Beam out at the beginning

As near as I can tell (and this is just my speculation) the energy beam slots they all step into are made to protect them from the G-force of decelerating from their cruise velocity to orbital velocity, or something like that.

I'm reading the novelization right now (a real chore, IMO), and it doesn't clarify much. They actually do two different phases, one in sort of bunk-like accommodations and then the one shown in the movie. The hokey jargon is such that I still can't exactly tell what is supposed to be going on, but it is associated with the ship's maneuvering as it approaches Altair.

It acts as a protective stasis cocoon during the de-acceleration. They mention something about being bounced around if not in the stasis beam. I haven't watched it recently, so I have forgotten the actual dialogue.

This beam was supposedly the inspiration for the Star Trek teleporting special effect.



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Their bodies" metabolisms operated differently when the spacecraft was cruising at beyond light speed. Deaccelerating out of light speed meant adjustments had to occur. The poster above is right. Scenes such as this showed the writers were putting a bit of thought into the script.🐭