Other reason for sliders doors.... They are stronger. Hinch/looks are the normal weak points. Slider doors that are in walls/tracks do not have this weakness. And they do not take more space. A door swinging open blocks hallways etc. A not all walls a structural walls. So now waste of space for a empty wall to have a door in it. Take ds9 cog doors. You want a open to space hinch door? Take subs.. Why do they have round doors?
The biggest problem is structural integrity. A door opening out or in, will not have the same durability unless the door is excessively over sized. Such as the door at NORAD or a bank. Then you are talking about even more space, volume, and weight. By sliding to the sides you can build a structure around the actual door for support. As for an iris I thought that would be obvious, but I guess not. An iris has the benefit of more durability with less volume. Well, try and work the rest of yourself. Next time share what the pros say...
I like how in sci-fi, shooting the door control panel either locks it completely or opens the locked door. Whatever is more convenient for the plot at that moment.
Could be based on the purpose of the door. Like some type of doors would be made to open when power is cut so they don't trap people, while others are made to close so they can contain fires, Hull breaches, etc.
@@davect01 well sens the other side had working controls it was kinda perdictable. at least in stargate they had to move the control and weld it into place with the zat in order to put cause the mechanism to not function due to an already present comand signal.
Star Trek doors are much more advanced than supermarket doors, as they have advanced Drama Sensors that ensure they will slide open (or shut) only once the person using them has finished their current line of dialogue, regardless of their actual proximity to said doors.
Nah, it's just Amazon Alexa listening to the conversation and waiting until the person in front of the door finishes their sentence before opening the door.
Spock falls back on the door he had just entered - why didn't the door open? In the Animated Series, we were shown electric eyes near the floor that sense a leg and open the door. It was so close to the door, though, that it should have been common to run into the door before it opens.
I'm glad you explained the door's weight in slices of cheese, I would have had a hard time visualising it otherwise. The kind of metrics science fiction needs!
The reason most "automatic" doors in sci-fi are sliding doors, is the same reason most automatic doors in our current environment are sliding doors: they don't "automatically" swing in your face or back, injuring people nearing the doors... 😁
also it is more difficult to breach (invaders or air pressure difference) if they are sliding doors. if swinging door(s) were used, should the locks malfunctioned, the invaders or air pressure just need to push/pull the door to open it, which in turn the crew/defenders would need to use/waste considerable strength and effort to keep the door shut. (also hinges are a weakness if exposed) But for sliding door(s), the invaders had to pry the doors open (other than hacking the lock or breaching via explosives), in which the crew/defenders don't need to waste their strength holding the doors shut.
@@mojojojo6535 or from getting sucked out into space. Ship: all crew members, escape. crew member A: why? Ship: you don't have a choice. Door lock malfunctioned. Door opened. crew member A: (clinging on to something from getting sucked into space) I HAVEN'T PUT ON A SPACESUIT YET!! AND WHAT MORON DESIGNED THE SHIP'S DOOR TO BE A SWINGING DOOR THAT OPENS OUTWARDS!! SOMEONE CLOSE THE DAMN THING!!!
All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.
Sliding doors have one huge advantage over swinging doors: they can shut and seal much faster, especially on high-tech vessels like Star Trek's, where they can also be used to extend and reinforce forcefields and structural integrity fields. Very handy in emergency situations, especially when you might not only have to contain atmosphere loss but also handle radiation leaks, enemy boarding parties, and hostile energy creatures. ST ships, at least the Federation's, are also usually built with a huge amount of extra space, so accommodating sliding door panels is not a big deal for them.
Also, it's very very very hard to force open a properly engineered sliding door. For doors that rotate, the obvious weak point is always the hinge, and it necessarily needs to be exposed for the door to be usable. Sliding doors have no such weakness - the mechanism keeping the door closed (some sort of piston and a strip of strong magnets, presumably) can comfortably exist behind layers of armor plating, and if the door is airtight, no gap large enough to push a lever into exists.
@@JRexRegis Yup and to show how secure a well designed sliding door is, just think of door locks most of them, especially for vaults, are sliding. A sliding door is a giant lock.
My favorite example of a silly sliding door are the ones on the Rakata homeworld in KOTOR 1. These super complicated mechanisms of a bunch of stone rods interlocking in three layers, sliding both vertically and horizontally, that have either survived since the fall of the Rakatan Infinite Empire or built by their Stone Age descendants. Those always have amused me.
It kinda makes sense to me, at least from a storytelling perspective, IMO. The fact they could invest that amount of resources and effort into doors of all things; ones that still work even after millennia, and whose added complexity grants no practical benefit; demonstrates quite clearly to the player how advanced and powerful the Rakatans actually were.
Well, that's Star Wars for you. Overwrought and underpractical in the extreme. Hey, let's put a bigass satellite dish on the roof of a starship capable of ballistic atmospheric entry! Brilliant! I'm replaying KOTOR 1 right now, actually, so I'll have to keep an eye open for the silly stone doors you speak of.
If you think about it, it's also perfectly in character for the Rakata as a decadent empire to create something so unnecessarily complex out of the most impractical of materials, purely for the aesthetic.
In defense of sliding doors: The space they take up is usually inside the wall, so its not an issue in most scenarios. Swinging doors on the other hand do eat up space inside the room that could otherwise be used for furniture, machinery or cargo.
@foxboy747 There’s also the issue of doors sliding Against the intended direction of travel. Imagine you’re trying to evacuate into or out of a room connected to a hallway: Do you want a large crowd of ppl being “pseudo-locked-into” a dangerous area bc the doors can’t swing the way you want them to??
@@UGNAvalon That’s why sliding doors are generally superior. Except when they are stupid and the for some reason need to be made up of more than one piece. A solid chunk of metal has vastly superior structural integrity than multi-piece doors.
To be fair to the Battlestar Pegasus, a fancy arrangement of spinning glass doors is exactly the thing a novelty obsessed admiralty without enemies would approve
I see your Subnautica doors and raise by ladders in Minecraft. Those things work as airlocks. Make an 1 block wide opening in a wall with water on one side, put a ladder onto the wall in the opening and you can walk through but the water magically stays outside.
@@thatspiderbyte Possible. i haven't played Minecraft in a while. It worked when I last played and water "physics" in this game have always been... unique.
"Realism isn't the only thing that matters" well said, honestly. I'm getting kind of sick of modern SF's attachment to this notion of 'realism' following the Expanse and the like, when realistically (heh) a sense of internal logic is so much more interesting and easy to invest oneself into
The expanse isn't even hard scifi. It didn't go lower tech near future designs because realism but for contrast by making the human ships grounded you drive home how far out the humans league the gate builders and the by extension the ones who casually slaughtered them are and make the alien tech and Laconians builder/human Hybrid ships look that much more impressive and threatening by comparison.
@@vonfaustien3957 I'll say nothing on the show itself - my comment wasn't a criticism on the show or how it handles its own sense of realism. Rather, I was pointing out that it's the spearhead of a trend that lots of shows are currently bending backwards to try and reach - or, rather, a large portion of the Science Fiction community are currently demanding that shows do - that I'm already kind of sick of.
If the opposite of realistic is fantastic, then there's a problem. At some point, certain groups of fans started using the term "science fantasy" as a pejorative or at least with the implication that it's not "real" science fiction. Then throw in the people who go for easy Internet points by criticizing the lack of realism in various science-fiction works and is it really that surprising that realism becomes the order of the day?
@Izzymandias I'm saying people had the wrong take away the lesson to learn from the expanse isn't near future better its observable differences in ship functionality sells tech disparity. The audience will buy a none FTl capable ship with no magic gravity or an FTL capable ship that relys on spinning habs or has no gravity as being lower tech underdogs when put up against something that has the things they lack a lot more than they will a star gate star trek shake the camera and yell off numbers as the ships slam weapons fire into each others magic sheilds style fight. Look at star gate on paper you have a suposed massive difference in tech between the races but functionally as far as what we see the ships do a goluld ship with its artificial gravity and city leveling energy weapons bearing down on earth is the same as an Ori ship with its magic gravity and city leveling energy weapons were told one has more impressive abilities but they do the same thing from a naritive standpoint. Contrast that with Halo where it's clear the human ships lack shields and are outclassed or Babylon 5 where the less advance races strap spinning habitats to longer mission war ships and we have a clear observable diffrence in tech as opossed to the cast yelling about whose stat block is larger and that's it.
