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In Star Trek Beyond there's a pretty cool scene where Spock and Bones are in a turbo lift when the turbo shaft is severed and exposed to the vastness of space. The turbo lift is subsequently ejected into space and the cleverness of our Starfleet engineers is revealed - the turbo lift is space-worthy, at least, for a while. Then one of the bee ships collides with it for the apparent purpose of capturing its occupants.

What happens next is what confuses me.

It appears the turbo lift doors open to reveal a passage into the bee ship where there are two drone pilots. Why you need a robot to fly a robot ship isn't the question - Battlestar Galactica made it clear that pilots were and weren't necessary. Anyway, either Spock or Bones managed to open the shuttle bay doors consequently blowing the drone pilots into the space. Did I miss something? Why weren't Spock and/or Bones also sucked into space.

I say "sucked" into space only as a joke. Remember in TNG: The Naked Now when Data corrects the conclusion that the Tsiolkovsky crew were sucked into space following a hull breech? They were more accurately "blown out" he corrects. Such bedside manner. :)

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  • Because they were holding onto the walls. – Valorum Aug 4 '16 at 8:23
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    "Correction, that's blown into space." --Data – Liesmith Aug 4 '16 at 10:37
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    One suspects there was far too much sucking and blowing going on during The Naked Now for anyone except Data to keep track of it all. – Paul D. Waite Aug 4 '16 at 12:52
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    @Liesmith, thank you. "I am Vulcan, we embrace technicality." ;-) – Jerry Nixon Aug 4 '16 at 19:30
  • Oh not that again. Someone please link the previous debate on sucked vs. blown. – ThePopMachine Aug 15 '16 at 16:44
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Spock shoved something (a knife?) into what the concept artist has labelled as the "Manual Airlock Release power-supply cells" which seems to cause the airlock to open. You do actually see him and Bones tumbling toward the exit a few seconds later but the door shuts before they fall out.

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I would imagine the simplest explanation for why they also don't go flying off into space is;

  • Because Spock was holding on to the knife
  • Because Spock's body was blocking Bones from falling out.
  • Because the 'Krall troopers' were closer to the exit when it opened
  • Because the door shut before they also got ejected.
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    That knife must really be in there if the mass of two grown men blowing in the opposite direction doesn't pull it out. Maybe it's some kind of magic-magnetic sticker-thing? – Shamshiel Aug 4 '16 at 9:58
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    @shamshiel - With a ship that small and a door that big, the hand-hold only needs to 'hold' for about 0.5 seconds. – Valorum Aug 4 '16 at 10:00
  • I'll assume Spock doesn't pull McCoy's arm out of socket. – Jerry Nixon Aug 4 '16 at 15:27
  • @JerryNixon-TOS - McCoy is behind him. I'm guessing he's mostly blocking him with his body. – Valorum Aug 4 '16 at 15:30
  • Cool image. Weren't there two troopers in that ship, though? – Jerry Nixon Aug 4 '16 at 19:31
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I think that Bones and Spock were not ejected also because the "robot pilots" were ejected from their positions. Since they seem to be robots, they would not need to breath, and so their ship may be programmed to eject them from the specific seats which they sit in to operate the ship.

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  • Only one of them is seated. The other appears to be standing in the body of the craft. – Valorum Aug 6 '16 at 23:02

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