Yes the Next Generation Starship Enterprise only had one official bathroom. Digest that one for a minute. Pun intended.
I remember hearing about the one bathroom thing for the longest time. I think it was during a Star Trek marathon on TV when during a break Jonathan Frakes, who was hosting, said that it was the number one question he got at conventions. He then proceeded to point to a blueprint showing that the one bathroom was in some impractical area in between the rim of the saucer and the radar dish thing. I mean if Picard had a case of the runs he would literally need to hitch a ride down a turbolift for every round. God knows if the Enterprise from James Kirk's era had any at all!
But the fact that they only have one bathroom has some pretty interesting implications as a future concept. In this future the toilet paper industry has essentially been rendered obsolete, that along with port-a-potties and urinal pucks. It got me thinking how a future society could have such a setup. I think I've come to a fairly reasonable conclusion as to why the Enterprise has one bathroom, why we should even care and what its implications could even mean to our approach towards life extension.
Okay hear me out. The reason why the Enterprise's crew doesn't need to go to the bathroom is the same reason why the crew actually never needs to eat. It is because of the teleporters.
The Enterprise's lap of luxury all depends on teleportation technology. The entire ship is lined with life support systems that go above and beyond simple air filtering like in our current shuttle craft. The Enterprise's teleporters are probably part of a vast computer system that constantly monitors the health status, from nutrition to cosmetic appearance, of its crew. Lacking the sparkle sound effect the teleporters life support controls silently beam in synthetic nutrients and beam out waste in a vast process affecting every organism on board from the botany room to Data's cat Spot. The computer would then take that raw matter and recycle it for other means. It is an electronic feat that was frustratingly never mentioned on the show and also kind of explains why there were no fat crew members!
I don't believe that Picard and crew are tremendously genetically modified for space travel, at least not to the extent where they become superhuman in their resistances. Teleporters explain why the Enterprise can have all sorts of alien guests on board and they too do not require the bathroom. This too would justify having a vast database of life forms since as a peace keeping vessel the Enterprise would become host to any number of variants.
But think of the extent to which a computer of this magnitude would affect the lives of the Enterprise's crew. Conceivably the bodies of these humans would live in a controlled harmonious state leading to slower aging and longer lifespans just from having a virtual nutritionist count calories for you. Call it the high tech version of the raw food diet. Gainan's bar was probably there for sentimental reasons rather than a way to serve nachos. Maybe even the crew's need for sleep was only predicated on the human need to dream rather than them actually being tired. It makes you wonder how long in Earth years the crew really was in space since with the computer cleansing their bodies constantly they could have effectively remained middle aged for a much longer stretch than we're used to. This is without considering mutational advances. This understanding makes Star Trek: Generation's ruminations on mortality seem even stupider in hindsight. That and Insurrection... hey I'm noticing a pattern here. Who wrote these movies?
But it gets better. This advanced computer system, if it can keep them fed, should be able to detect deleterious mutations in the cells of the Enterprise crew to prevent diseases wrought from metabolism. This machine probably vanquishes intracellular and extracellular junk, zaps oxidative stress and repairs dead tissue all in a series of exquisite micro-teleports. This system is what probably kept the Star Trek crew free of cancer, heart disease and common colds - since none of those ailments were mentioned as afflicting them (save for that Lt. Barkley episode where he found that communicable matter destroyer bacteria... eh never mind.) The characters never had the need for glasses presumably because the computer beamed in new corneas every few years. Heck I never even heard of them having bad breath! The fact that Picard was bald was in my estimation a quirky fashion choice.
But why even stop there? This teleportation scheme wouldn't merely sustain the humans aboard the ship. It could also enhance them to their fullest. It is reasonable to assume that the 24th Century Deanna Troi could probably out bench press 1970 Arnold Schwarzenegger if she programed the machine right. The teleporter could add microscopic changes to cells, proteins and DNA to make her an Olympian with added muscle per inch in a heartbeat! Also consider in this future there is no such thing as an amputee. As was demonstrated in one episode Riker even had his arm detached and put back on, albeit slightly crooked, in a bizarre alien experiment. This level of sophistication should then apply to any crew member. Had a Klingon rip off your arms after losing a game of tridimentional chess? Bam! Here are a new pair of guns.
Teleportation tech, with its many applications, is really the philosophers stone when it comes to life extension possibilities. No surgery is required. The repairs are painless and unnoticed. Breakdowns are constantly monitored and cared to instantly. The only downsides are what we lose culturally. No more water reclamation, agricultural or medicinal industries as we once knew it. No more emergency visits to the hospital with chest pains. No more seasonal produce. No more hairy plumber's crack.
So with the Enterprise as an analog my prediction is that true immortality would be possible at a level where no one needs to eat or go to the bathroom. Teleportation technology is the answer. But there are downsides. We would be affected culturally in more ways you could imagine. Including one thing that was even noticeably absent on the show.
Poop jokes would lose their impact.
