posted
Actually, a some people have given the correct answer - at least as far as the designers of the E-D have said.
Registered: Jun 2005
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I refer to the Nebula that actually makes sense (design-wise): the USS Phionex.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Oo, goody. First day back on in a long time, and I find I thread I can play in!
Good points by all, but let me try to sum up everything I've been able to distill out of the glut of speculation over the last forty (!) years with the dreaded bullet points...
�The big engines in the stand-off nacelles generate a hideously strong field that warps space and time around the ship, thus allowing Our Heroes to cover great distances in reasonable amounts of time. �The smaller engines built into the back of the saucer move the ship at slower than light speeds. We're staying away from trite clich�s like rockets, so the vents are always dark because they are, indeed, just vents. These engines propel the ship through some other motive force.
That was TOS. Now, running everything else into the juicer, we end up with this cocktail...
�The warp engines, while active (by this, I mean the warp drive is not offline), are constantly producing a low-level subspace field around the ship that lowers its apparant inertial mass and helps keep the sublight propulsion systems small while still being able to propel the ship effectively and efficiently.
�The impulse drive uses driver coils that create gravimetric ripples that the ship rides like a surfer staying ahead of the crest of a wave. When the coils are cycling fore-to-aft, the ripples propel the ship forward. When the coils fire in the opposite sequence, the ship is slowed or travels in reverse. Waste plasma from the impulse reactors is directed out through aft-facing vents, this being appropriate to the ship's normal direction of travel.
�By the early 24th century, ships were getting massive enough that more powerful subspace fields were needed to keep vessel mass low enough to be maneuverable, and impulse engines small enough to be practical. Running the warp engines at a "higher idle" was impractical and inefficient, so subspace field coils were added to the driver coil assembly in the impulse engines, to be powered by the impulse reactors.
�Sheilding systems on a separate control loop from the main shields allow windows to be opened for the waste plasma to escape (otherwise the ship would cook itself in a protracted battle). These same shielding systems are automatically reconfigured when reverse thrust is ordered to redirect those same exhaust gases around and over the vessel superstructure forward of the drive assembly, and thus keeping the ship from backing into it's own exhaust.
�When an emergency stop is ordered or full reverse sublight thrust is needed, all these systems operate in conjunction with the maneuvering thrusters to attain the desired result, but with the vented gases imparting only a negligable effect to the vessel's momentum.
It is one of the three big thinking traps about Trek spaceflight that are so easy to get caught in.
1) Warp drive is non-Newtonian apparant motion brought on by the warping of space and time around the vessel.
2) Impulse engines are not rockets.
3) There is no "up" in space.
Have at.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: And what, I wonder, is a "Phionex"?
JEAN!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but for those that consider the TNG Technical Manual a reliable source:
From pg. 77, para. 4: "The final stage is the vectored exhaust direct (VED). The VED consists of a series of movable vanes and channels designed to expel exhaust products in a controlled manner. The VED is capable of steerable propulsive and nonpropulsive modes (simple venting)."
Clearly the impulse engines function similarly to rockets by expelling hot gas in a propulsive manner to produce thrust . The term thrust itself is applied on figure 6.1.4 on the same page.
Also, pg. 75, para. 3: "Experimental results with exhaust products temporarily accelerated beyond lightspeed yielded disappointing results, due to the lack of returnforce coupling to the engine frame ."
This passage also implies that the impulse engines function as rockets and produce their propulsive effect primarily by producing thrust.
Also the mass reducing SSF is produced by the impulse engines, not the warp engines in any state of low idle. Pg. 77, para. 3: "The third stage of the engine is the driver coil assembly... [which] creates the necessary combined field effect that (1) reduces the apparent mass of the spacecraft at its inner surface, and (2) fascilitates [not causes ] the slippage of the continuum past the spacecraft at its outer surface."
Another interesting quote, pg. 79 para 5: "The major design tradeoff... is evident when one considers that efficient matter/antimatter power systems that can also provide rocket thrust cannot be reduced to IPS dimensions."
This statement implies that the IPS does produce "rocket thrust."
-------------------- If the crew discover I'm really just Dennis the donut boy, I'm finished.
Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Why can't they use shaped force-fields behind the engines, to redirect the thrust forwards...
-------------------- joH'a' 'oH wIj DevwI' jIH DIchDaq Hutlh pagh (some days it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning) The Woozle!
Registered: Nov 2002
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