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When things go really wrong in space, there's always one option left. To abandon ship. Doing this leads the crew to cram themselves into tiny escape pods then jettison themselves off into the void and hope for rescue.

One detail about escape pods on civilian ships, is that in space it might be safer to stay on board. Jettison the antimatter pods, bring up the onboard fusion plants, and everyone stays inside the existing ship.

Escape pods would be primarily used by space-based vehicles that are near habitable planets. The ASRV is nice, as it allows multiple escape pods to connect together, and yes, the food replicator on board is likely recycling ALL the waste.

The ASRV could also have another purpose, if you disable the radio and any thrust systems - prison. Just put someone on board, eject the pod, and come back in ~6 months to see if they are willing to behave. Have a carefully selected category of entertainment so the prisoner can only watch videos that are designed to bring them around to your way of thinking, and it would be very useful for dealing with people.

For more information, Atomic Rockets:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/r ... rgency.php

Coalition wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2020 4:06 amOne detail about escape pods on civilian ships, is that in space it might be safer to stay on board. Jettison the antimatter pods, bring up the onboard fusion plants, and everyone stays inside the existing ship.

Assuming all of that still works

Escape pods would be primarily used by space-based vehicles that are near habitable planets. The ASRV is nice, as it allows multiple escape pods to connect together, and yes, the food replicator on board is likely recycling ALL the waste.

Not necessarily - they'd be used in any situation when the ship needed to be abandoned. If anything they'd be less likely to be used near a planetary body, as that proximity would increase the likelihood of other spacecraft being around to assist the evacuation, and the possibility of transporters being used.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is the use of the term "lifeboat". While there are a number of similarities in terms of purpose and equipment, seagoing lifeboats are perfectly capable of conducting trans-oceanic voyages. You're never going to be able to make an interstellar voyage in an ASRV or similar, and for that reason I think they're best thought of as glorified Mae Wests or Carley floats.

The ASRV could also have another purpose, if you disable the radio and any thrust systems - prison. Just put someone on board, eject the pod, and come back in ~6 months to see if they are willing to behave. Have a carefully selected category of entertainment so the prisoner can only watch videos that are designed to bring them around to your way of thinking, and it would be very useful for dealing with people.

I can see some powers pulling that sort of stunt, but I don't see the Federation resorting to a high-tech oubliette.

I always had the view that Escape pods *in conjunction with shuttles* made sense - tractor the pods into a group, activate some mechanical links so they get grouped together, then with the shuttles, group around, and a warp bubble around them and hey presto, they can rescue themselves.

What I DONT get is when the JarJarTrek first outing showed NO escape Pods but LOTS of Shuttles, we know from the Mirror universe episode of Enterprise that the main NX-01 PROBABLY had them too.

As it stands, the Tech Specs for the galaxy (and therefore likely nebula), and the Intrepid all show the Antimatter pods as being jettisonable, but I dont think there's much on the Excelsior and others, even the TOS and TMP enterprise.