This is pretty interesting and is only a portion. Follow the link for the full thing:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Engineering.htmlStar Trek Safety
Does Star Trek engineering follow any of the principles described above? Read the following excerpts from the script of the 37th TNG episode ("Contagion"):
Worf: Sir, there is an energy build-up in the Yamato's engineering section.
Picard: Yamato, this is the Enterprise, come in Yamato.
WORF: Magnetic seals in the antimatter chamber decaying!
(The USS Yamato blows up)
...
Laforge (pointing at schematic of Yamato engine room): Sensor recordings reveal that what we witnessed was an uncontrolled and catastrophic matter/antimatter mix. The magnetic seals between the chambers collapsed --
Picard: That's not possible.
Laforge: Yes, sir, it is, but a highly improbable series of events has to take place before such an occurrence can result.
Picard: Explain.
Laforge: In the event of a breach of seal integrity there is an emergency release system which dumps the antimatter.
Data: Apparently such a dump began, was then halted, and the containment seals were dropped. There was still sufficient antimatter present to lead to the result we observed.
...
(They discover that the Enterprise is infected with the same computer virus that destroyed Yamato)
Laforge: Sir, the Enterprise computer system is a lot like our bodies with a voluntary and involuntary system. Probably ninety percent of what happens on this ship is done automatically, completely beyond our control. We're sitting on a bomb that could go any second -- or never.
Of course, this is just one of many near-disasters. If I had a dollar for every time the Enterprise nearly blew up, I'd be a rich man. Two of the most obvious problems are described in the dialogue above: emergency measures are unreliable, and the entire system, as conceptualized by the show's writers and tech advisors, is inherently unsafe. Not only do the fictional engineers of Star Trek ignore the sensible and time-tested engineering risk management principles of redundancy, diversity, isolation, and failure actuation, but whenever possible, they actually do the exact opposite! Consider:
Instead of minimizing excess reactivity, they seem to be doing everything in their power to increase it. Evidence of the high excess reactivity of a warp core can be found every time one of 'em blows up. For example, in "Generations", they knew the reactor was going to blow five minutes before it actually did, and they couldn't do anything but evacuate. In "Disaster", we saw a similar scenario; the reactor was counting down to doomsday throughout the entire second half of the episode. The only way they could stop these catastrophes was to eject the entire warp core or restore the containment field. You would think that they could simply shut off the flow of antimatter into the chamber (or at the very least, redirect it out into space), but it appears that even if they do so, the warp core contains enough unreacted fuel at any time to destroy the entire ship. It's a textbook example of extreme excess reactivity.
Instead of redundancy and diversity, they seem to have just one system for any given function. In "Contagion", they described exactly one emergency antimatter storage dump, whose failure caused the total destruction of the USS Yamato. In "The Naked Now", we found that the ship only has one central computer core, whose partial disassembly left the Enterprise helpless in the path of an oncoming chunk of iron. In several combat incidents, all of the weapons on the entire ship were disabled by a single hit. In "Generations", we found that they have only one warp core ejection system, and when it failed, the ship was doomed. They may occasionally speak of redundancy but they've given no evidence of it, so it seems apparent that the Enterprise lacks either redundancy or diversity (or both) in its critical systems.
Instead of isolating critical systems from one another, they actually merge them as much as possible! All of the ship's systems share everything from physical enclosures to sensors and of course, a common centralized computer. That is why a virus was able to spread into every conceivable system on the entire ship after starting from just one point in "Contagion", rapidly affecting everything from doors to turbolifts, replicators, lighting, weapons, shields, communications, and of course, the warp core. Instead of envisioning multiple independent systems, some of which are isolated and some of which exchange data with one another, the writers chose to envision a single "Big Brother" computer which runs everything. It knows when you've been sleeping ... it knows when you're awake ... it knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake ...
Instead of employing the "dead man's switch" principle, their entire design principle is to make the ship utterly dependent, minute by minute, second by second, on the continued operation of numerous active systems. Without the much-ballyhooed structural integrity field, the ship won't even hold together. Without various force fields and containment systems, the ship will explode in a fraction of a second. Even when they take a biohazard on board, they contain it exclusively with a forcefield, which means that the lives of the entire crew are dependent on the continued operation, millisecond by millisecond, of some forcefield generator. I know that bottles and walls may seem "primitive" to the pinheads who write the show, but they work. And in engineering, you use what works. Not necessarily the latest and greatest.
Ladies and gentlemen, Star Trek engineering is idiot engineering. If real-life technology were routinely designed this way, we would be extinct. The writers of Star Trek may wax poetic about their renowned chief engineers, but the way the ship is designed, their engineers must be morons. Worst of all, this flying disaster-in-waiting is supposedly the product of the finest engineers the Federation has to offer.