Sliding doors actually make a lot of sense for the interior, as in the event of a breach, they may have to deal with a pressure differential in either direction, which could render a swinging door almost impossible to operate if it happens in the wrong direction. Also you generally don't want automatic swinging doors, they're going to hit someone.
Yeah, that's also where I would put my money. I am actually surprised there are no automatic weapons in the doors, so often as something dangerous comes through.
They are also present in shuttlebays and cargo bays as well, all of which have outer doors leading to vacuum or store hazardous materials, etc. They are clearly meant to represent reinforced doors meant to ensure that the rest of the ship isn't exposed to hazards, vacuum, etc.
@@steemlenn8797 aside from Klingons, who makes dangerous holodeck programs? You know the "safety protocols" will work 100 percent of the time if your programs only involve bunny rabbits and tribbles, but will inexplicably fail the moment you add anything capable of doing actual harm...like a rock. Yeah, bunnies have claws, but they rarely kill anybody...and when they do, the deceased usually deserves it.
@@MGower4465 Humans. Just look at the ancient west program, Dixon Hill program, or Sherlock program. Also I am sure the Klingons have programs involving tribbles. They are just a lot bloodier than the ones of other races.
Sometimes you look at a video and think: "Who asked for this?" Then you watch the video and think: "Me, apparently." Thank you for this. So specifically weird and perfect. More episodes like this: Exhaust nozzles in Sci-Fi...
You know who did missile exhausts right? _The Last Starfighter._ Exhaust gas in a wide fan as it expands into vacuum. Nothing like most sci-fi action scenes where their missiles leave distinct smoke trails.
One door reference I got a kick out of was the "shh" operated doors on the moon base in the movie Airplane 2. They were like Star Trek's sliding doors, but only opened and closed when the person near them actually SAID, "Shh".
Doors in scify, the most important plot device of the genre , you shot it and it does exactly what the writer needs at the moment. sometimes you can see the same door be shot in the same episode and they do diferent things , it's the real deus ex machina of scify.
Sliding doors have the amazing feature of being flush with most walls which allow for more space in usually restrictive spaces. Anyone who’s had to unmount a door to allow a fridge or couch through will know that pain. Besides it also prevents confusion with what direction a door swings and people potentially hitting one another from opening/closing.
My favourite sci fi doors are on Moya, they're unique, they swing not slide. The Creators of farscape didn't go the lazy style of slide doors, they went full out and made it swing in style. And even the prison cell doors are cool, eventhough they slide, they slide upwards at an angle. Moya's doors are pog
Personally, I would not trust a sliding door to hold back the vacuum of space. I will stick switching hatches and to tripping over bulkheads, thank you very much.
Yeah and preferably one that needs a human there to physically open it as a safeguard, at least if I'm on the Enterprise where the computers get taken over by an alien virus at least 4 times per season.
It could be said that swinging doors are a bit of a hazard for example during a battle if it gets loose or it is not closed properly that kind of a door swinging around on board a start trek ship mid battle or any type of shaking of the ship could cause as much injuries and death as an exploding consoles. xD
that would inply said damage broke the hinges and the lock mecanism, which inconsequence means the door itself is not a problem, current blast resistant doors swing, they are still part of modern conbat vessels, they are more resistant and rely less on auxiliary stuff (hidraulics, power)
@@nahuelleandroarroyo Modern warships don't have the added issue of having to hold in an atmosphere of pressure. If the locking mechanism on a sliding door fails, nothing will happen. If the locking mechanism on a swinging door fails, the door blasts open.
When I write sci-fi I use sliding doors on all spaceships. They're more forgiving of pressure differential than swinging door that would immediately blow fully open or be pinned shut. Iris doors are stupid though. Looks complicated as hell and would break immediately.
Interestingly tho the ISS uses iris doors for the airlock because they’re the most space-efficient, volumetrically. Anywhere where you have extra space they don’t make as much sense though
@@kaitlyn__L I can imagine that round doors make more sense in a zero gravity environment. But as soon as you have a floor, keeping that floor uninterrupted is a good idea. Therefor, at least the bottom side of the door will be flat.
One advantage of swinging doors is that a pressure loss on one side will quickly (and violently) slam the door shut, no power or sensors needed. Make a double-layered setup with two doors that open in opposite directions, and it can protect either side from a pressure loss on the other.
Also, as the door doesn't slide against the mating surfaces, it is easier to install a long-lasting air seal. Imagine how often you would have to replace the door seal on your refrigerator is the door just slid sideways. Now, if the door in question pulled out of the doorway a bit, then slid sideways on rails, you'd get the best of both methods.
@@MonkeyJedi99 One thought I had on this for a single peice sliding door, is you have seals on the face of the door just inside the door frame. The seals are not specifically in-contact with the inside of the door frame but the door does have sufficient movement that a pressure differential would cause the door to be pressed against the frame and thus pressing the seal against the frame making the needed air-tight seals without needing to have the seal constantly rubbing against the frame under normal conditions.
I like the massive round door in portal 2. Gigantic massive locked door on a humongous piston. Followed immediately by a regular 1960s pushbar commercial door
Apparently the gigantic massive door was a mistake. For some reason it was imported 5 times the size it was meant to be. The play testers loved it and the developers were like "Ok, it stays:
Ah yes the disgustingly awesome Deimos sphincter vault doors. Great to see the best of Warframe represented lol. The one thing that has always bothered me about scifi sliding doors, especially with Star Treks doors, is, with how often they get stuck closed for one reason or another, why haven't they mad a variant with a handle that you could easily pop out and the pull/push to open the door, instead of struggling to slide them open with your palms just enough to get your fingers in the opening?
I think ( and to be fair, i might be misremembering here) but one of the episodes of TNG showed the handle is to the side of the door, and you pump it to force the door open.
@@hughsmith7504 yeah sometimes there’s a pull handle behind the control panel, and sometimes there’s a stick-on handle in the emergency-kit area of the wall always just within reach, and sometimes both because the writer makes the first one fail for dramatic tension
A sliding door would make sense for an airlock - specifically a single rotating cylinder that seals both sides at once and can't physically open one without closing the other
@@SamnissArandeen A docking port doesn't need an airlock. At no point does it need to be pressurized or depressurized. If it's a docking port _that's also an airlock,_ you need to wait for it to be pressurized anyway, which is a fraction of the time involved in docking procedures, and those few extra seconds could be used for it to function as an air shower to minimize contamination risk.
@@notoriouswhitemoth I'm talking about a docking port that is also an airlock when undocked, but can function straight-through both doors open when docked. Mostly trying to save space on the exterior for more guns and armor!
@@SamnissArandeen That isn't what I'd had in mind, but again there are still ways to make that work - and docking starships isn't exactly a quick and easy procedure in the first place, because you have very large, very heavy, and often very fragile machinery in dangerous proximity in an extremely hostile (absence of) environment. Waiting no more than a minute for a revolving door to cycle is the least of its problems.
Cardassion architecture was based around "three and the circle" according to the production designers so the rolling doors were consistent with their builders mentality. You missed the Babylon 5 doors BTW, many of them pivoted up and to the side around an attachment point in an upper corner.
Love those B5 doors! In the event of a power failure, the centrifugal force of the rotating station, would swing those doors shut automatically. The actors were terrified of them, as the mechanism that kept them open on-stage broke down every so often.
Star Trek actually introduced sliding doors before they were common irl. When the show aired, they were bombarded with questions from people in technical fields about how they got the doors to open in sync and to open so quickly. Of course it was TV trickery and it was people physically sliding them open on the far side of the walls but it helped encourage efforts to make sliding doors real and practical.
I think a good rule of thumb is “If your starship or space station is expected to ever be in combat, its doors should always be navy-style bulkheads, like on Galactica.” Otherwise, do whatever works or looks cool, within reason.
