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Steam venting seems out of place in a high-tech setting, but never forget that the most advanced modern naval vessels are driven by steam engines. The fact that the boiler is nuclear powered doesn't enter into it, the guts of the engine are old-school. Even the most advanced real-world theoretical engine designs are built around liquid or gaseous reaction mass (in the form of hydrogen, oxygen or water) for propulsion. Despite this, steam does not regularly vent into engineering spaces, which is good, because getting hit by a jet of steam at 600-1250 PSI and 400 deg F would ruin your entire day.
Also note that unlike in internal combustion engines, in steam engines, the gas doing the pushing does not normally get vented during operation. The water is boiled, the steam pushes the piston, and then cools and condenses back into the boiler. If the working fluid escapes, that is a problem with the engine, not normal operation.
Many real rockets using cryogenic (really really cold) fuels have water vapour condensing around their tanks, just like you can breathe out white clouds on a cold and dry day. You can also sometimes get this effect from a large refrigerator or freezer. Note, though, that this happens only because the atmosphere we see them in (Earth) has water vapour; you should not see this happening on asteroids, in space, on the Moon, etc. Unless space life-support is meant to replicate earth atmosphere (would make sense, considering pure oxygen is quite flammable - which complicates things like hot steam engines).
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Compare [[Steampunk]] and [[Smoke and Fire Factory]].
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* While not a spaceship, Raising Heart from ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' usually discharges ''some'' kind of gas after any particularly impressive attack.
** Considering the sheer amounts of energy being thrown around, it's probably coolant, or at least ambient gas that gets superheated by accident. It's apparently a design feature, since the vents have caps that pop off to let it happen.
** Not just RH; Bardiche and really, most other Intelligent Devices and Armed Devices do this. Especially with a cartridge system. This kind of supports the theory that Magi-Link Cartridges generate a lot of waste heat, if not for the AI system decompiling the [[
*** It even gets supported by the side materials: Nanoha mentions her new Raising Heart jury-rigged with a cartridge system is a total maintenance nightmare.
== Film ==
* The ''[[Alien]]'' films and their spin-offs feature tons of steam blasts from leaky pipes, perfect for [[Cat Scare|cheap scares]] when fighting xenomorph infestations.
** Subverted a bit in the first film when a steam burst that is annoying Ripley is actually shown to be under the control of another crew member.
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== Literature ==
* In [[The Amtrak Wars]] books the [[Military Mashup Machine|Wagon Trains]] do vent steam; it's used as a close-range defense system, and capable of blasting the flesh right off your bones.
* The Soviet officers in the novel ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'' mention a cook who tried cleaning his pots and pans with steam from the primary coolant loop (read: ''radioactive'' steam) for the ship's reactor and ended up killing himself and irradiating the entire engine compartment. "At least he cleaned his pans though. They should be safe to use after several hundred years."
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* Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven's alien invasion story ''[[Footfall]]'' includes a spaceship with an Orion-class nuclear engine that is indeed cooled by and powered by steam.
* Possibly exaggerated in a story by Brazilian author [[Luis Fernando Verissimo]], where an [[Insufficiently Advanced Alien]] race built a wood-powered spaceship, with chimney and such, when they were trying to build a nautical ship instead.
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek]]'', all incarnations, most notably in ''Voyager'''s landing sequence.
* ''[[Thunderbirds]]'' made extensive use of steam, smoke, and zero-thrust rocket motors to depict takeoffs and landings in miniature. Rockets in flight were filmed inverted, so the smoke would rise ''away'' from the rocket instead of climbing after it.
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* Several ships in ''[[Farscape]]'' had this, especially when they were malfunctioning. One particularly bad-ass sequence that was used in the opening had John and D'Argo walking in slow-motion through a steaming corridor. Near the end of Season 3, an imploding space-ship has steam going off all over, leading to some prime horror, as one strikes {{spoiler|an old childhood friend of Aeryn's, who is just about to shoot her, and ''burns the flesh off her face.''}}
* In ''[[Stargate Universe]]'', for some as of yet unexplained reason, there are <s>steam</s> CO2 vents on the floor of the gate room of the ''Destiny''. They fire every time the wormhole closes.
