[omegaman]

OK. I've watched all the TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise plus all the movies and the one piece of hardware that never seems to fail is the Gravity Generator; a critical piece of hardware that keeps people from floating around.

You'd think this item would be the target in every hostile encounter, just as much as weapons, warp drive and impulse engines. Disable the Grav Generator and you'd have a ship full of helpless humans or aliens, all floating helplessly around like newborn babies…

Of course given the rate of failure of weapons, warp drive, shields and impulse engines during battles on any of the Trek shows, it wouldn't be feasible to have your bridge cast floating around every time the Grav Generator went down…

[martok2112]

HA HA, indeed.

In fact, I think the only time we've seen the grav generator fail was on the Q'onoS One in Star Trek VI.

[jerhanner]

A foggy memory of mine seems to remember reading that gravity can be created if the ship spins as it moves. Of course, that doesn't help us when we're stationary.

[horatio]

Centrifugal forces are probably the only realistic way to emulate gravity but let's not forget that Trek is not hard sci-fi. Its stories revolve around social issues like the first contact with another species or Klingon sexuality (that's my favourite part ) and not around engineering issues like how the inertial dampeners do the trick of preventing the crew from becoming mashed potatoes when the ship accelerates.

Okuda has expressed this far better in an old article:

It's an attempt by the Trek writers to signal that they are at least aware of the issue. And how does the Heisenberg compensator work? "It works very well, thank you," says Okuda.

[Diron Hod]

TAS also had gravity go offline.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Centrifugal forces are probably the only realistic way to emulate gravity but let's not forget that Trek is not hard sci-fi. Its stories revolve around social issues like the first contact with another species or Klingon sexuality (that's my favourite part ) and not around engineering issues like how the inertial dampeners do the trick of preventing the crew from becoming mashed potatoes when the ship accelerates.

Okuda has expressed this far better in an old article:

It's an attempt by the Trek writers to signal that they are at least aware of the issue. And how does the Heisenberg compensator work? "It works very well, thank you," says Okuda.

I was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey properly again on Blu-ray just last night for the first time in many years.

Going through the extras Kubrick actually built that set as a real centrifuge for the actors to work in.

Originally Posted by Diron Hod

TAS also had gravity go offline.

Much easier to animate than do practically!

[USS_Essex]

Originally Posted by Diron Hod

TAS also had gravity go offline.

So did Enterprise. Albeit, briefly.

[martok2112]

I stand gladly corrected.

[horatio]

Originally Posted by kevin

I was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey properly again on Blu-ray just last night for the first time in many years.

Going through the extras Kubrick actually built that set as a real centrifuge for the actors to work in.

That's interesting, I have always guessed that it is a trick shot and never imagined that he actually built the thing.

[USS_Essex]

Originally Posted by horatio

That's interesting, I have always guessed that it is a trick shot and never imagined that he actually built the thing.

Here's a couple of images of the set.



That's Stanley Kubric in the chair.