the amount of windows on the Ent-C and Ent-D do look slightly excessive, to say the least...

It doesn't look half as bad on Voyager or the Prometheus

 

[sojourner]

I do think windows are useful in deep space; the psychological state of the officers on board need to be taken in to consideration as well. Who doesn't look at the stars, and wonder...?

Unless you turn the light off in the room, most of the time all you will see is a black square.

 

[Birdog]

I do think windows are useful in deep space; the psychological state of the officers on board need to be taken in to consideration as well. Who doesn't look at the stars, and wonder...?

Unless you turn the light off in the room, most of the time all you will see is a black square.

Technically you'd see yourself. One way mirror anyone?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I do think windows are useful in deep space; the psychological state of the officers on board need to be taken in to consideration as well. Who doesn't look at the stars, and wonder...?

Something tells me the crew have better things to look at then a bunch of stars. These are Starfleet officers, not passengers or sightseers.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

I do think windows are useful in deep space; the psychological state of the officers on board need to be taken in to consideration as well. Who doesn't look at the stars, and wonder...?

Something tells me the crew have better things to look at then a bunch of stars. These are Starfleet officers, not passengers or sightseers.

You make the astronauts at the ISS sound like tourists. If studies didn't show that having windows has a positive effect on the psychological health, the ISS wouldn't have them.

 

[USS KG5]

I do think windows are useful in deep space; the psychological state of the officers on board need to be taken in to consideration as well. Who doesn't look at the stars, and wonder...?

Something tells me the crew have better things to look at then a bunch of stars. These are Starfleet officers, not passengers or sightseers.

You make the astronauts at the ISS sound like tourists. If studies didn't show that having windows has a positive effect on the psychological health, the ISS wouldn't have them.

Quite. How long would it take to go stir-crazy without windows of any kind? Not long I think, even convicted murderers legally need outside time, I'd hope astronauts and Starfleet Officers are treated better!

I do not buy the arguments here based on modern tech that Windows are bad, we have on-screen evidence that they use a substance called "transparent aluminium" which seems to be incredibly strong. Presumably the windows can also be dimmed or polarised as necessary, otherwise get within a few thousand miles of a star and everyone gets toasted.

These people have incredible technology, probably more than enough to give everyone a window without any serious negative structural issues.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I do think windows are useful in deep space; the psychological state of the officers on board need to be taken in to consideration as well. Who doesn't look at the stars, and wonder...?

Something tells me the crew have better things to look at then a bunch of stars. These are Starfleet officers, not passengers or sightseers.

You make the astronauts at the ISS sound like tourists. If studies didn't show that having windows has a positive effect on the psychological health, the ISS wouldn't have them.

For one thing, I'm not convinced the ISS astronauts aren't tourists. In any case, any possible utility served by windows would be more efficiency served by faux-window viewscreens showing sceneries of the crew's choice; at least these you can put in crew quarters that don't happen to be next to the hull, and they can display things other than stars.