Yes, just a question about Bussard Collectors. Do they HAVE to be on the front of nacelles?? couldn't you like stick them on the front of the ship or behind the bridge or... anywhere really!?! Is there any reason why they are where they are?
Andrew
------------------ "I threw bitter tears at the ocean But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I would imagine that since they channel the energy collected THROUGH the nacelle, its simply the most effective place for them.
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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Channel the Energy? wha? Don't they just collect interstellar hydrogen and store it for M/AM reactions?
------------------ "I threw bitter tears at the ocean But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan
Posted by Davok (Member # 143) on :
The Bussard collectors generate a powerful electromagnetic field. Maybe it would interfere somehow with the warp field if not aligned in the same axis with the warp field coils.
No no! The field coils directly behind the Bussard collectors generate that field... and I'm not talking about the warp coils that are inside the actual nacelle, I talking about the gold-y coloured vertical grill on say, the E-D right behind the Bussard nose-cone...
------------------ "I threw bitter tears at the ocean But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
They should be able to be placed anywhere, although a couple of red tits placed on the saucer would look funny. Maybe as a leading edge for the secondary hull would work. The alignment shouldn't be an issue, just an engineering problem. The use of power might be though. Can they run the BCs off it's source, or does it need some of it's own power and a bit of power from the coils, feeding off the coils as the warp factor increases?
------------------ I see a red door and I want it painted black
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Um, that "gold-y colored grill" isn't the collectors. That is, as I remember, some form of warp stress abeyance grill designed to help redirect field energy to form the forward lobe & to reduce stress on the nacelles.
Now if only I can remember where I read that.
------------------ "Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much."
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
Well that yellow grill is actually something useful I don't know. (Yes I know they wouldn't put something useless on a ship to take up room) It's not on the Excelsior class, Sovereign class, Nova class, or the Pormetheus class. The Bassard collectors Maybe be part of the entire Warp field thingy. Remember, the Pheonix in First Contact had one and I do not think Cochrane would put soemthing like that on just so he start a gas collection from space.
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Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Nova has them.
------------------ Hunt: "You cheated!" Rhade: "It's only cheating if you get caught." -Andromeda, "Double Helix"
Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :
Everyone knows that buzzard collectors are for catching those pesky vultures
------------------ "Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"
Posted by Pro. Portside on :
Well the Steamrunner class has the BC's on the sauser section. They are directly forward of the points where the nacelles atach to the ship.
------------------ Tribbles and warp cores dont mix
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
The sausage section? The saucy section? The Soze section?
------------------ And keep your foot off that blasted samoflanche!
[This message has been edited by Nimrod (edited November 17, 2000).]
Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :
test
------------------ Remember December '59 The howling wind and the driving rain, Remember the gallant men who drowned On the lifeboat, Mona was her name.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
(This is from TNGTM + a bit of IIRC)
The Bussard collectors collect hydrogen, supposedly to store emergency hydrogen (and/or deuterium) rations. One of the possible reasons for the particular placement is the fact that the scoops need to penetrate the navdef (and maybe warp-) fields.
It also seems that Bussard ramscoops are not necessary for propulsion. Cheyennes, Excelsiors, Const II nacelles (not sure about this. There are rumours of red-coloured tips in DS9), Defiants and Centaur didn't have clear 'Buzzard ramscoops'.
Cheyenne nacelles have red things on the front, presumably Bussard collectors.
------------------ "What he did to that walrus gentle-man was inexcusable." -T. Herman Zweibel on "Mr. Woodrow Wood-pecker", The Onion, 7-Nov-2000
Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
Defiant also clearly has bussard collectors
------------------ Me: "Why don't you live in Hong Kong?" Rachel Roberts: "Hong Kong? Nah. Oh, but we can live in China! Yeah, China has great Chinese food!"
Bussard ramscoops are, as someone correctly stated, used to collect minute amounts of hydrogen for emergency use in the warp and/or impulse system (I assume). From the description given in the Next Generation Technical Manual, although I've learned not to trust that about some things, it appears that the ramscoops work in close concert with the warp fields and the navigational deflector, both of which help to "channel" the hydrogen ions into the actual collection apparatus. The hydrogen is not generally channeled through the nacelles, however the DS9 Tech Manual seems to hint that at least some of it is, using a new and "experimental" accelerator coil in the aft endcap of the Defiant's nacelles. Usually, the collected material is directly processed and sihponed off into the vessel's deuterium slush tanks. In anycase, it seems that the most logical place to put them is on the fwd endcap of the nacelle. It might be placed on the fwd portion of the primary or secondary hull, (like Voyager's auxiliary deflector dish), but that position probably covers less open area than it's accepted place on the nacelles. Also, the Enterprise-A, -B, Reliant, Oberth, etc. may have Bussard ramscoops as well. I remember reading some of the non-canon sources as saying these vessels had "matter acquisition sinks" in the forward portion of the nacelle. It might just be another name for the ramscoops. After all, isn't the "matter/antimatter integrator" of the original E the same as the "main energizers", "intermix shaft" and "warp core" of later Enterprises?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The TMP Enterprise-nil indeed had "matter sinks", because Shane Johnson (and possibly Andy Probert himself) wanted to honor the earlier labeling of the TOS ship in the original Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph.
However, FJ apparently wanted to depict the nacelles as some sort of huge "through-flow" jet engines. Not only are the front hemispheres labeled "space/matter sink/acquisition", but the aft hemispheres are correspondingly labeled something like "space/matter source".
This doesn't sound very convincing, since the aft hemispheres were not present in all the versions of the TOS ship. It's unknown if Matt Jeffries thought of the engines as having two "poles" or if FJ invented this himself, but later generations have moved away from that idea and have invented another interpretation to the wording "space/matter sink/acquisition". They (and I) think that this is simply older wording for ramscoops.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Or..less "older wording" than a resurgence of BureaucratiSpeak that was thankfully killed off as a fad sometime in the 2290s. They called them ramscoops before, then thought of a neater-sounding name, but by the turn of the century, hey said, "Fuck it...use 'ramscoops' again."
This is akin to a serving lady in a cafeteria being redubbed a "sustenance provision engineer"...& people with common sense saying, "Look, she's just a damn lunch lady..."
------------------ "Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much."
