Voyager's emergency crew capacity is around 320 extra people based on the 17 trips for 5,500 people.
The Phoenix most probably did have a type of antimatter based warp drive due to the short timeframe between the Phoenix and Friendship 1 and we know the probe had antimatter based drives.
I wonder how big the probe was supposed to be? Paris makes a comment he's going to store it in the Delta Flyer's cargo compartment, but I'm assuming he meant whatever pieces he found. I got the impression, but not sure that it would have to be roughly the size of the Phoenix, I doubt they had miniaturzied the warp technology down to a small size within only 4 years.
Anybody got any other takes on what was said?
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The extra-personnel capacity of Voyager seems unrealistic to me. I don't think the Federation designs ships which can't be used for large-scale evacuations -- never knowing what class starship could be where at any given time, you'd want each ship to be able to move as many people as possible. When you consider the crew doubling, tripling, or quadrupling up in quarters, and transfering the cargo bays, shuttle bays, etcetra, into refuge "camps" ... I find that number ridiculously small, actually, especially given Voyager relatively small crew size.
I would guess the Vulcans helped Earth out with the antimatter. Of course, how was Cochrane's Phoenix powered? Did he use anti-matter?
Another Kirk reference!
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.
[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 26, 2001).]
Jeff K "I would guess the Vulcans helped Earth out with the antimatter. Of course, how was Phoenix powered? Did he use anti-matter?" That was sort of my point in my original post...assuming the short timeframe between Phoenix and Friendship 1 and the similarity in design, it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume the Phoenix was antimatter powered.
"Damn, I thought we'd only have a few scraps..."
"Looks like we'll have something to fill the shuttle-bay now..."
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.
[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 26, 2001).]
Mark
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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"
- Carl Sagan, "Contact"
I agree that "Friendship One" is basically the nail in the coffin for any theory that antimatter drives weren't used until much later - e.g. my theory that "breaking the time barrier" means replacing a W<3 fusion-plasma drive with a W>3-capable antimatter drive.
Oh well, that's life. Gotta update some pages.
[This message has been edited by Joshua Bell (edited April 26, 2001).]
I shudder to think what else Voyager would have gotten into if it were a plus size starship.
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"Asteroids do not concern me, Admrial. I want that ship, not excuses."
-Lord Darth Vader (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back)
After all, the Phoenix was only going at Warp 1 for a few seconds. When I have the time (and if I can get access to the mass figures for the Phoenix), I will calculate the amount of antimatter needed (it's a fairly easy equation). Could someone get the exact amount of time the ship was in warp? Does anyone (some of you must know structural engineering) know the mass/volume ratio for titanium?
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Faster than light - no left or right.
quote:
Only 320 people? Perhaps they need to bring lots of cargo or something... 320 + 146 = 466, just a mite over the E-nil - and Voyager has much more volume, of course.
Voyager isn't that much biggerthan the Ent-nil. It is slightly longer, but it is also very flat.
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"We have a good arrangement. He supplies the weapons, I use them."
- Blade
Mark
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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"
- Carl Sagan, "Contact"
I always figured the Vulcans had dilithium, so they introduced us to it and all Earth warpships after the Phoenix were M/A-powered.
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"Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow."
-Maynard James Keenan
The density of Ti6-Al-4V titanium (common aerospace Ti) is 4.43 g/cc or 276.5 lb/ft^3. But keep in mind, the forward section of the Phoenix was the titanium portion. The Titan rocket body was probably composites and aluminum. I suppose you could find a Titan (wasn't it supposed to be a Titan rocket body?) weight and add the forward section of the Phoenix, still doesn't account for the weight of the warp drive tho.
About the AM-engine, perhaps it was built with cooperation of the Vulcans or something like that.
Unfortunately, this is just one more reason why I fear that a prequel series will be the death of Trek.
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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
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"It strikes me that there are enough episodes of the Simpsons that people could speak entirely in Simpsonese, using references from the show to explain or describe an endless series of situations. Nelson and Apu . . . at Tinagra.
But now I�ve brought Star Trek into it again, haven�t I. Sorry."
