hey guys

I really like Ticonderoga-class cruisers, if it wasn’t obvious already.

Frank Hurley 

R’LYEH 

I’m no longer holding Star Trek or Star Wars “accountable” for their clunky-looking sixties-and-seventies future technology.

Why?

Because the Enterprise is off on a years-long voyage through space. There’s no Verizon store, no Radio Shack, no Geek Squad out there. If the Klingons fire photon torpedoes and the bridge shakes and Spock’s head bangs against the fancy iPad72 touchscreen and cracks the glass, the ship’s toast. If Han Solo’s fingerprints get all over the starchart and the touch-calibration is off by half a centimeter, the Falcon is going right into a star. But if Mister Worf accidentally twists the command knob too hard and pops it off, he can just screw that thing right back on and it will keep working. Dust gets in there? Take it apart and clean it out. All the plugs are big and universal, all the power cells are functional and have a decent battery life, and nothing is built to expire in the next six months so you have to buy a new one.

That tech isn’t anachronistic or suffering a bad case of Zeerust–it’s practical, effective, and it works. Apple tried launching its own space exploration craft, it had to come back for full repairs within three months, and then it had to be upgraded over the next two.

Consumer devices are designed to break on purpose and lately be impossible to repair and no matter how sleek it is that’s a deplorable practice. On the other hand, industrial and military interfaces and hardware are designed for all the above points like resistance to fouling, repairable, designed for the angry 200 lb gorilla using it while wearing a space suit. I imagine a spaceship would look a lot like a ship down on earth:

In fact exactly the issues the above people pointed out about touch screens and fancy sleek touch control have happened. DDG-56 John S McCain suffered a collision with a commercial vessel due to complications with touch based throttle and steering controls; difficult to use, crew training, technical oversight. The Navy has decided touchscreens have proven to be a risk and will be replaced with more traditional controls.

Controls in aircraft look just as chunky because, again, it’s reliable and works. Granted multifunction displays (MFDs) and “glass cockpits” have been around since the 60s/70s in aircraft (first military and commercial much later) but in these cases they’re more display devices with switches and buttons for control input (iirc).

I also want to note that it has occurred to me that movies deliberately put in the smooth, sleek, consumer-optimized touchscreens and holograms because they’re selling you the products. They want you to see Tony Stark and Captain Kirk using these fancy smooth screens so you’ll go out and buy a new smartphone just like they use in the MCU (filmed on Samsung Cameras, using Apple Movie Studios!).