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Other Star Trek Affronts to Engineering
Star Trek's insults to the engineering profession don't stop with their insane ignorance of basic safety principles. Here are a two more recurring Star Trek technology clichés which have irritated me over the years:
They never use any low-technology solutions; can you imagine seeing a bucket or a wrench in Star Trek? When their kids go to the beach, they probably take a portable forcefield generator instead of a bucket and shovel. But in real life, engineers don't always use the most advanced technology. In fact, the most elegant engineering solutions are those that require the least technology, not the most. A good example is a machine gun; it uses a simple, elegant and robust mechanical system to eject each cartridge and load the next, based on gas pressure, springs, rods, and other low-tech principles. The simpler, the better. With modern technology, we could design a machine gun that uses miniaturized robotics instead, but why? The resulting weapon would be far more expensive, and far less reliable. It would require a power source, and software. It would be far more difficult to maintain. But in the world of Star Trek, that's exactly how they would do it. In a world where medical isolation bays use forcefields instead of walls, and where dumbbells have touch-screen controls on them, even the dumbest application of excessive technology is not only approved; it's mandatory.
They never follow any sort of prudent testing procedures. One of the best examples of this reckless stupidity was seen in "New Ground", where a "soliton wave" propulsion idea was tested for the first time. Did they test on a miniature test rig? No, they tested it on a full-sized ship. Did they test it in a vacuum chamber? No, they tested it in open space. Did they point it at an uninhabited moon? Of course not. They launched it directly toward a populated colony! The lead researcher explained that "if our theories are correct, the wave will envelop the ship and push it into warp," but if he had done proper testing beforehand, he would have had something to go on besides his "theories", and he wouldn't have been at a loss for words when everything went wrong and the Enterprise had to save the day. This is a fine example of the way that Star Trek insults the engineering profession; in their world, they go straight from pure theory to full-scale implementation with civilian lives at risk: something that no engineer would ever do. And this is just one example; how many times throughout Star Trek has some totally new idea been tried out by using the entire ship as the test rig? This is insane; would an aerospace engineer try out new theories on fully loaded passenger jets?
They routinely make the same mistake over and over again. In real life, when a failure occurs, a quality-certified engineering operation will immediately perform what is known as a FEMA, or Failure Effects Mode Analysis. The purpose of a FEMA is to figure out what caused the failure, what resulted from the failure, and what changes could be made to prevent this sort of failure from re-occurring. But in Star Trek, the same systems can fail over and over again (particularly when it comes to holodecks and warp core ejectors) and they seem to take no action whatsoever! Imagine if no corrective action was taken after a certain 92 cent O-ring destroyed the Space Shuttle.
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Solutions
If Star Trek depicted a well-designed ship, the ship would never explode from a computer virus, power failures, or low-speed impact on a warp nacelle. Such problems might cause the reactor to shut down, or they might cause the antimatter pods to eject into space, or they might cause damage to systems which happen to be in the vicinity of the impact, but that's it. Can you imagine if a real-life aircraft carrier took a minor hit above the waterline and exploded as a result? Heads would roll. Real-life ships have indeed exploded from a critical hit (the most famous example being the HMS Hood in WW2), but only when it hits the magazine. No machinery hit has ever caused such a calamity.
For example, competent engineers would have designed the warp core without all of that excess reactivity, so that it feeds only enough antimatter into the core to barely sustain the reaction. This would entirely eliminate the need for the warp core ejection system. Competent engineers would have designed the antimatter tanks so that they must be retained against a constant ejection pressure (perhaps driven by springs, gas pressure, or magnetic repulsion), thus utilizing the "dead man's switch" principle. If the containment magnets are connected in series with the tank retainer magnets, the tanks will be blown free as soon as the fields begin to weaken.
One could go on, but the point is that when the ship takes localized damage, it might lose the use of the damaged systems, but it's lousy writing to have localized damage lead immediately to shipwide failures. If it takes a hit to the photon torpedo launcher, then fine. Captain, we just lost the forward torpedo launcher, but we've still got the aft launcher. If it takes a hit to the topside phaser strip, then fine. Captain, we just lost the primary phaser array, but the secondary's OK. If it runs into a "quantum filament" and starts losing power, then fine. The antimatter tanks shoot out into space, the warp core shuts down, and they have to restart the system and call for an assist. If the ship's primary computer gets infected by a computer virus, then fine. Switch to a secondary computer core, and if that fails, simply shut the damned thing down until you can clean it out. Critical safety systems should be autonomous anyway.
Of course, I know that some smart aleck out there is thinking "well, if you were a writer, how would you do it? How are you supposed to create drama and tension if the technology never fails?" My answer is that there are ways to create drama and tension in sci-fi without using technology that resembles a house of cards, and you need look no further than Star Wars, Babylon 5, or numerous Japanese animé series to see the proof.
There's no need to construct stories around the Treknology Gone WrongTM or Ticking Time BombTM clichés when you've got bad guys flying around, enigmatic and powerful alien life forms everywhere, and all manner of natural hazards to contend with. It's just sloppy, lazy writing, designed to spoon-feed a steady diet of predigested soap-opera pap to an increasingly disinterested audience, many of whom share the writers' ignorance of science and engineering.
Topic: An Essay on Star Trek Safety Engineering (or Lack Thereof) (Read 1107 times)