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After reading through a few pages of Ex Astris Scientia I wondered whether or not TOS Enterprise had a warp core.

From TMP it seems that it does have a warp core, but was there one before the refit? Was the warp core present but hidden? Why was it never mentioned? (okay I can guess why) What did the Enterprise use if warp cores weren't invented?

I was under the impression that the pre-refit Enterprise didn't have a warp core...

I can't think ofa reason why it wouldn't? And I think that'd be a major system to add, even given the major work that was done on the Enterprise. If that was the case it would mean virtually gutting the whole ship's propulsion.

True, but the engine room is considerably changed from the TOS to the TMP (larger budget & sfx taken into account)

Its just the fact that it isn't mentioned & that I thought there was another method. If im wrong, il shut up.

Wasn't there mention of an Intermix chamber in TMP? Forgive my lack of understand regarding treknology. Is the Intermix chamber (I assume its where matter & anti-matter are combined) part of a warp core or something removed & different?

Well the warp core need not be a giant vertical tube and even if it is it is probably hidden away somewhere.

Maybe it was in the horizontal position and covered for safety

Isn't the warp core on the NX-01 horizontal?

I think it's that thing you see at the rear of engineering. That wind-tunnel looking thing with the fence blocking it.

neoolong wrote:Isn't the warp core on the NX-01 horizontal?

Yes it is.

Baron Mordo wrote:I think it's that thing you see at the rear of engineering. That wind-tunnel looking thing with the fence blocking it.

I think it is in there some where myself.

No thats not it, you can see in the epasode with the troyins (the ones whose tears can make men fall in love or something like that) when the bad guys sabatoge the dilithium it ejects from the one of the three oringe things in the middle of the engin room. (dilithium is needed for a warp core, thus it must have a warp core) it looks as if insted of long the reaction chamber is wide and short. They are right there in the middle of the engin room, you usualy see them in the views of the engine room. I was under the impresion that the dark thing behind the grid were the fusion engins

This is a major unresolved debate among trekkies. The TMP refit version had an intermix chamber (same thing as a warp core, different name). Many fans believe that the nacelles contained the M/AM reactors in the TOS version, while others think that there was an intermix chamber. Personally, I go for the former interpretation, since that was how it was described in all of the secondary treknical literature of the 1970's (much of which had Gene Roddenberry's official blessing). For a detailed treatment, see this article at TrekPlace:

http://www.trekplace.com/articles/article07.shtml

[img]http://www.trekplace.com/articles/artic ... 02.jpg[img]

Maybe it's that thing to the right, the horizontal tube thing.[/img]

THAT thing

I remember reading in several places that the M/AM reations occured in the nacelles for the E-Nil during TOS.

Luigi, that can't be the warp core, since it looked like this:
http://www.uah.edu/~jim/set1.jpg

Same set...

Yes of course it's the same damn set. Use those two round things filled with fluid in your head called EYES.

Doesn't quite look the same to me. Both have the same tube thing, but everything around it is different. Either completely different configuration for the same location or different locations. Either way, it cannot be the warp core, but it is not quite the same set.

I always assumed the tunnel thing to the left was the warp core. As for the dilithium, it was originally the power source, not some sort of filter. As such, it need not be in the very center of the warp core. Also, there might be a mechanism by which the dilithium is moved from the warp core to another location for easier or safer handling. It seems awkward, but if the warp core was that tunnel, it might be useful to make access to the dilithium a bit easier.

Well, I will quote my above comment:

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I remember reading in several places that the M/AM reations occured in the nacelles for the E-Nil during TOS.

Johonebesus wrote:Doesn't quite look the same to me. Both have the same tube thing, but everything around it is different. Either completely different configuration for the same location or different locations. Either way, it cannot be the warp core, but it is not quite the same set.

Well, yes and no. It is the same set, in that it occupied the same portion of the overall Stage 9 layout. The more complex design was part of Matt Jefferies' design from the beginning, but I suspect that the time to build the entire engine room as planned wasn't available when production began for season one. The expanded, split-level version of the engineering deck, with the dilithium chambers in the centre of the complex, first appears in the second season episode "Mirror, Mirror"; it was built in time for shooting for "The Doomsday Machine" (which actually slotted in earlier in the production order).

I always assumed the tunnel thing to the left was the warp core. As for the dilithium, it was originally the power source, not some sort of filter. As such, it need not be in the very center of the warp core. Also, there might be a mechanism by which the dilithium is moved from the warp core to another location for easier or safer handling. It seems awkward, but if the warp core was that tunnel, it might be useful to make access to the dilithium a bit easier.

The large chamber at the aft end of the engineering deck appears to house the power stacks feeding the warp engines themselves. The central unit on the engineering deck was the main dilithium power converter assembly, in which the raw output from the matter/antimatter integrator was amplified and "tuned" to the qualities required by the warp engines and the ship's main power grid. However, "Elaan Of Troyus", "That Which Survives", "The Tholian Web" and one or two other episodes illustrates that the main reactor and the dilithium converter are seperate from one another, with the converter being the processor stage in the power complex of the Enterprise.

In the layout suggested in "That Which Survives", the reactor itself is contained in a protected bunker within the secondary hull, with a service crawlway leading into its interior, which is not meant to be accessed while the integrator is in operation.

Considering the 1st Warp Core built was actually a Nuclear Missile i'm sure that the design for a warp core undergoes many up grades and conversions between TOS and TMP.

Uh, the first warp core wasn't a nuclear missile... it was housed in a missile that used to carry nuclear warheads.

Well, that's my assumption anyway... god knows I wouldn't put it past B&B to fuck up even the concept of nuclear missiles.