Ion engines vs impulse drive (Spock's Brain)

[Mange]

While I'm sure that this has been dealt with before, I just felt that I had to point this out. I was watching old TOS episodes the other day (I like TOS), and stumbled across Spock's Brain (the absolutely worst episode of TOS).

So, Spock's brain has been surgically removed by a woman, and while the Enterprise is chasing after the ship wíth the brain, Captain Kirk makes an interesting comment:

"[...] advanced ion propulsion is beyond even our capabilities [...]"

Some debaters in the ST Vs SW arena (including the One Whose Name Can't Be Spoken, ok, it's Dorkstar), claims that ion propulsion is widely inferior to impulse drive. Ok, it's TOS, but IIRC, we don't hear much on ion drives later, so how can ion propulsion be more primitive than impulse drive?

[Lord Revan]

While I'm sure that this has been dealt with before, I just felt that I had to point this out. I was watching old TOS episodes the other day (I like TOS), and stumbled across Spock's Brain (the absolutely worst episode of TOS).

So, Spock's brain has been surgically removed by a woman, and while the Enterprise is chasing after the ship wíth the brain, Captain Kirk makes an interesting comment:

"[...] advanced ion propulsion is beyond even our capabilities [...]"

Some debaters in the ST Vs SW arena (including the One Whose Name Can't Be Spoken, ok, it's Dorkstar), claims that ion propulsion is widely inferior to impulse drive. Ok, it's TOS, but IIRC, we don't hear much on ion drives later, so how can ion propulsion be more primitive than impulse drive?

well since Impulse Drive is fusion powered ion drive so claim that ion drive is inferior to impulse drive can be translated to ion drive is inferior to ion drive. So it like many (if not all) Dorkstar's arguments, this makes no sense.

[Mange]

Well, there are other sites and debaters that claim the same thing (such as FurryConflict, which claims that impulse drives isn't dependable of Newtonian physics ).

[Lord Revan]

Well, there are other sites and debaters that claim the same thing (such as FurryConflict, which claims that impulse drives isn't dependable of Newtonian physics ).

well apart for mass lightening impulse drive are limited to Newtonian physics (E-D could use conservation of momentum in "Booty Trap"(IIRC)

[Techno_Union]

Didn't TOS also make mention of a hyperdrive? After time, a lot of sci-fi series just say certain words or phrases... most times you shouldn't take them too literally. Though thit is an interesting case.

[Kurgan]

We could interpret it to mean "wow, their Impulse drive is way better than our impulse drive!" But yeah, I think that at the time the writers were probably just using a throwaway buzz word to indicate "advanced technology" that was never followed up on.

[LordShaithis]

As has been said many times before on this site: Technology is defined by performance, not the name. Just because this TOS ship and SW ships both use the word "ion" to describe their sublight drives does NOT mean they're of similar sophistication or power.

[Patrick Degan]

Didn't TOS also make mention of a hyperdrive? After time, a lot of sci-fi series just say certain words or phrases... most times you shouldn't take them too literally. Though thit is an interesting case.

That was how the Enterprise's FTL propulsion system was described in "The Cage"; also that it was based upon a "time-warp" and that it seemed to be a relatively recent development since the "time barrier" had been broken. These descriptions did not survive to the regular series.

[The Silence and I]

Well, there are very real physical limitations to thrust from ion drives, due to electrical potential and insulation of vacuum limits and stuff. It could be simply that the Federation at that time (didn't Tom Paris put ion thrusters on the Delta Flyer?) couldn't construct ion drives with suitable thrust? Opting instead for impulse, which presumably uses some other principal.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

So, Spock's brain has been surgically removed by a woman, and while the Enterprise is chasing after the ship wíth the brain, Captain Kirk makes an interesting comment:

"[...] advanced ion propulsion is beyond even our capabilities [...]"

Well, Kirk said *advanced* ion propulsion, so if ST impulse drive is also based on ion propulsion, then I guess impulse drive is not an "advanced ion propulsion"

Seriously, though, I never watched that episode. Why did Kirk make that remark? If it was because the Enterprise was struggling to keep up with the ship with the brain, then it should say something about Trek impulse drive....

It's interesting to note that Mike has estimated that Star Destroyer's decelerative capability is at least 30 km/s², while Trek capships is between 10 km/s² and 15 km/s².

[jawbertsc]

I remeber reading in a star trek TOS novel that impulse drive was described as taking a heavy elemet fusion and manipulating it with a gravity field. This caused spatial distrotions like waves which the ship more or less rode. I never saw this again though and the TNG stuff seemed to contradict it. I really could care less either way.

[Enola Straight]

An Ion is a charged particle; notice I don't specify "charged" as being electrically charged nor "particle" as an atom of some element or electrons and nuclei thereof.

Advanced ion tech in ST may very well mean some subspace analogue of EM and/or matter.

Furthermore, ST impulse drives are not simply thermonuclear rocket engines: they also employ driver coils similar to warp nacelles, but feild-distort spacetime instead of subspace, thus the engines manipulate gravity, which explains the mass-lightening effect.