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Sol System: If you read up on the subject, you will find that, aside from some (huge) experimental reactors that have yet to reach the break-even point (generating more energy than it takes to power them), all fusion "devices" (Bombs, that is) are triggered by a fission device. Just as it takes a match to light the fuse that explodes the dynamite, fission bombs use conventional explosives to trigger a nuclear explosion that triggers the fusion reaction. Fusion power is still in its infancy.
Tahna Los raises a valid point. We currently have the technology to create very compact fission power generators. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, someone developed such a generator that was self-contained, about the size of a wastebasket or garbage can, and generated enough power to provide all the electricity required by five conventional homes.
The Russians, especially, used fission generators to power their spy satellites, and all of our probes that explore past Mars also have fission powerplants. The sunlight beyond Mars is so weak that solar arrays must be impractically large to be of any use beyond that point.
It is quite plausible that the Phoenix's "warp core" is a small fission powerplant. Such a powerplant could be used to heat hydrogen (or some other material) into the plasma required by the warp drives.
posted
I have a question about the Phoenix. Did it have a navigational deflector array?
------------------ "This is where the adventure is. This is where heroes are made." - Dr. Bashir Federation Starship Datalink - Now with a pop-up on every page...damn you Tripod!
posted
Supporting the possibility of a fission reactor, remember that Lily collapsed in the missile silo near the beginning of the movie because of radiation leaking from (I think) a damaged throttle assembly of Phoenix. Any nuclear physicists out there who could clear this up?
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
Oh, I know about fission powering fusion reactions in bombs...I was under the assumption that someone was implying that we didn't have any weapons that harnessed fusion at all.
As for the radiation, a fusion reaction is not totally radiation free, and while safer, I wouldn't want to stand next to one.
------------------ "Like I told you, you are concentric in your form. When it's cold you've got yourself to keep you warm." -- John Linnell
posted
Well, since the Phoenix wasn't torn to shreds, and the crew didn't come back as pancakes, I'd say it not only had a nav deflector, but a SIF and IDF, too.
------------------ "I think you people have proven something to the world: that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music� and have nothing but fun and music." -Max Yasgur; Woodstock, NY; August, 1969
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The Pheonix actually sped up slowyly. Someone in it said that they reached critical speed. They were slowly speeding up. The reason that it did the stretch effect is probably because that is how a ship would always look going from sub light to faster than light.
------------------ All hands, abandon ship! All hand, abandon... BOOM!
posted
Er... At the speeds they were going just before they jumped to warp, the three guys in the cockpit would have been rather pressed to their seats w/o an IDF.
------------------ "I think you people have proven something to the world: that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music� and have nothing but fun and music." -Max Yasgur; Woodstock, NY; August, 1969
posted
That depends on whether the acceleration was due to Newtonian action/reaction (rocket engines, in the case of the Phoenix) or the effects of the (primitive) warp drive.
From much of what I have read (and speculated) warp drive seems to sidestep action/reaction altogether. If there are any physics majors out there, go ahead and calculate the accelerative forces required to reach lightspeed in about a minute, in terms of the amount of matter you would have to anihilate to generate that much power. I imagine the amount exceeds the mass of the Phoenix and its occupants by many orders of magnitude. THAT is how much energy would be required to counter the accelerative forces unless the warp field accelerates everything within it at the same rate.
I always understoof the SIF was necessary for very large ships because the acceleration provided by the impulse engines is incredibly huge, not because they needed to counteract the effects of warp acceleration. Otherwise they would require more energy than exists in the entire universe just to reach warp one.
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Navigational deflector, IDF: Both technologies must have existed at the time. A "forcefield" is anything but a simple electromagnetic field, it must have amazing properties.
This shows that apart from the warp drive itself, technology must have evolved from 2000 to 2063, despite WW III and the fact that the Titan missile is ancient. I would have preferred a less severe WW III and a warp ship being launched from a space station. I think the way Cochrane' breakthrough is shown in FC is rather incredible.
Baloo is probably right about the SIF. This is necessary mainly because of the scaling paradox (seems to be my favorite topic) because otherwise a Galaxy could not remain in one piece.
Baloo: Will your next Latin signature be "Cave diem" and how will you translate it?
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Bernd, I agree with your suggestion that it's unlikely that Warp drive could have been developed in the environment shown in the movie. Before FC, in fact, before TNG, I envisioned the warp development project being something akin to the Manhattan project to develop the atomic bomb in world war II. I pictured scores of the world's best scientists working together at some enormous installation. Cochrane seems more like some guy tinkering in his garage. Also, the movie seems to show the development of warp drive as more of a mechanical problem than a theoretical problem. Cochrane as portrayed here doesn't seem like much of a thinker. I suppose that the filmmakers wanted to be iconoclastic, but I think they went too far in showing that Cochrane was just a "regular guy."
Regarding the structural integrity field, I believe Geordi does say sometime in the warp capsule "Structural integrity is holding."
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
Hmm...I don't think you can assume that warp drive was concieved of and built during the war or its aftermath. Far more likely to assume that Cochrane was leading a project before the war to construct such a ship. Then the war came and destroyed said project. Cochrane, seeing his life's work shattered, becomes a broken man. But he decides that completing this ship might be worth something to him.
------------------ "Like I told you, you are concentric in your form. When it's cold you've got yourself to keep you warm." -- John Linnell
posted
My comparison of a warp drive development project to the Manhattan Project was not to suggest that warp was a war-time project. I was just drawing attention to the investment of brainpower and resources that I think would be necessary for such a breakthrough. I agree that the war and its aftermath should have prevented work on big research projects. A nuclear World War III probably didn't last very long (hours? days?) and postwar reconstruction would have been considered more important. However, your suggestion that Cochrane was continuing a pre-war project is interesting.
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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Masao: "Structural integrity holding." could just have been Geordi's way of saying "We don't seem to be falling apart."
I think Bernd, as an engineer, can probably confirm this definition. For example, despite the fact that several screws have fallen out of my desk chair (and subsequently been lost), it's structural integrity is only marginally compromised. Translation: My chair is missing a few screws but it doesn't seem to be noticably weaker because of this. My chair has no structural integrity field, but has structural integrity despite this lack (though if I lose any more screws, I'd better get some more or start looking for a new chair).
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