The recessed area for sliding doors isn't taking up more space; it takes LESS. It's barely larger than the door itself, unlike the massive volume a hinged door sweeps through. And secondly, being reserved space, there's never an issue of a door not being able to open because people or objects are in the way. This also reduces the chance of injuries. Finally, a sliding door mechanism is equally good at withstanding vacuum in either direction, unlike a hinged door which is only good in one direction. Of course this assumes a sliding mechanism can be made airtight at all, but that's hardly far-fetched compared to literally anything else in sci-fi.
I was waiting to see footage of the extremely over the top door in The Mechanist's lair from Fallout 3 and I think Fallout 4 as well. That thing was awesome.
A door type you left out that we use on earth is a rotating seal door these are used for personnel in dangerous labs. They are open to one side only and can have an additional sliding door on them to seal them off entirely for a purge. This would make for a good airlock door. Both internal and external doors.
There are two door types that to my knowledge are pretty much never seen in sci-fi, which I think could be a really interesting fit. Firstly, there's the segmented roller-doors like on garages, and secondly, there's the folding/accordion doors. Both evoke a pretty industrial vibe, and the first takes up a lot of space, but I think the latter could work out nicely both in utility and style.
My first school had long accordion doors make of wooden segments to separate the assembly hall from the canteen, and they could be combined into one larger space if necessary because of folding up on itself. It was pretty cool, had roller tracks in the floor and a brass turny thing in the middle of the track to clasp the halves closed. It looked annoying for the cleaners to brush the debris up into the large dustpan though, everything collected in those rails which also held the debris in from being easily brushed out. I wonder why they didn’t use a vacuum… maybe budgetary issues.
@@kaitlyn__L The 'why they didn't use a vacuum' was more likely the hassle of dragging it from wherever maintenance storage was for an item which was so rarely used, if the building even had one. My high school only got a vacuum cleaner some time after the new library addition was built with carpeting. But lack of foresight is typical in municipal committee-led decision making.
@@MonkeyJedi99 yeah I don’t think they even had one, I don’t remember one being used even though 90% of my school was carpeted. They already had the hassle of carting the rest around so I doubt if that was it. Though I do note American school decisions seem to be made by committee much more than British schools. (Well, at least when I was there - most English schools have converted to “Academies” run by “Academy Trusts” which do often have parents on the board so it might be all changed now. But when I went there the “school board” had like 3 or 4 people in it.)
In the universe I'm working on I've created one piece sliding doors that are about 15cm thick and that latch mechanically about 50 cm inside of the opposing bulkhead. Each has a manual release for the latches on both sides with the door itself on a friction-less surface to help with manual opening in an emergency. I like sliding doors, and traditional hatches so I tried to come up with a hybrid.
If you're going for that level of detail, expanding (by gas injection?) air seals in the walls on both sides of the door or magnetic seals akin to, but strong that those on a refrigerator would be a good addition. Plus it gives you a regular maintenance item to keep lower ratings constantly busy checking and repairing them.
@@MonkeyJedi99 Sadly that's as far as I dared go. It's digging into the little details of stuff that may play into the story once that holds me back from actually writing it. lol I get lost in the details and just drift away on the tangent. Though that is an awesome idea!
@@AvengerBB1 When I ran a space-based tabletop game, one of the first cargos they were offered to run was airlock seals and adhesive to a remote science outpost. They ended up buying a case of the sealant and its solvent once they realized how handy it would be to glue defeated enemies to the decks and walls during a boarding action. One character would use a fallen enemy to point which direction he was clearing the ship by gluing their arm pointing that way.
@@MonkeyJedi99 God, that sounds like something my old D&D crew would do. The DM would throw us something simple that was just a small thing to kinda move the plot along and it would become some super-weapon or something. Like using large metal rivets in a sling instead of rocks. It was such a simple insignificant thing that became the path to victory! lol
Sacred Cow Shipyards did a really great breakdown of how Doors work on US Navy ships. What condition you can leave them open at, when they are kept closed, fire/pressure/watertight doors. I highly recommend it.
1:20 Actually if the sliding door is set in a wider wall the door can just slide into the door. Manual sliding doors are quite common in some areas and they're just as space efficient as swinging doors when set up properly.
My favorite are the lack of doors. Whether it’s the people who can simply walk through solid objects or the door itself that can become immaterial on command.
The doors aboard Moya, in Farscape, seemed particularly believable, whilst also appearing practical. Living ships and bio-ships are a surprisingly under-used concept, in sci-fi. And it’s nice that, where such a ship should have doors which appear to allow for sealing between internal areas of the vessel, it does all still have an “organic” look to it, without them having to stretch the series budget.
Cruise ships have thick pocket sliding doors that can seal off sections of the ship in case of fire. When open, they just look like part of the bulkhead that you walk right past without noticing.
One of the details I loved about Babylon 5 was the kind of funky sliding doors that show used. They pivot open so that if power were lost, the door would be slammed shut by the sttation's spin, which might be important if one side of the door were venting atmosphere. First place I saw that kind of detail in television. That kind of detail also exists in RDM BSG, as noted here. The Galatica's doors are heavy lock solidly, and are clearly built for retaining atmosphere. And it's a great counterpoint that the Pegasus, built by softer soldiers in a softter time, are not built with the manually operated double-failsafe sort of mentality.
Fun fact, in video games normal swinging doors are actually pretty difficult to program and make look good. Sliding doors are a cinch, in comparison. So at least there's a reason they keep popping up in video games: to cut corners for something that's not worth the hassle so they can move on to more important tasks. Happy to see Warframe pop up here and there in the episode though. Still kind of hoping to see the Sigma-series Railjack from that game show up in a normal episode of Spacedock.
I feel like this video could be followed up by another one looking in to the more unique/exotic types of door/aperture that exist in Sci-Fi. The Nano-Wall in the movie Doom comes to mind. True, it’s not called a door, but it does serve the same function.
Fun Fact: Revolving doors are continually-sealed doors. The reason the lobbies of a skyscraper use revolving doors leading out into the street is because the weight of all the cooled air sitting inside the tower would be constantly blowing out the front doors if you used anything other than the 'airlock' of a revolving door.
No, the most important thing to talk about in science fiction: the lack of representation - toilets are clearly under represented in science fiction, I can only think of about three shows that bother.
Whenever I think of those sliding Trek doors, I think of that silly fight scene from "Conspiracy" in TNG season one. The one where the alien-possessed Admiral beats up Riker and when the security team of Worf and Geordi come to investigate he then casually throws Geordi into the doors which immediately topple over like they're a table in an old timey Western saloon fight. I can't help but wonder what they're supposed to be made of and whether you can just do that to any of them.
On real-world navy ships they have big hatch doors like on the Galactica, but they usually have a latch or tie or sash or something on the wall to hold them open in case the ship lurches. You don't want a 200 pound iron door slaming shut on your leg because you hit a wave, or got hit with a Cylon nuke.
6:05 Battlestar Pegasus glass door. The way it moves is reminding me of SGA door to the room with conference table. (And one door you didn't mention is the giant cat flap from red dwarf promise land. Lol)
My family build a bedroom extension for my grandmother. We used sliding doors to get the most out of the interior space. They take up space inside a wall, but you don't use the space inside an interior wall anyway, except for pipes and electrical which can be routed above. The other reason is wheelchair accessibility, but that's probably not so important in a space show.
Perhaps one of the more interesting real-life doors are plug doors used in aircraft. They're meant to be safe from decompression, and they're why it's impossible to open that emergency exit door in flight. All of that air pressure in the aircraft is pressing the door shut. On the other hand, cargo doors don't have this safety mechanism, and both the DC-9 and 747 had incidents in which the cargo door blew open (in one case, a few rows of seats were blown out as well).
I got the impression that the cog doors were part of the callousness of Cardassian design. Starfleet designs have all these safety features; Cardassians don't give a damn if you're squashed by being too slow using the door.
Thank you for being one of the few who describe sci-fi objects in relatable terms. I would have never understood how heavy that door was had you not expressed it's weight in units of American cheese slices. :)
Sliding doors do make sense for well trodden areas of a ship. It's the reason you have them in supermarkets. If the door slides, people can more freely move in both directions. Better than having to have 2 access points for an in and an out.