- James Lileks, 09/04/2001
I remember reading a producer's report somewhere that they'd deliberately stopped worrying about Voyager's enerfy/food/logistics situation, as they'd generally grown tired of it (pretty much after "Demon", when they refueled). Plus, (friendly) high-tech civilizations abound over the last few years, unlike the wackbard species they first ran into. It'd be much easier to trade or share stuff with Voyager if it didn't matter as much technologically speaking.
Anyway, with this being so I'd think that Voyager should be at near-peak performance. The low passenger count is evidence against this, of course, but given the lack of evidence in recent times it's less substantive in my book, and just another example of writing without backing it up like we would.
Mark
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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"
- Carl Sagan, "Contact"
[This message has been edited by Mark Nguyen (edited April 26, 2001).]
quote:
The problem isn't that Cochrane didn't have access to anitmatter. The problem is that he didn't have access to dilithium. Without it, he couldn't regulate the reaction, and... KABLAMMO!!!
Maybe he used "lithium," which was in abundance on Earth. They were using it at least up until the first season of TOS, if you want to be strictly canon.
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Lisa: "OK, now we're gonna pick jobs out of the chore hat. Dad, you go first."
Homer: "Come on, bikini inspector...scrub toilet! Ohhhwww...OK, that was a practice..."
Shabren's Final Prophecy: Star Trek: Legacy
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"Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow."
-Maynard James Keenan
Lithium Crystals: The lightest metal on the periodic table of elements, with an atomic number of 3 and an atomic weight of 6.941. Lithium in a form resembling crystalline quartz was a critical component of warp drive systems in early starships. Lithium suitable for use was an extremely rare and valuable commodity, requiring an energy-intensive "cracking" process. ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" [TOS]). Starships were rarely able to carry many spare crystals, meaning that any damage or burnout to a ship's drystals was a serious problem. ("Mudd's Women" [TOS]).
We know of course, that this was later changed to dilithium so the writers could have a mysterious element with unkown properties, as opposed to a real element with known properties, (of which regulating M/AM reactions is not one).
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Homer: I'm gonna miss Springfield. This town's been awfully good to us.
Bart: No, it hasn't, Dad. That's why we're leaving.
Homer: Oh, yeah. [pokes his head out the window] So long, Stinktown!
Perhaps the probe far outperformed manned ships of its era, too, because of this ability to use the risky m/am power source?
Then all bets about the Phoenix or other Earth ships of that era are off again.
As for the difference between lithium and dilithium, I don't think there is any. This is because I like to believe in the TNG TM which states that dilithium is simply a lithium-containing compound; thus the word dilithium is a "slang" or shorthand term, just like TSN says.
One could call the stuff "dilithiumdiallosilicateheptoferranide", to use all the half-nonsensical chemicobabble in the formula, or then just "lithiumallosilicateferranide" - or then use a shorter and more practical nickname, like "heptoferranide" or "dilithium". Because of some obscure historical coincidence, "dilithium" stuck while "heptoferranide" did not.
Timo Saloniemi
The lithium/dilithium crystals are supposed to be able to regulate the M/AM reaction by partially suspending it, and create the "tuned plasma stream" that is required to pass through the nacelle coils. It ain't going to work without the crystals. Without them, M + AM = BOOM! Uncontrolled reaction. No useful power.
[This message has been edited by Daniel (edited April 27, 2001).]
As a former chemistry student, I could sort of decipher those words. Yes, it's "chemobabble" but they're actually sort of similar. They both had "silicate" and "ferranide" and "lithium" in them, the rest is probably just some combination of the above.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just ignore me.
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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
quote:
I don't recall the temporal coordinates for First Contact, but the ability to generate (and contain) small amounts of antimatter isn't too hard to believe.After all, the Phoenix was only going at Warp 1 for a few seconds.
It actually IS hard to believe. Aside from new theory, Cochrane's tech is worse than ours, although his single stage to orbit is impressive. Lilly says it took her months to scrounge up enough titanium for the cockpit. It strains credibility that existing material is that hard to find but they can find antimatter lickety split. I'd vote for simple nuclear fission for the energy source. Fairly easy to do and it explains the radiation leak they had after the attack. They could cannibalize some SDI weapons that use nuclear warheads to power lasers. As somebody else suggested, then the Vulcans could introduce Cochrane to antimatter.