* The original ''[[Battlestar Galactica
** The pilot of the [[Battlestar Galactica
== Real Life ==▼
* During the Apollo 13 disaster, the crew could see vapors venting from their damaged spacecraft. And even before launch, the rocket had plumes of gas coming off of it because the liquid oxygen and such was so cold. The [[Apollo 13|movie]] relayed this [[Shown Their Work|faithfully]].▼
** Of course, [[Captain Obvious|the Apollo spacecraft wasn't]] ''[[Captain Obvious|supposed]]'' [[Captain Obvious|to do this]]...▼
* As mentioned above, getting hit with a jet of steam in [[Real Life]] usually invokes a particularly hideous and gruesome version of the [[Chunky Salsa Rule]]: it literally cooks you alive like a giant, ambulatory shrimp.▼
** Very high pressure steam leaks are dangerous in another way - one procedure for finding them involves waving a broom handle around until it's neatly cut by the invisible knife.▼
* Water makes an excellent heatsink, as it can absorb remarkable amount of energy in the ice to water and water to steam phase changes. This property makes it exceedingly valuable in a realistic space warship which would cook itself to death otherwise (as [[Space Is Cold|space is not cold in real life]]). Open cycle cooling where coolant is vented into space is useful in some circumstances, but leaking 600 degree steam into engineering or living spaces would only happen in the result of catastrophic damage.▼
** Or, potentially, [[Combat Pragmatist|to deal with either]] [[Humans Are Bastards|mutinying crew or intruders.]]▼
* Some engineers theorize that [http://www.space.com/11230-water-powered-spaceship-mars-solar-system.html a solar powered steam-propellant spaceship] could be used for economical Mars travel, which just goes to show we could easily go full circle and start traversing the solar system in steam ships....▼
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Warhammer
▲* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' has [[Stanley Steamer Spaceship|Stanley Steamer Spaceships]] and Stanley Steamer ''tanks''.
** It should be noted that the primary STC tank of the Imperium is of extremely basic design, so much so that the things can be adapted to run on ''wood'' with minimal adjustments. Steam is a ''relatively'' popular form of power in many tanks, especially considering the availabilities of particular fuel types can vary wildly in an empire that's lost count of how many planets it contains.
* Justified for ''[[Space: 1889]]'' where ships use solar boilers to power their "aether propellers" between planets. The boilers, which consist of a large parabolic mirror and a boiler on a turntable vent their safety valves directly into the engine room on a space ship, in order to preserve as much water as possible from being lost.
== Video Games ==
* The mining barges from [[
▲* The mining barges from [[Eve Online]] discharge smoke and flames from ports on their flanks. [[Averted Trope|Averted]], since it is most likely the barge ejecting the excess material from extracting the ore.
** Do remember that these exhaust pipes are always venting, even when docked in a station.
* In the [[Fallout 3]] add on ''mothership'' zeta, the featured ship has an area called 'steamworks' which is mostly filed with steam releasing pipes.
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'', though that was when the Titans were [[Trapped in TV Land]]. All other interstellar ships were steam-free.▼
▲== Real Life ==
▲* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'', though that was when the Titans were [[Trapped in TV Land]]. All other interstellar ships were steam-free.
▲* During the Apollo 13 disaster, the crew could see vapors venting from their damaged spacecraft. And even before launch, the rocket had plumes of gas coming off of it because the liquid oxygen and such was so cold. The [[Apollo 13|movie]] relayed this [[Shown Their Work|faithfully]].
▲** Of course, [[Captain Obvious|the Apollo spacecraft wasn't
▲* As mentioned above, getting hit with a jet of steam in [[Real Life]] usually invokes a particularly hideous and gruesome version of the [[Chunky Salsa Rule]]: it literally cooks you alive like a giant, ambulatory shrimp.
▲** Very high pressure steam leaks are dangerous in another way - one procedure for finding them involves waving a broom handle around until it's neatly cut by the invisible knife.
▲* Water makes an excellent heatsink, as it can absorb remarkable amount of energy in the ice to water and water to steam phase changes. This property makes it exceedingly valuable in a realistic space warship which would cook itself to death otherwise (as [[Space Is Cold|space is not cold in real life]]). Open cycle cooling where coolant is vented into space is useful in some circumstances, but leaking 600
▲** Or, potentially, [[Combat Pragmatist|to deal with either]] [[
▲* Some engineers theorize that [http://www.space.com/11230-water-powered-spaceship-mars-solar-system.html a solar powered steam-propellant spaceship] could be used for economical Mars travel, which just goes to show we could easily go full circle and start traversing the solar system in steam ships....
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Spectacle]]
[[Category:Spacecraft]]
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