I was expecting more of a discussion about why sci-fi doors refuse to be rectangular. Perhaps something about resisting pressure from any angle since there isn't any up/down if the artificial gravity is turned off.
Farscape doors are cool. The big door are hinged a 1/3 the way in to make a passage on both sides of the hinges. They act make use of this in one of the episodes where two characters chasing each other run around the door to avoid a clear line of site
The TARDIS doors in the original Dr Who were very strange, appearing totally different depending on whether they were viewed from inside or outside. Doors on ships are vital to protect riders on the storm, even for an actor out on loan or a dog without a bone. In fantasy, it's vital that a door can be held, can be held, can be held... Hodor!
There was a sci-fi movie i saw ages ago where this door was more a section of wall you could walk through when you pressed a button to make it intangible or something. I recall as they were being attacked one of the bad guys gets trapped in the wall.
Doom. w/the rock. crap film, good popcorn flick though imo. similar doors have been in other things but the only one that immediately jumps into my mind was in Stargate on Atlantis
On current space craft the doors all swing outwards dispite the pressure difference because the Apolo 1 crew died in a fire when the air pressure prevented them from escaping. It was quite a tragic discovery
B5 has upward swinging pocket doors. This allows the door to fall into place in the event of a power outage unlike the ST doors which need someone to pull them shut. Or make a shushing sound at them.
I’d like to make a request for a possible theory and speculation video. The topic: Why didn’t Galactica ever take the time to retrofit it’s second flight pod from a museum back into a working flight deck/hanger? They had a whole year to do so while over New Caprica, yet the ship never gets both flight pods up and running, a feat which would double their fighter capacity (with Pegasus’ manufactured Vipers) if completely.
Fun fact - a real iris cannot close all the way in. It will always leave a tiny empty circle in the middle. You could have fancy "double" irises that do close all the way, and block all light direct line of sight to the other end, but even they are in no way airtight - they just work by essentially "offsetting" the central hole off to opposite directions, but the holes are still there, and are technically connected!
Fantastic. Both in decribing how something otherwise innocuous has such a big impact on the setting and also just how many sci fi universes you pulled from
In my own sci-fi property most doors on spacecraft are either round or rectangular with rounded corners, and either swing open or slide, pulling inward first to sort of hug the wall. This is for the same reason doors on planes, submarines, and real-life spacecraft are constructed like that :D
It's possible to have a sliding door that seals into its jamb (unlike a barn door) allowing it to be airtight, but without requiring a pocket in the wall. I direct you to *Minivan* doors!
I suspect that the prevalence of sliding doors in videogames is largely influenced by early technical limitations. Doom and early versions of Quake couldn't have rotating level geometry, but were able to translate them horizontally or vertically.
While not sci-fi, my favourite movie sliding doors were those on the moon base in Airplane 2. They were voice activated using "shhhh" and made the same "shhhh" noise when opening/closing.
The doors in the Pegasus CIC on Battlestar Galatica look so different in part because the set was a redress of one originally built for the pilot of a failed Lost in Space reboot. So they were designed with a completely different aesthetic in mind.
aww man, I was really hoping this was a montage of people getting crushed, killed, or cut in half by needlessly-dangerous hydraulic doors that apparently have no safety systems. I friggen love deadly killer future doors lol
For my sci-fi setting, Terran ships have inward swinging airtight doors/hatches (there is a difference) separating every compartment. When at Material Condition Zebra, these doors form an airlock between them, so adjacent compartments are not affected in the event of a breach.
The game FTL does this really right. I often love upgrading my doors system, especially if I'm running against boarders. The doors are a secondary system, but they are treated as critically important to the ship and crew.
And heres me imagining Jim Morrison and the lads on the bridge of a Star Destroyer, Jim with his feet up and 'Light my fire' playing in the background.
Check out #TheSojourn here!
www.thesojournaudiodrama.com/
Other reason for sliders doors.... They are stronger. Hinch/looks are the normal weak points. Slider doors that are in walls/tracks do not have this weakness.
And they do not take more space. A door swinging open blocks hallways etc.
A not all walls a structural walls. So now waste of space for a empty wall to have a door in it.
Take ds9 cog doors. You want a open to space hinch door?
Take subs.. Why do they have round doors?
You forgot about the energy field door like in the hanger bays of Star Wars ships
will you guys ever do anything on gundam
The biggest problem is structural integrity. A door opening out or in, will not have the same durability unless the door is excessively over sized. Such as the door at NORAD or a bank. Then you are talking about even more space, volume, and weight.
By sliding to the sides you can build a structure around the actual door for support.
As for an iris I thought that would be obvious, but I guess not. An iris has the benefit of more durability with less volume.
Well, try and work the rest of yourself. Next time share what the pros say...
I like how in sci-fi, shooting the door control panel either locks it completely or opens the locked door. Whatever is more convenient for the plot at that moment.
Yes. I wonder how the door knows that. Or why nobody has the idea to just make a button "plot close" instead.
Could be based on the purpose of the door. Like some type of doors would be made to open when power is cut so they don't trap people, while others are made to close so they can contain fires, Hull breaches, etc.
Ask Luke Skywalker how well shooting the door controls works
@@davect01 well sens the other side had working controls it was kinda perdictable. at least in stargate they had to move the control and weld it into place with the zat in order to put cause the mechanism to not function due to an already present comand signal.
@@battlesheep2552 like how all jail cell doors/shields instantly disappear when you shoot the controls! That is absolutely what should happen! ;)
Star Trek doors are much more advanced than supermarket doors, as they have advanced Drama Sensors that ensure they will slide open (or shut) only once the person using them has finished their current line of dialogue, regardless of their actual proximity to said doors.
I've wondered about that myself and came up with excuses, like maybe you have to be facing the door as well to open.
@@andjoa1975 But then why doesn't it close when you're not looking at it?
Maybe they have brain wifi implant that they use to send the signal for the door to open when they need it?
Nah, it's just Amazon Alexa listening to the conversation and waiting until the person in front of the door finishes their sentence before opening the door.
Spock falls back on the door he had just entered - why didn't the door open? In the Animated Series, we were shown electric eyes near the floor that sense a leg and open the door. It was so close to the door, though, that it should have been common to run into the door before it opens.
If there's one thing I've learned from all my hours of playing FTL, your doors are _definitely_ the most critical and useful system on your spaceship.
100%. Always upgrade doors.
And when you pair them with a clone bay...
*Medical Airlock.*
God FTL is such a cool game. Tactical depressurization is an underused response to being boarded
@@JRexRegis Well, that's because boarders usually have pressure suits
@@rommdan2716 just yeet them into space
I'm glad you explained the door's weight in slices of cheese, I would have had a hard time visualising it otherwise. The kind of metrics science fiction needs!
Door weight is measure in cheese. Just as asteriods are measure in number of giraffe halfs.
This channel expands our mind!
I prefer measurements of speed to be in Smoots per Microfortnight. Yes, those are both real units of measure.
@@buster6027 the asteroid thing is just a misconception. you gota specify that they use the front half of a giraffe.
Where Banana for scale?
The reason most "automatic" doors in sci-fi are sliding doors, is the same reason most automatic doors in our current environment are sliding doors: they don't "automatically" swing in your face or back, injuring people nearing the doors... 😁
That's a very good point!
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
also it is more difficult to breach (invaders or air pressure difference) if they are sliding doors.
if swinging door(s) were used, should the locks malfunctioned, the invaders or air pressure just need to push/pull the door to open it, which in turn the crew/defenders would need to use/waste considerable strength and effort to keep the door shut.
(also hinges are a weakness if exposed)
But for sliding door(s), the invaders had to pry the doors open (other than hacking the lock or breaching via explosives), in which the crew/defenders don't need to waste their strength holding the doors shut.
A small pressure difference will make hinged doors impossible to open.
@@schwarzerritter5724 or easier (dangerously) depending on which way the door opens.
@@mojojojo6535 or from getting sucked out into space.
Ship: all crew members, escape.
crew member A: why?