It should be more than a few seconds. There's a small matter of a return trip. He sure couldn't do it on rockets. Even 1.3 light-seconds to the moon took four days for the Apollo astronauts to reach.
BTW, what the frell is it with this UBB code? Flare says it's on, but it never works!
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Never give up. Never surrender.
[This message has been edited by Tech Sergeant Chen (edited April 29, 2001).]
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.
[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited April 29, 2001).]
quote:
test
Dangit, I just saw "Friendship One" and it pretty much trashes Masao's theory about antimatter propulsion and the Romulan War and all that... just as I'm getting ready to publish a series of articles on the war based on his material. Argh!
While I really do appreciate the writers' attempt at historical references like this, the fact is that they really didn't think things all the way through. The use of antimatter technology so soon after the Third World War makes very little sense.
Furthermore, I did a few calculations regarding distance and time. Based on the launch date (2067), the current date (2377) and the date the admiral said they lost contact (130 years ago, but that's debatable -- see below), I came up with some figures. In order to travel 30,000 light years in approximately 180 years, Friendship One had to travel at a velocity between Warp 5 and Warp 6.
Um... excuse me? This probe could travel at a sustained speed (at least 125 c) for almost 200 years? When warp drive had only been invented three years previously? (Yeah, I suppose you could say a wormhole, but read on...)
The other problem is the admiral's line: "We lost contact with [Friendship One] about 130 years ago." Excuse me? They were able to maintain long-distance contact with a probe that had travelled thousands of light-years, but they still have trouble sending messages to Voyager. Does anyone else see a contradiction here?
*sigh*
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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
------------------
"Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow."
-Maynard James Keenan
The difference between "dilithiumdiallosilicateheptaferranide" and "lithiumallosilicateferranide" is minimal. All that is done to shorten the former into the latter is omission of the prefices that state how many atoms of each element are included in the molecule (or in this case, in a basic cell of the crystalline structure).
This is standard chemical practice. For example, a chemist always speaks of "erbium oxide", never of "dierbium trioxide", even though the latter is formally more correct. Sure, there are two ("di") Er atoms and three ("tri") O atoms in the stuff, but the chemist already knows that the only possible way for Er and O to combine here is to have two of the former and three of the latter. So the prefices di and tri are never used.
In the case of some other substances, it is not quite that obvious how many atoms of each element there are present, so different people insert a different amount of prefices (but seldom all of them, unless they want to be super-pedantic). I guess this is what could be happening with dilithium/lithium as well. Some people feel that it's sufficient to just say "lithium" and "crystal", because any chemist would realize that lithium cannot form crystals unless it is part of a special molecule like this, and any starship engineer would realize that only one special lithium-containing molecule is of commercial worth.
Other people feel the need to be pedantic, since they know there are other crystalline structures that involve not two, but one or three lithium atoms in the basic cell. But since "paralithium" and "trilithium" are commercially seldom used in the Federation, not everybody sees the logic of separating these from "dilithium" by the explicit use of the prefix.
Perhaps dilithium was used for warp drives and m/am power release control from day one, but practical uses for paralithium and trilithium were invented only roughly during TOS. Thus, the need to differentiate between the various lithium-containing crystals did not emerge until Kirk's time, and the verbal practice was slowly changed during that time.
Timo Saloniemi
"Friendship One", as an episode, was yet another sledgehammer to the side of the head with a label reading "the Prime Directive is a good thing!". Earth should have known better than to stick its knowledge of antimatter on a probe - look at the unforseen consequences!
Ever notice how terribly hypocritical that is?
Star Trek: First Contact portrays a 21st Century Earth with humans on the verge of wiping each other out in petty squabbles, until the Vulcans show up. Because of this, we're told, over the next century or so Earthlings start to get along and manage to found the Federation.
The bit about warp drive is silly; the intent is that the PD applies to pre-warp species because post-warp species will inevitably contact the Federation and thus the PD can't be enforced. Yet the Federation routinely applies the non-interference mandate to things like internal squabbles within the Klingon Empire.
