Forgive me for A) possibly bringing up a subject that has already been discussed B) allowing my mind to flop into the gutter once again.
While there has been much discussion concerning the delivery of food to spacecraft crews in the various Star Trek series, I cannot recall ever having seen anything about the other end of the processing cycle.
So, if anyone knows, where are the, er, facilities on board the different Enterprise variants? Unisex or separate sex? Retention or external vent? Finally, when an away team is on an inhabited planet, what do they do when they have to go? Wouldn’t leaving nuggets behind, like, violate the prime directive or something?
Bonus question: name one of the few science fiction films to give at least a passing nod to the problems of dealing with human waste in space.
STTNG had the facilites in the crew’s quarters. I recall them showing Riker’s and Deanna’s bathrooms, though right now all I can recall seeing are the bathtubs.
Man, that’d make for an interesting plot, all right: The transporter malfunctions (I know, half the scripts start like this), and accidently teleports someone’s spleen. They then have to chase a Romulan ship in an attempt to recapture that spleen.
A.I. actually has the mother on the toilet going to the bathroom in one awkward scene.
You know what, I also seem to recall several times when a crew member went off to a conference or something in a shuttle craft and were apparantly gone for quite some time. Now that craft looks pretty small and I’m doubtful whether there were rest stops ever 60 trillion miles.
That would be in 2001: A Space Odyssey. During Heywod Floyd’s trip to the moon (the long scene on the Pan-Am space shuttle set to the tune of the Blue Danube), there is a shot with him intently reading the instructions on the use of the Zero Gravity Toilet.
The camera gradually pulls back to show that the instructions are about a mile long. Closest thing to humor in the whole film, except maybe for HAL singing “Daisy”.
Of course, the actual reason why toilets weren’t shown on TOS was because no one showed them on TV back in the 60s (not even in toilet bowl cleaner commercials).
Most SF films don’t show scenes in toilets. So? Most movies don’t show scenes in toilets.
Of course, Galaxy Quest shows exactly how Enterprise toilets should have looked liked.
Except in the crime/police genre, of course, where nearly every film since about 1970 has a scene where the hero hides and/or kicks the crap out of the bad guys in a public toilet.
All the rooms on all versions of the Enterprise are unrealistically big. Empty space costs money, so if you’re building a spaceship, you want as little of it as possible.