Ship: you don't have a choice. Door lock malfunctioned. Door opened.
crew member A: (clinging on to something from getting sucked into space) I HAVEN'T PUT ON A SPACESUIT YET!! AND WHAT MORON DESIGNED THE SHIP'S DOOR TO BE A SWINGING DOOR THAT OPENS OUTWARDS!!
SOMEONE CLOSE THE DAMN THING!!!
All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.
As you can hear when they settle in their locks with a cozy pfffff.
I was a little disappointed when the video ended with no mention of the Heart of Gold's doors...
@@danieloberhofer9035 how depressing
So self satisfied....life....
Did that door just sigh?
Sliding doors have one huge advantage over swinging doors: they can shut and seal much faster, especially on high-tech vessels like Star Trek's, where they can also be used to extend and reinforce forcefields and structural integrity fields. Very handy in emergency situations, especially when you might not only have to contain atmosphere loss but also handle radiation leaks, enemy boarding parties, and hostile energy creatures. ST ships, at least the Federation's, are also usually built with a huge amount of extra space, so accommodating sliding door panels is not a big deal for them.
Imagine if they were smart enough to build such doors for cells keeping incredibly dangerous prisoners in.
Also, it's very very very hard to force open a properly engineered sliding door. For doors that rotate, the obvious weak point is always the hinge, and it necessarily needs to be exposed for the door to be usable. Sliding doors have no such weakness - the mechanism keeping the door closed (some sort of piston and a strip of strong magnets, presumably) can comfortably exist behind layers of armor plating, and if the door is airtight, no gap large enough to push a lever into exists.
@@compmanio36 Surely you jest. Guard close the door that can be banged open.
@@JRexRegis Yup and to show how secure a well designed sliding door is, just think of door locks most of them, especially for vaults, are sliding. A sliding door is a giant lock.
They have to host the crew who's job it is to open and shut the doors when needed.
My favorite example of a silly sliding door are the ones on the Rakata homeworld in KOTOR 1. These super complicated mechanisms of a bunch of stone rods interlocking in three layers, sliding both vertically and horizontally, that have either survived since the fall of the Rakatan Infinite Empire or built by their Stone Age descendants. Those always have amused me.
It kinda makes sense to me, at least from a storytelling perspective, IMO. The fact they could invest that amount of resources and effort into doors of all things; ones that still work even after millennia, and whose added complexity grants no practical benefit; demonstrates quite clearly to the player how advanced and powerful the Rakatans actually were.
Well, that's Star Wars for you. Overwrought and underpractical in the extreme. Hey, let's put a bigass satellite dish on the roof of a starship capable of ballistic atmospheric entry! Brilliant!
I'm replaying KOTOR 1 right now, actually, so I'll have to keep an eye open for the silly stone doors you speak of.
If you think about it, it's also perfectly in character for the Rakata as a decadent empire to create something so unnecessarily complex out of the most impractical of materials, purely for the aesthetic.
In defense of sliding doors: The space they take up is usually inside the wall, so its not an issue in most scenarios. Swinging doors on the other hand do eat up space inside the room that could otherwise be used for furniture, machinery or cargo.
But what if they swing out to the hall?
@foxboy747 There’s also the issue of doors sliding Against the intended direction of travel.
Imagine you’re trying to evacuate into or out of a room connected to a hallway: Do you want a large crowd of ppl being “pseudo-locked-into” a dangerous area bc the doors can’t swing the way you want them to??
@@UGNAvalon That’s why sliding doors are generally superior. Except when they are stupid and the for some reason need to be made up of more than one piece. A solid chunk of metal has vastly superior structural integrity than multi-piece doors.
@@foxboy747, if they swing out to the hallway, passageway, corridor, then they are a personnel hazard for those traveling in that space.
On the other hand, when the door is closed, there is now a gap in the wall.
To be fair to the Battlestar Pegasus, a fancy arrangement of spinning glass doors is exactly the thing a novelty obsessed admiralty without enemies would approve
Obviously, the doors in Subnautica are superior- they can form air/water-tight seals without obstructing the passage of solids (ie the player)
I see your Subnautica doors and raise by ladders in Minecraft.
Those things work as airlocks. Make an 1 block wide opening in a wall with water on one side, put a ladder onto the wall in the opening and you can walk through but the water magically stays outside.
@@Bird_Dog00 I thought that didn't work any more because blocks can be waterlogged now?
@@thatspiderbyte Possible.
i haven't played Minecraft in a while.
It worked when I last played and water "physics" in this game have always been... unique.
@@thatspiderbyte They are only water logged if placed directly on a water source block (i.e. just use a bucket to pick up the water and you're good)
"Realism isn't the only thing that matters" well said, honestly. I'm getting kind of sick of modern SF's attachment to this notion of 'realism' following the Expanse and the like, when realistically (heh) a sense of internal logic is so much more interesting and easy to invest oneself into
Cheese doors for all!
The expanse isn't even hard scifi. It didn't go lower tech near future designs because realism but for contrast by making the human ships grounded you drive home how far out the humans league the gate builders and the by extension the ones who casually slaughtered them are and make the alien tech and Laconians builder/human Hybrid ships look that much more impressive and threatening by comparison.
@@vonfaustien3957 I'll say nothing on the show itself - my comment wasn't a criticism on the show or how it handles its own sense of realism. Rather, I was pointing out that it's the spearhead of a trend that lots of shows are currently bending backwards to try and reach - or, rather, a large portion of the Science Fiction community are currently demanding that shows do - that I'm already kind of sick of.
If the opposite of realistic is fantastic, then there's a problem. At some point, certain groups of fans started using the term "science fantasy" as a pejorative or at least with the implication that it's not "real" science fiction. Then throw in the people who go for easy Internet points by criticizing the lack of realism in various science-fiction works and is it really that surprising that realism becomes the order of the day?
@Izzymandias I'm saying people had the wrong take away the lesson to learn from the expanse isn't near future better its observable differences in ship functionality sells tech disparity.
The audience will buy a none FTl capable ship with no magic gravity or an FTL capable ship that relys on spinning habs or has no gravity as being lower tech underdogs when put up against something that has the things they lack a lot more than they will a star gate star trek shake the camera and yell off numbers as the ships slam weapons fire into each others magic sheilds style fight.
Look at star gate on paper you have a suposed massive difference in tech between the races but functionally as far as what we see the ships do a goluld ship with its artificial gravity and city leveling energy weapons bearing down on earth is the same as an Ori ship with its magic gravity and city leveling energy weapons were told one has more impressive abilities but they do the same thing from a naritive standpoint.
Contrast that with Halo where it's clear the human ships lack shields and are outclassed or Babylon 5 where the less advance races strap spinning habitats to longer mission war ships and we have a clear observable diffrence in tech as opossed to the cast yelling about whose stat block is larger and that's it.
The internal doors/hatches on Serenity leading to the crew quarters are interesting, as they double as ladders too.
Sliding doors actually make a lot of sense for the interior, as in the event of a breach, they may have to deal with a pressure differential in either direction, which could render a swinging door almost impossible to operate if it happens in the wrong direction. Also you generally don't want automatic swinging doors, they're going to hit someone.
Also, a swinging door might open so violently with pressure differential that it could crush someone behind it.
Given what goes on in holodecks, I'm sure the big interlocking reinforced doors are there to make sure it stays in the holodeck
Yeah, that's also where I would put my money. I am actually surprised there are no automatic weapons in the doors, so often as something dangerous comes through.
They are also present in shuttlebays and cargo bays as well, all of which have outer doors leading to vacuum or store hazardous materials, etc. They are clearly meant to represent reinforced doors meant to ensure that the rest of the ship isn't exposed to hazards, vacuum, etc.
@@steemlenn8797 aside from Klingons, who makes dangerous holodeck programs? You know the "safety protocols" will work 100 percent of the time if your programs only involve bunny rabbits and tribbles, but will inexplicably fail the moment you add anything capable of doing actual harm...like a rock. Yeah, bunnies have claws, but they rarely kill anybody...and when they do, the deceased usually deserves it.
@@MGower4465 Humans. Just look at the ancient west program, Dixon Hill program, or Sherlock program.
