Ground to orbit 10 seconds - ramifications quantification

[Vance]

When Dooku flew to high orbit in ten seconds what adverse effects ought his craft have had on the environment? Assume his reactor generates some tens of petawatts and his ship uses near-C particle ion engine.

This is not a speculation thread, can anybody actually prove the effects science and math?

[Thanas]

Why do you assume it has any effect on the environment? We do not see that it has onscreen. If it would do so then Yoda, Kenobi and Skywalker-lite would have been cooked. Heck, Dooku would probably not even have engaged them in combat at all if his ship was capable of frying the environment.

[Imperial528]

Honestly given how small it is any effects would likely just bleed out into the rest of the atmosphere.

Will do some math later anyway, no time now.

[Connor MacLeod]

Well first off the scene is a bit variable in context timeframe wise. Whilst obviously short (a few minuteres or less) you're still talking about fudging it within a couple orders of magnitude potentially, so that alone can affect performance and implications.

Secondly, it also depends on the exact method used to achieve orbit, and there are several options (repulsors, or the tractor/repulsors in the case of Dooku's ship, ion engines, etc.) assuming there was no independent assistance (which might hav ebeen hinted at in the ITW AOTC book.)

Thirdly it can also depend on the exact timeframe and circumstance. Atmospheric density is not uniform obviously (its denser the closer to the ground you are.) and nothing says that the acceleration has to be uniform (once you get free of the atmosphere, or even just at higher altitudes you could push more.) so there are ways to minimize the danger.

if this is a roundabout way of asking 'would the exhaust from high acceleration ion engines be dangerous to enviroment' the answer is yes it could be depending on parameters (EG exhaust velocity, propellant expenditures, timeframes, etc.) Also angle and position - if Dooku changed course once reaching orbit to reach where he did (however far you figure that out - something I'm sure other people would argue over) the exhaust would not neccesarily be pointed directly AT the planet.

[Borgholio]

Atmospheric density is not uniform obviously (its denser the closer to the ground you are.) and nothing says that the acceleration has to be uniform (once you get free of the atmosphere, or even just at higher altitudes you could push more.) so there are ways to minimize the danger.

That's what the space shuttle did. It would go at full burn until it left the pad, then once it hit a certain speed it would cut back to about 75% throttle to avoid damaging the structure of the launch vehicle. Once it got into thinner atmosphere they would throttle back up to 100% again.

[Connor MacLeod]

Atmospheirc effects might also be minimized by hull interactions (is it low friction?) or whether or not any forcefields are involved (to reduce resistance to the atmosphere, which means you lose less energy to the surroundings and generally don't create huge, unpleasant thermal effects from moving fast.) it might also depend on if any sort of antigravity is being employed, or a hypothetical 'mass reduction' tech (which I don't like, but may exist, although as a rule noone ever really thinks those things through beyond 'how they can impact vs numbers.' Mass effect has 'mass reduction' too after all...) or any other parameters. If the ship (or some device on the ground) were generating some sort of repulsor 'push' against the planet to lift the starship to orbit, for example, you wouldn't have the problems of reaction engine exhaust to worry about even with high accelerations.)

[Batman]

Countergravity (repulsers) would certainly help with the side effects of reaction engine exhaust, because there wouldn't be any. Given that for a 400 km orbit in 10 seconds I get for a uniform acceleration 200gs I doubt simply negating the single g of local gravity would make much in the way of difference, but at least according to the novels, Wars does have countergravity/repulsers.

For clarification: To me 'anti'gravity merely means you can make gravity go away locally. 'Counter'gravity actually means you can 'reverse' it and use it for propulsion.

[Eternal_Freedom]

IIRC the original trilogy ICS book has an "engines" section at the front, where it specifies that repuslors are used to lift craft all the way up to low orbit, and only there do you fire up the ion engines because "the emissions are harmful to people and structures" or something like that.

So if Dooku's ship used repulsors only on that launch, there is no exhaust to fry the area so it's a moot question.

[StarSword]

IIRC the original trilogy ICS book has an "engines" section at the front, where it specifies that repuslors are used to lift craft all the way up to low orbit, and only there do you fire up the ion engines because "the emissions are harmful to people and structures" or something like that.

So if Dooku's ship used repulsors only on that launch, there is no exhaust to fry the area so it's a moot question.

Which is blatantly contradicted as early as ANH's original release. Unless the blue glow on the stern of the Millennium Falcon was supposed to be the repulsor drive.

[RogueIce]

IIRC the original trilogy ICS book has an "engines" section at the front, where it specifies that repuslors are used to lift craft all the way up to low orbit, and only there do you fire up the ion engines because "the emissions are harmful to people and structures" or something like that.

So if Dooku's ship used repulsors only on that launch, there is no exhaust to fry the area so it's a moot question.

Which is blatantly contradicted as early as ANH's original release. Unless the blue glow on the stern of the Millennium Falcon was supposed to be the repulsor drive.

Well they did say it "blasted out of Mos Eisly" and while that could just be a reference to Han shooting it out with the Stormtroopers before running aboard, it is possible I suppose he did some damage to the surrounding area that we didn't see.

[Napoleon the Clown]

The degree of harm could also matter. It may be something that won't cause a great deal of harm if it only happens rarely, but if you've got people using it all the time there will be problems. Because of that, ships don't use their sublight engines in the atmosphere unless they really, really need the boost.

[Batman]

I'm very much afraid that a reaction engine the effects of which have to abide by real world physics providing Wars accelerations is going to do pretty damned drastic damage to its launch environment even if only used once.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Yes, but they also have FTL, so I'm not sure how much real world physics apply to any of their propulsion.

[RogueIce]

Except Mos Eisly wasn't leveled when Han blasted out of there, so yeah, I'm with the Clown on this one.

[Batman]

Indeed. However I take the fact that Mos Eisley was essentially undamaged as a good indicator that Han didn't use ion engines to 'blast out of there' given ion engines are by and large described as reaction engines. I don't see 'Engine glow' as sufficient reason to assume he was using ions instead of repulsors.

[Zwinmar]

Don't forget the Xwings taking off from the temple on Yavin where there is a guard behind the exhaust. Which seems to indicate it has no more effect than a harrier taking off

[Pelranius]

Indeed. However I take the fact that Mos Eisley was essentially undamaged as a good indicator that Han didn't use ion engines to 'blast out of there' given ion engines are by and large described as reaction engines. I don't see 'Engine glow' as sufficient reason to assume he was using ions instead of repulsors.

Could the blue glow have simply being the Millennium Falcon's engines being warmed up for getting quickly as possible to maximum speed once in deep space?

I usually assumed that GTO in 10 seconds was achieved by the repulsor lifts being assisted through thrust from the main engines of the spacecraft in question.

[Napoleon the Clown]

The glow could even just be due to power generation and not the ion engine itself thrusting up. Tough to say.

[StarSword]

Until we factor in the segment of TESB where Han does a Crazy Ivan on ISD Avenger. I recall a burst of blue fire coming from the Falcon's stern as it accelerated towards the Avenger.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Maybe the Falcon has a space afterburner or something, or he was throttling up. Or the effects guys thought it would look cool (which it does).