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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!!!

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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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Shabren's Final Prophecy: Star Trek: Legacy

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]).

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.

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.

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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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.

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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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test

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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

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.

"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...