Also I am sure the Klingons have programs involving tribbles. They are just a lot bloodier than the ones of other races.
@@MGower4465 Don't forget a simple bacterial cold from a skiing simulation!
Sometimes you look at a video and think: "Who asked for this?" Then you watch the video and think: "Me, apparently." Thank you for this. So specifically weird and perfect. More episodes like this: Exhaust nozzles in Sci-Fi...
You know who did missile exhausts right? _The Last Starfighter._ Exhaust gas in a wide fan as it expands into vacuum. Nothing like most sci-fi action scenes where their missiles leave distinct smoke trails.
One door reference I got a kick out of was the "shh" operated doors on the moon base in the movie Airplane 2.
They were like Star Trek's sliding doors, but only opened and closed when the person near them actually SAID, "Shh".
Doors in scify, the most important plot device of the genre , you shot it and it does exactly what the writer needs at the moment. sometimes you can see the same door be shot in the same episode and they do diferent things , it's the real deus ex machina of scify.
Unless you're Samus Aran. Then shooting (unlocked) doors *always* opens them
Sliding doors have the amazing feature of being flush with most walls which allow for more space in usually restrictive spaces.
Anyone who’s had to unmount a door to allow a fridge or couch through will know that pain.
Besides it also prevents confusion with what direction a door swings and people potentially hitting one another from opening/closing.
Huge fan of the incredibly-long-by-comparison and compeletely unrelated clip of SG-1's "Who shot me?"
This is the content I'm here for.
My favourite sci fi doors are on Moya, they're unique, they swing not slide. The Creators of farscape didn't go the lazy style of slide doors, they went full out and made it swing in style. And even the prison cell doors are cool, eventhough they slide, they slide upwards at an angle.
Moya's doors are pog
underrated series. always thought the doors were a really cool design feature on Moya. even the shuttle bay doors were visually interesting.
Those doors on Moya come complete with light fixtures and little DRD catflaps. They've thought of everything!
@@hansakkerman2611 Absolutely. The Creators of Farscape never cease to amaze me.
Personally, I would not trust a sliding door to hold back the vacuum of space. I will stick switching hatches and to tripping over bulkheads, thank you very much.
Better than an outward opening door... aircraft cargo doors!!!
Yeah and preferably one that needs a human there to physically open it as a safeguard, at least if I'm on the Enterprise where the computers get taken over by an alien virus at least 4 times per season.
But what really makes a science fiction door is having that door do whatever you need to at that precise moment by shooting the door control panel
It could be said that swinging doors are a bit of a hazard for example during a battle if it gets loose or it is not closed properly that kind of a door swinging around on board a start trek ship mid battle or any type of shaking of the ship could cause as much injuries and death as an exploding consoles. xD
that would inply said damage broke the hinges and the lock mecanism, which inconsequence means the door itself is not a problem, current blast resistant doors swing, they are still part of modern conbat vessels, they are more resistant and rely less on auxiliary stuff (hidraulics, power)
@@nahuelleandroarroyo yes but combat vessel's don't have brats running around not closing door's 😂
The exploding console makers wouldn't like that. They'd have to redesign with more shrapnel to keep up.
@@nahuelleandroarroyo Modern warships don't have the added issue of having to hold in an atmosphere of pressure. If the locking mechanism on a sliding door fails, nothing will happen. If the locking mechanism on a swinging door fails, the door blasts open.
@@cynderfan2233 If the locking mechanism of a sliding door fails, you now have a guillotine!
When I write sci-fi I use sliding doors on all spaceships. They're more forgiving of pressure differential than swinging door that would immediately blow fully open or be pinned shut. Iris doors are stupid though. Looks complicated as hell and would break immediately.
Love the iris on the stargate, though
Interestingly tho the ISS uses iris doors for the airlock because they’re the most space-efficient, volumetrically. Anywhere where you have extra space they don’t make as much sense though
@@kaitlyn__L I can imagine that round doors make more sense in a zero gravity environment. But as soon as you have a floor, keeping that floor uninterrupted is a good idea. Therefor, at least the bottom side of the door will be flat.
@@kaitlyn__L Iris doors on the ISS airlock door?
The doors on the ISS airlock are round but none of them are an iris. The airlock doors have hinges.
You write sci fi:0?
One advantage of swinging doors is that a pressure loss on one side will quickly (and violently) slam the door shut, no power or sensors needed. Make a double-layered setup with two doors that open in opposite directions, and it can protect either side from a pressure loss on the other.
Also, as the door doesn't slide against the mating surfaces, it is easier to install a long-lasting air seal.
Imagine how often you would have to replace the door seal on your refrigerator is the door just slid sideways.
Now, if the door in question pulled out of the doorway a bit, then slid sideways on rails, you'd get the best of both methods.
@@MonkeyJedi99 One thought I had on this for a single peice sliding door, is you have seals on the face of the door just inside the door frame. The seals are not specifically in-contact with the inside of the door frame but the door does have sufficient movement that a pressure differential would cause the door to be pressed against the frame and thus pressing the seal against the frame making the needed air-tight seals without needing to have the seal constantly rubbing against the frame under normal conditions.
@@Krahazik That's a good idea. Thanks for sharing, it will help with that aspect in an upcoming TTRPG I'm running.
Oh yes, the kind of content I was looking for
I like the massive round door in portal 2. Gigantic massive locked door on a humongous piston. Followed immediately by a regular 1960s pushbar commercial door
Apparently the gigantic massive door was a mistake. For some reason it was imported 5 times the size it was meant to be.
The play testers loved it and the developers were like "Ok, it stays:
Ah yes the disgustingly awesome Deimos sphincter vault doors. Great to see the best of Warframe represented lol.
The one thing that has always bothered me about scifi sliding doors, especially with Star Treks doors, is, with how often they get stuck closed for one reason or another, why haven't they mad a variant with a handle that you could easily pop out and the pull/push to open the door, instead of struggling to slide them open with your palms just enough to get your fingers in the opening?
I think ( and to be fair, i might be misremembering here) but one of the episodes of TNG showed the handle is to the side of the door, and you pump it to force the door open.
Because there's no drama in that
@@hughsmith7504 yeah sometimes there’s a pull handle behind the control panel, and sometimes there’s a stick-on handle in the emergency-kit area of the wall always just within reach, and sometimes both because the writer makes the first one fail for dramatic tension
Opening a stuck door works best if you and the others forcing the door engage in the Mak'tar battle chant.
Here’s an idea for April fools video: the little Einsteins rocket ship breakdown
Planet Express breakdown
A sliding door would make sense for an airlock - specifically a single rotating cylinder that seals both sides at once and can't physically open one without closing the other
Pain in the ass if it has to double as a docking port and you can never cleanly pass straight through.
@@SamnissArandeen A docking port doesn't need an airlock. At no point does it need to be pressurized or depressurized. If it's a docking port _that's also an airlock,_ you need to wait for it to be pressurized anyway, which is a fraction of the time involved in docking procedures, and those few extra seconds could be used for it to function as an air shower to minimize contamination risk.
@@notoriouswhitemoth I'm talking about a docking port that is also an airlock when undocked, but can function straight-through both doors open when docked. Mostly trying to save space on the exterior for more guns and armor!
@@SamnissArandeen That isn't what I'd had in mind, but again there are still ways to make that work - and docking starships isn't exactly a quick and easy procedure in the first place, because you have very large, very heavy, and often very fragile machinery in dangerous proximity in an extremely hostile (absence of) environment. Waiting no more than a minute for a revolving door to cycle is the least of its problems.
@@notoriouswhitemoth But once you're docked, it's still like that. completing cargo transfers through that is way more of a pain.
Cardassion architecture was based around "three and the circle" according to the production designers so the rolling doors were consistent with their builders mentality.
You missed the Babylon 5 doors BTW, many of them pivoted up and to the side around an attachment point in an upper corner.
you got a source for the cardassian design? tried googling but no dice.
Love those B5 doors! In the event of a power failure, the centrifugal force of the rotating station, would swing those doors shut automatically. The actors were terrified of them, as the mechanism that kept them open on-stage broke down every so often.
