Do The Feds Engine Config Have Any Advantage To It?

[kojikun]

Interstellar hydrogen density is indeed very low. And the collectors do need to be very very large, but youre forgetting two things:

First is that when going high multiples of c, youre collecting shitloads of very little hydrogen, given you decent emounts( a few kgs over a few hundred LY)

Secondly is that the collect is not physical but magnetic and would trap particles in the same way that the earths magnetic field traps solar wind and creates the aurora.

[Warspite]

Interstellar hydrogen density is indeed very low. And the collectors do need to be very very large, but youre forgetting two things:

First is that when going high multiples of c, youre collecting shitloads of very little hydrogen, given you decent emounts( a few kgs over a few hundred LY)

Secondly is that the collect is not physical but magnetic and would trap particles in the same way that the earths magnetic field traps solar wind and creates the aurora.

Bah... I don't know how to produce the numbers, but going very fast, with a magnetic field doing the collection, it wouldn't produce the shitload ammount, remember, only if the magnetic field is acting at veeeerrryyyy long ranges, will it be abble to collect the hydrogen, otherwise, the ship just passes by the particles. Only those particles on the direct path would be collectable. Anyway, one wouldn't be collecting only hydrogen, mostly would be useless space dust, so the purpose of the whole instalation as a fuel collector is doubtfull in the first place.

Onwards...

The original function of the nacelles is a much better proposition, it would allow for more diverse plot-devices.

Now, if the warp field has a locus in the warp core, why the nacelles? Or, putting in another perspective, wouldn't the nacelles require more strengthened members to avoid being torn appart, if they have any function on the warp propulsion?

[kojikun]

SDN Science:
Density of interstellar space ~ 1E-18 to 1E-21 kg/m³

figure a capture radius of say 1000 meters giving you a cylindrical cross section of ~3e6 meters. Take the distance from here to Proxima Centauri (4.3ly) as ~4e16 meters and you get 1.2e23 cubic meters. 1.2e23 * 1e-18 = 1.2e5kg. Thats 12 metric tonnes of hydrogen. Enough to nuke a small planet.

Feel free to correct my math if necessary.

[Warspite]

SDN Science:
Density of interstellar space ~ 1E-18 to 1E-21 kg/m³

figure a capture radius of say 1000 meters giving you a cylindrical cross section of ~3e6 meters. Take the distance from here to Proxima Centauri (4.3ly) as ~4e16 meters and you get 1.2e23 cubic meters. 1.2e23 * 1e-18 = 1.2e5kg. Thats 12 metric tonnes of hydrogen. Enough to nuke a small planet.

Feel free to correct my math if necessary.

Fair enough, got no problems with that... (only 12 tonnes? You know, that's peanuts in relation to a spacecraft total weight, the main propulsion system must have more mass than that, but I digress.)

Anyway, that's the total collected throughout the voyage, my quibble is during the voyage. As a fuel source is not wholly dependable, since the density may vary during the journey, or it may even be totally unworthy. Besides, what would be the magnetic field magnitude for decent hydrogen capture, and it's power usage? Mind you, the field may be low powered, but it has a certain shape, and most of that shape doesn't serve it's purpose, in the end, it may cost more to produce the field, than the energy recovered from the collected hydrogen (not forgeting the other space garbage that may, or may not be usefull).

BTW, did we ever saw the collectors working in ST? Besides ST:I?

(Oh, one final note, I don't want to overanalyse, but the shape of the collectors, specially on the E-D, isn't very eficient for collecting. Since they're acting as a fluid well, and we can assume that the shape of the magnetic field induces a motion on the hydrogen that closely resembles the flow in a fluid, the collectors should be circular in shape, not those... squashed things, but I'm nitpicking, Christmas after effects, nevermind.)

[greenmm]

It's ludicrous. It boggles the mind. It's indecent. Who would expose their engines in such a manner that they would become The Protruding Cylinders of Malfunction? It's possible it has been discussed before, but is there ANY paticular advantage to having the engines of Federation spacecraft be arranged in such a way?

Aerodynamics are obviously out, although the earlier designs (and most of the new ones) are about as aerodynamic as a brick.

Does their painfully off-axis position help them turn better? A even better question, do Fed ships vector thrust from their main engines, or is it a seperate system?

Does its unstable matter/antimatter anihalation system make it dangerous to be the main ships body? If so then why do smaller ships employ this configuration, is it that only a certain amount of a byproduct of an M/AM reaction dangerous to the crew? Even more, why can the other cxivilizations tuck their engines away (some of them)?

Or it simply a matter of really bad 23rd century thinking? And the failure of future generations to fix it? After all Conchranes contraption had that specific engine design, so did the E-nil and so on.

This is why Paramount's canon/official policy can really shoot them in the foot. If we were allowed to bring in ST novels to help them explain it better, then they could have used the novel ST:Federation. It's on pages 112 and 113, where Zefram Cochrane is trying to explain why the warp bomb is impossible, and essentially how they use the warp nacelles like a tuning fork to tune and align the warp fields so that a ship can use warp drive farther into a star's gravity well.

[greenmm]

SDN Science:
Density of interstellar space ~ 1E-18 to 1E-21 kg/m³

figure a capture radius of say 1000 meters giving you a cylindrical cross section of ~3e6 meters. Take the distance from here to Proxima Centauri (4.3ly) as ~4e16 meters and you get 1.2e23 cubic meters. 1.2e23 * 1e-18 = 1.2e5kg. Thats 12 metric tonnes of hydrogen. Enough to nuke a small planet.

Feel free to correct my math if necessary.

Actually, the high-end becomes 127.8 metric tons of hydrogen. Low-end is 127.8 kg of hydrogen, with mid-range being about 63.4 metric tons.

Only 2 problems I see:

1. Even assuming 2 nacelles together, a capture radius of 1000 m is nearly twice the length of the E-D, isn't it? With the density of interstellar hydrogen, that would require an extremely intense magnetic field within the Bussard collectors to reach out that far... a field so intense that it might give an ST ship's onboard systems some major problems. Plus, collecting the hydrogen is only good if the warp field around the ship actually affects the interstellar hydrogen and allows it to keep up with the ship. Also, if the shields are up, that means no interstellar hydrogen can get in at all, since the shields also stop solid objects.

2. Antimatter. Hydrogen is great for fusion reactions, but the warp cores use M/AM reactions. So, unless a relatively high percentage of that hydrogen is actually anti-hydrogen (by high, I mean 1-10% minimum), most of that hydrogen is actually wasted, or they'll have to expend energy to convert it to anti-hydrogen.

[Sea Skimmer]

Fed ships are supposed to have anti matter generators that could be powered by the fusion plants.

[greenmm]

Fed ships are supposed to have anti matter generators that could be powered by the fusion plants.

Um, actually both would provide power, but they use AM as primary power sources, despite AM's volatility, because it produces more power than a fusion reactor per mass of reactants.

You might see fusion plants providing backup power to make sure that AM containment doesn't go down... but the AM generators are providing power for the ship, not having power being directed to them...