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Why was the Nostromo venting steam into the passageways? Parker and Brett used it to inconvenience Ripley by making her shout over it, and the Xenomorph was able to use it to scare me half to death, but why was there steam venting into the corridors in the first place?

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    Ahhh, Excessive Steam Syndrome... we meet again! And I see you've brought your friend Stanley Steamer Spaceship! – gnovice Jun 25 '12 at 01:35
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    The Colonial Territory Act of 2218, Section III, subsection a parts 4 through 16 clearly lay out that all commercial starships must have adequate steam-venting for spontaneous horror tropes. Failure to implement can result in substantial fines and even impoundment of said starship. – John O Jul 19 '12 at 21:33
  • The Millenium Falcon did the same. Maybe the ships where running on steam? ;-) Like in the Foundation series, when the other powers lost the knowledge of nuclear energy. I was always wondering, what they power their ships with. Coal and steam? – Till B Jul 20 '12 at 07:37

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They are probably venting it into corridors to avoid venting it into space. Assuming the steam is just water it means that they are moving heated water around the ship, probably for heat distribution either to warm the habitat or transfer to heat sinks on the hull. The transfer medium (water) would be in limited supply so you would not want to vent it out of the ship or you may run out before journey's end and have an engine or other heat source in melt down. Venting into the ship allows for systems to capture the escaped steam and re-introduce it to the system. While the venting may produce inefficiencies, it would not be a critical issue. And having the conduits and pipes exposed for easy repair/replacement access would speed repairs of a system that sees a lot of wear and tear. Also having them outside the walls allows for power conduits, data channels, and other fragile, yet low wear, resources be protected from corroding effects of atmosphere and venting steam.

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