@@ObeseMcDese The DS9 Technical Manual mentions it I think but I'm sure first saw it on the inset blurb for the VHS release a very long time ago.
@@stamfordly6463 it’s in the TM for sure but it’s also in the series bible they distributed to writers :)
If I ever win the lotto I will have garage doors made to look like the DS9 rolly doors
Star Trek actually introduced sliding doors before they were common irl. When the show aired, they were bombarded with questions from people in technical fields about how they got the doors to open in sync and to open so quickly. Of course it was TV trickery and it was people physically sliding them open on the far side of the walls but it helped encourage efforts to make sliding doors real and practical.
Startrek sparking innovations like that are why i became a fan and technical guy myself.
The sliding door from space engineers is perfect. It is split in two and it folds inwards, It also has a window.
I think a good rule of thumb is “If your starship or space station is expected to ever be in combat, its doors should always be navy-style bulkheads, like on Galactica.” Otherwise, do whatever works or looks cool, within reason.
The recessed area for sliding doors isn't taking up more space; it takes LESS. It's barely larger than the door itself, unlike the massive volume a hinged door sweeps through. And secondly, being reserved space, there's never an issue of a door not being able to open because people or objects are in the way. This also reduces the chance of injuries.
Finally, a sliding door mechanism is equally good at withstanding vacuum in either direction, unlike a hinged door which is only good in one direction.
Of course this assumes a sliding mechanism can be made airtight at all, but that's hardly far-fetched compared to literally anything else in sci-fi.
A problem I see with sliding doors is that the wall they are sliding into need to be hollow thus are a structural weakness.
@@CathrineMacNiel Or, y'know, you could design for the necessary strength on one or both sides. That's how engineering works.
I was waiting to see footage of the extremely over the top door in The Mechanist's lair from Fallout 3 and I think Fallout 4 as well. That thing was awesome.
There's a pretty crazy one in New Vegas, in the Helios One building.
Door as secret antagonist - something right out of the Hitchhiker's Guide
I wasn't expecting Warframe footage to pop up in this video. A suprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Do you like my fashionframe?
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
@@hoojiwana I really do. I love how royal you made Garuda look with her cape and coloration
@@sage_thunderleaf487 Thanks! Hopefully her prime parts drop quickly but knowing my luck they won't.
@@hoojiwana Such is our way in Warframe. I wish you luck on your future grind!
Love seeing the Warframes make an appearance in a Spacedock vid. Hopefully ya'll do some content on Tenno technology sometime!
A door type you left out that we use on earth is a rotating seal door these are used for personnel in dangerous labs. They are open to one side only and can have an additional sliding door on them to seal them off entirely for a purge. This would make for a good airlock door. Both internal and external doors.
He who controls the doors controls space itself.
Looks like my crippling debt to the spaceship academy is paying for itself already! Hahaha *intense sobbing*
There are two door types that to my knowledge are pretty much never seen in sci-fi, which I think could be a really interesting fit. Firstly, there's the segmented roller-doors like on garages, and secondly, there's the folding/accordion doors. Both evoke a pretty industrial vibe, and the first takes up a lot of space, but I think the latter could work out nicely both in utility and style.
My first school had long accordion doors make of wooden segments to separate the assembly hall from the canteen, and they could be combined into one larger space if necessary because of folding up on itself. It was pretty cool, had roller tracks in the floor and a brass turny thing in the middle of the track to clasp the halves closed.
It looked annoying for the cleaners to brush the debris up into the large dustpan though, everything collected in those rails which also held the debris in from being easily brushed out. I wonder why they didn’t use a vacuum… maybe budgetary issues.
@@kaitlyn__L The 'why they didn't use a vacuum' was more likely the hassle of dragging it from wherever maintenance storage was for an item which was so rarely used, if the building even had one.
My high school only got a vacuum cleaner some time after the new library addition was built with carpeting. But lack of foresight is typical in municipal committee-led decision making.
@@MonkeyJedi99 yeah I don’t think they even had one, I don’t remember one being used even though 90% of my school was carpeted. They already had the hassle of carting the rest around so I doubt if that was it. Though I do note American school decisions seem to be made by committee much more than British schools. (Well, at least when I was there - most English schools have converted to “Academies” run by “Academy Trusts” which do often have parents on the board so it might be all changed now. But when I went there the “school board” had like 3 or 4 people in it.)
In the universe I'm working on I've created one piece sliding doors that are about 15cm thick and that latch mechanically about 50 cm inside of the opposing bulkhead. Each has a manual release for the latches on both sides with the door itself on a friction-less surface to help with manual opening in an emergency. I like sliding doors, and traditional hatches so I tried to come up with a hybrid.
If you're going for that level of detail, expanding (by gas injection?) air seals in the walls on both sides of the door or magnetic seals akin to, but strong that those on a refrigerator would be a good addition. Plus it gives you a regular maintenance item to keep lower ratings constantly busy checking and repairing them.
@@MonkeyJedi99 Sadly that's as far as I dared go. It's digging into the little details of stuff that may play into the story once that holds me back from actually writing it. lol I get lost in the details and just drift away on the tangent. Though that is an awesome idea!
@@AvengerBB1 When I ran a space-based tabletop game, one of the first cargos they were offered to run was airlock seals and adhesive to a remote science outpost.
They ended up buying a case of the sealant and its solvent once they realized how handy it would be to glue defeated enemies to the decks and walls during a boarding action.
One character would use a fallen enemy to point which direction he was clearing the ship by gluing their arm pointing that way.
@@MonkeyJedi99 God, that sounds like something my old D&D crew would do. The DM would throw us something simple that was just a small thing to kinda move the plot along and it would become some super-weapon or something. Like using large metal rivets in a sling instead of rocks. It was such a simple insignificant thing that became the path to victory! lol
Sacred Cow Shipyards did a really great breakdown of how Doors work on US Navy ships. What condition you can leave them open at, when they are kept closed, fire/pressure/watertight doors. I highly recommend it.
Love that channel!
This is the strange niche minute details we crave!
1:20 Actually if the sliding door is set in a wider wall the door can just slide into the door. Manual sliding doors are quite common in some areas and they're just as space efficient as swinging doors when set up properly.
I've never been so enthralled by a video about doors
My favorite are the lack of doors. Whether it’s the people who can simply walk through solid objects or the door itself that can become immaterial on command.
The doors aboard Moya, in Farscape, seemed particularly believable, whilst also appearing practical. Living ships and bio-ships are a surprisingly under-used concept, in sci-fi. And it’s nice that, where such a ship should have doors which appear to allow for sealing between internal areas of the vessel, it does all still have an “organic” look to it, without them having to stretch the series budget.
automatic doors are fun IRL and so convenient that it is no wonder that they have them in sci fi
Cruise ships have thick pocket sliding doors that can seal off sections of the ship in case of fire. When open, they just look like part of the bulkhead that you walk right past without noticing.
One of the details I loved about Babylon 5 was the kind of funky sliding doors that show used. They pivot open so that if power were lost, the door would be slammed shut by the sttation's spin, which might be important if one side of the door were venting atmosphere. First place I saw that kind of detail in television.
That kind of detail also exists in RDM BSG, as noted here. The Galatica's doors are heavy lock solidly, and are clearly built for retaining atmosphere. And it's a great counterpoint that the Pegasus, built by softer soldiers in a softter time, are not built with the manually operated double-failsafe sort of mentality.
Fun fact, in video games normal swinging doors are actually pretty difficult to program and make look good. Sliding doors are a cinch, in comparison. So at least there's a reason they keep popping up in video games: to cut corners for something that's not worth the hassle so they can move on to more important tasks.
Happy to see Warframe pop up here and there in the episode though. Still kind of hoping to see the Sigma-series Railjack from that game show up in a normal episode of Spacedock.
I feel like this video could be followed up by another one looking in to the more unique/exotic types of door/aperture that exist in Sci-Fi. The Nano-Wall in the movie Doom comes to mind. True, it’s not called a door, but it does serve the same function.