Thus, Earth pulls itself together thanks to help from a more restrained and somewhat more technologically developed civilization, but the Federation denies this to any other culture, allowing civilizations to nuke themselves out of existence. If the aliens from "Friendship One" had poisoned their planet by self-developed antimatter power sources, the PD would have (in theory) kept Janeway from helping. How nice...
Just wanted to rant.
However, as we've seen time and time again on Star Trek, the actual interpretation varies quite a bit, and since we never saw Kirk hauled in front of a court-martial to answer for his numerous counts of computer smashing, I'd wager that Starfleet and the UFP are well aware of the ambiguities present in such situations.
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OH NO< THE OLD MAN WALKS HIS GREEN DOG THAT SHOTS PINBALLS!~!!!
--
Jeff K
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and nothing at all will happen.
At least some people had seen the problems the West's imperialistic policies had wrought on the underdeveloped portions of the world they conquered, and wanted to make sure things like that didn't happen again.
Now, whether or not you could say that this policy has been successfully brought into present-day politics is another matter entirely. After WWII, Germany and Japan were brought under strict control by the Allies until a democratic system of government and strong economy had been established. We have also interfered with other nation's affairs when we deemed that not doing so would be "detrimental" to our own state of well being. On the other hand there are many cases where we haven't interfered.
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"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."
-Eleanor Arroway, "Contact" by Carl Sagan
To continue this premise...
The Japanese, over the years from 1860 or so until 1900 began adopting western customs and principles and adapting them to their own culture. Naturally, there were some problems along the way. It's like an inaccurate translation -- it doesn't have the same meaning and can be very confusing. So the Japanese developed into a powerful government but with a number of cultural anachronisms (I'm oversimplifying here a bit, but I hope you see my point). And thus, WWII in the Pacific broke out.
Now, under the PD, Japan would have been left totally alone. Is this wise, either? Not necessarily. But the PD does provide some guidlines to prevent people from totally messing up another culture.
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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
[This message has been edited by Ace (edited May 03, 2001).]
What is clear is that Cochrane was not the first person or creature to invent warp drive in our galaxy, or even within a thousand lightyears of Earth. This is proven by the existence of ancient warp-capable cultures seen or spoken of in many episodes. True, the earliest warp drives *canonically* and *explicitly* mentioned would only be from post-Cochrane times - but we can safely expect, say, the Tkon or the Borg or the Dominion to have had warp drive (or something better) a long time ago, since they controlled interstellar empires in the distant past already. And they most probably used starships, not Iconian-style gateways, since the Iconians are mentioned as rather an exception to the norm.
Now a long rant about Vulcans and warp:
The Vulcans wouldn't have needed a warp drive to travel from Vulcan to Earth. Vulcan is supposedly a relatively nearby star (unconfirmed material puts it at 40 Eridani, just a dozen lightyears away, and TMP sort of confirms the distance estimate, if one in turn accepts the unconfirmed TOS warp formula of v=c*wf^3), and Vulcans live long and prosper and can mind their manners during years-long space voyages.
But the Vulcans we saw WOULD have needed a warp drive in order to rapidly respond to their observation of Cochrane's warp experiment. That is, unless they were already deep in the Sol system when Cochrane flew. But it was claimed they were not interested in Earth, and were only "passing". One does not "pass" through solar systems if one doesn't have a warp drive - one is forced to take the most direct route to the eventual destination, and direct routes in space do NOT accidentally pass through solar systems (space is far too empty for such incredible coincidences to happen).
So either the Vulcans did have warp and were passing at some distance - or they did not have warp and were already on Earth's doorstep, and blatantly lied to us about their former disinterest in Earth. Or perhaps they were interested in Martians or Venusians instead?
And in any case, the Vulcans were capable of observing the warp experiment, and identifying it for what it was. That means they had to understand at least something about warp physics to observe the warp signature - or alternatively, they had to keep conventional instruments crosshaired on Cochrane's ship and then observe its sudden FTL displacement. The latter seems quite improbable: even if the Vulcans were intensively spying on Earth, and noticed our first space launch after the war and kept monitoring it, it's a HUGE coincidence that they would catch the event if they were just "passing by". So again it boils down to two possibilities: either they had warp, or they blatantly lied about the "passing" and "disinterest" parts.
Timo Saloniemi