Doom nanowalls was top notch sci-fi for me, and is badly underrated
Fun Fact: Revolving doors are continually-sealed doors. The reason the lobbies of a skyscraper use revolving doors leading out into the street is because the weight of all the cooled air sitting inside the tower would be constantly blowing out the front doors if you used anything other than the 'airlock' of a revolving door.
No, the most important thing to talk about in science fiction: the lack of representation - toilets are clearly under represented in science fiction, I can only think of about three shows that bother.
But there's already a Spacedock video about that!
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
@@hoojiwana I’ll take a look, I must have missed that one.
Ahh found it, 3 yrs ago.
Babylon 5 had toilets for methane-breathers.
Off the top of my head, there are at least 5: Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Cowboy Bebop, Firefly and The Expanse
@@thatstarwarsnerd6641 Add Lex the dark zone to that.
They toilets are even used to recycle every äh waste product back into nutrition for the ship.
Whenever I think of those sliding Trek doors, I think of that silly fight scene from "Conspiracy" in TNG season one. The one where the alien-possessed Admiral beats up Riker and when the security team of Worf and Geordi come to investigate he then casually throws Geordi into the doors which immediately topple over like they're a table in an old timey Western saloon fight. I can't help but wonder what they're supposed to be made of and whether you can just do that to any of them.
On real-world navy ships they have big hatch doors like on the Galactica, but they usually have a latch or tie or sash or something on the wall to hold them open in case the ship lurches. You don't want a 200 pound iron door slaming shut on your leg because you hit a wave, or got hit with a Cylon nuke.
The content of this video is immaculate. But the use of Nujabes beats? Perfection incarnate.
Don't forget Phased Doors, sections of wall which turn intangible when opened, allowing for seamless and hidden doorways
6:05 Battlestar Pegasus glass door. The way it moves is reminding me of SGA door to the room with conference table. (And one door you didn't mention is the giant cat flap from red dwarf promise land. Lol)
My family build a bedroom extension for my grandmother. We used sliding doors to get the most out of the interior space. They take up space inside a wall, but you don't use the space inside an interior wall anyway, except for pipes and electrical which can be routed above. The other reason is wheelchair accessibility, but that's probably not so important in a space show.
The reason I come here to this channel is to hear detailed discussions of the totally inane aspects of sci fi in a British voice, Brilliant 👏!
Perhaps one of the more interesting real-life doors are plug doors used in aircraft. They're meant to be safe from decompression, and they're why it's impossible to open that emergency exit door in flight. All of that air pressure in the aircraft is pressing the door shut.
On the other hand, cargo doors don't have this safety mechanism, and both the DC-9 and 747 had incidents in which the cargo door blew open (in one case, a few rows of seats were blown out as well).
I got the impression that the cog doors were part of the callousness of Cardassian design. Starfleet designs have all these safety features; Cardassians don't give a damn if you're squashed by being too slow using the door.
Thank you for being one of the few who describe sci-fi objects in relatable terms.
I would have never understood how heavy that door was had you not expressed it's weight in units of American cheese slices. :)
Sometimes my brain hears "spaceduck" or "spacedog" and it is a wonderful thing I like about your videos that you probably have no idea happens.
Food for thought in my own sci-fi game. Thank you!
I waited for the TRON door mention and was not disappointed. Also kudos for so many Warframe doors. Truly that game is the King of Doorplay.
Sliding doors do make sense for well trodden areas of a ship. It's the reason you have them in supermarkets. If the door slides, people can more freely move in both directions. Better than having to have 2 access points for an in and an out.
Nobody talking about the best door in fiction? The sighing doors from the heart of gold
I feel everything about this video was something that I didn’t realise I needed in my life.
When you were doing that thirty second opening description, I immediately thought "the walls".
We'll save that one for a future video.
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
8 minutes of door
This is the quality content I subscribed for, and i’m only joking a little bit
i would've expected this topic on April 1st. as it isn't that date yet, i was surprised by how indepth this take is.
I was expecting more of a discussion about why sci-fi doors refuse to be rectangular. Perhaps something about resisting pressure from any angle since there isn't any up/down if the artificial gravity is turned off.
Farscape doors are cool. The big door are hinged a 1/3 the way in to make a passage on both sides of the hinges. They act make use of this in one of the episodes where two characters chasing each other run around the door to avoid a clear line of site
The TARDIS doors in the original Dr Who were very strange, appearing totally different depending on whether they were viewed from inside or outside.
Doors on ships are vital to protect riders on the storm, even for an actor out on loan or a dog without a bone.
In fantasy, it's vital that a door can be held, can be held, can be held... Hodor!
There was a sci-fi movie i saw ages ago where this door was more a section of wall you could walk through when you pressed a button to make it intangible or something. I recall as they were being attacked one of the bad guys gets trapped in the wall.
Doom. w/the rock. crap film, good popcorn flick though imo. similar doors have been in other things but the only one that immediately jumps into my mind was in Stargate on Atlantis
@@undrachvrsage Doom! That was it. Oh yeah that hidden lab on Atlantis that you had to create a certain tone for it to be accessible.
Thank you for putting the door in terms of slices of cheese - that really helped me wrap my head around how much it actually weighs. Cheers!
Thank you for adding the cheese.
It helped my put things into perspective better.
My favorite are the impossibly skinny and slow doors/hatches on Star Trek shuttles
On current space craft the doors all swing outwards dispite the pressure difference because the Apolo 1 crew died in a fire when the air pressure prevented them from escaping. It was quite a tragic discovery
B5 has upward swinging pocket doors. This allows the door to fall into place in the event of a power outage unlike the ST doors which need someone to pull them shut. Or make a shushing sound at them.
I’d like to make a request for a possible theory and speculation video. The topic:
Why didn’t Galactica ever take the time to retrofit it’s second flight pod from a museum back into a working flight deck/hanger? They had a whole year to do so while over New Caprica, yet the ship never gets both flight pods up and running, a feat which would double their fighter capacity (with Pegasus’ manufactured Vipers) if completely.
Do they have the pilots to fly the vipers?
Fun fact - a real iris cannot close all the way in. It will always leave a tiny empty circle in the middle. You could have fancy "double" irises that do close all the way, and block all light direct line of sight to the other end, but even they are in no way airtight - they just work by essentially "offsetting" the central hole off to opposite directions, but the holes are still there, and are technically connected!
Fantastic. Both in decribing how something otherwise innocuous has such a big impact on the setting and also just how many sci fi universes you pulled from
In my own sci-fi property most doors on spacecraft are either round or rectangular with rounded corners, and either swing open or slide, pulling inward first to sort of hug the wall. This is for the same reason doors on planes, submarines, and real-life spacecraft are constructed like that :D
It's possible to have a sliding door that seals into its jamb (unlike a barn door) allowing it to be airtight, but without requiring a pocket in the wall. I direct you to *Minivan* doors!
I suspect that the prevalence of sliding doors in videogames is largely influenced by early technical limitations. Doom and early versions of Quake couldn't have rotating level geometry, but were able to translate them horizontally or vertically.
While not sci-fi, my favourite movie sliding doors were those on the moon base in Airplane 2. They were voice activated using "shhhh" and made the same "shhhh" noise when opening/closing.
I like the door on B5, where it'S designed to shut via the station's spin in case of some issues.
The doors in the Pegasus CIC on Battlestar Galatica look so different in part because the set was a redress of one originally built for the pilot of a failed Lost in Space reboot. So they were designed with a completely different aesthetic in mind.
To praise the Thumbnail:
" ONE RIKER ! ONE BRIDGE ! ARGHHHHH !"
aww man, I was really hoping this was a montage of people getting crushed, killed, or cut in half by needlessly-dangerous hydraulic doors that apparently have no safety systems. I friggen love deadly killer future doors lol
For my sci-fi setting, Terran ships have inward swinging airtight doors/hatches (there is a difference) separating every compartment. When at Material Condition Zebra, these doors form an airlock between them, so adjacent compartments are not affected in the event of a breach.
The game FTL does this really right. I often love upgrading my doors system, especially if I'm running against boarders. The doors are a secondary system, but they are treated as critically important to the ship and crew.
And heres me imagining Jim Morrison and the lads on the bridge of a Star Destroyer, Jim with his feet up and 'Light my fire' playing in the background.