A Proposal of Mine and Implications

[CuttingEdge100]

A while back I proposed an idea of having the Enterprise capable of traveling at 0.73 LY an hour at full throttle to allow the Enterprise to cover distances more likely to cover some of the distances shown in the series.

Either way one idea I had proposed was to have the enterprise collect blue-shifted energy in addition to hydrogen via it's bussard collectors and use that to provide additional energy to power the ship and possibly even the nav-deflectors to get the energy needed to do all this work.

Granted the ship would have to accelerate to get the blue-shifted energy to continue accelerating it along, which would get it more energy until eventually you'd reach a point of diminishing returns in efficiency

The implications of this, I was thinking about would be if the ship could absorb this kind of energy to do work, wouldn't it be immune to phaser blasts or any kind of energy beam? It would obviously be awesome if you were on the ship, but for the plot of a TV show it wouldn't be all that cool as the ship might be invincible...

The only exception would be if the energy build up during the acceleration would be slower than the rapidity of energy build up from an energy beam like a phaser shot.

 

[sojourner]

^What the hell is "blueshift energy"?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The idea is that as the ship is moving forward faster than light, any radiation that strikes it from the front--even cosmic background radiation--is shifted so insanely in frequency that it would have the energy of an ultra-gamma ray photon. You then harvest this energy and use it for your drive system.

The hard part is figuring out how to drag this energy into your engines without re-shifting it back into its normal spectrum as it crosses the warp field. Depending on how the field works, that might not be a problem (a warp drive designed to capitalize on this technique wouldn't have that problem by definition).

Now as to the OP: No, you would not be immune to phaser fire, because the blueshift only works when your ship is actually at warp, and then only from directly in front of you. Since very few people ever attack each other at a distance at warp speeds, and since most ships will use photon torpedoes for that anyway, the advantage is fairly small. If you're thinking about using the warp field to absorb incoming energy and channel it to ship's power, that's pretty much what "regenerative shields" appear to be. They're not invincible, they're just really good at handling the kinds of overload situations that usually drain shield power, which makes them more durable in the longrun.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Newtype Alpha,

The idea is that as the ship is moving forward faster than light, any radiation that strikes it from the front--even cosmic background radiation--is shifted so insanely in frequency that it would have the energy of an ultra-gamma ray photon. You then harvest this energy and use it for your drive system.

That's correct. The idea also would include the possibility that the energy collected would actually supplement power produced by the reactor such that the overall output could be higher than could be produced by just the reactor alone. The idea is that the amount of matter/anti-matter to produce this energy level to warp-space as described would be enormous and endurance and range would be ridiculously short if it weren't for a system like this. A lot of fuel burn would be required for acceleration, but once you start collecting energy and matter, you could throttle back and instead ride off the energy collected at warp.

Also the power to run the navigational deflectors also would logically be enormous, and to be honest would probably need to be higher than the power even produced by the warp-engines -- this would allow them to produce the power levels needed to work at these high speeds.

The hard part is figuring out how to drag this energy into your engines without re-shifting it back into its normal spectrum as it crosses the warp field.

That is an interesting point, I'm not sure if it would apply as the energy would have still been compressed a lot, and the field would compress space in front, space would only be stretched out further aft of the bussard collector.

Also you're not "pulling the energy in". You're pulling in hydrogen, but the energy is being zapped right at you...

Now as to the OP: No, you would not be immune to phaser fire, because the blueshift only works when your ship is actually at warp, and then only from directly in front of you.

But if it could absorb those insane loads of energy without getting burned out or blown up, then logic indicates it could take those loads of energy regardless of whether at warp or not. The only exception would be some kind of thermal shock mechanism at work, in that it takes time for the collectors to warm up to be able to tolerate all this energy, and if at sub-light it wouldn't be warmed up enough so a sudden peak in energy would thermal-shock the collectors.

If you're thinking about using the warp field to absorb incoming energy and channel it to ship's power, that's pretty much what "regenerative shields" appear to be.

No, I was thinking of instead of having just a bussard collector, to instead have the bussard collector collect both hydrogen and raw energy collected via the doppler effect to power the ship.

I assume most of the front of the ship would be shielded by the navigational deflector in one way or another, but the collectors would have to not be exposed and would logically be able to take these insanely high energy levels.


CuttingEdge100

 

[T'Girl]

Here's a idea. The deflector initially diverts particulate matter, free hydrogen and blue shifted energy out of the direct path of the ship. The free hydrogen is then selectively re-diverted into the bussard collectors on a pathway shaped like a American football. The blue shifted energy never enters the body of the ship, the "blue energy" powers the warp field by passing through it. The warp field is what actually harvests the energy. I imagine the shape of the warp field as a flat disc centered on the ship, the higher the speed, the larger the disc, the more blue energy encountered.

This harvesting feature is a problem when the ship travels through ion storms, the warp field can't absorb that much energy. Saturation can damage the warp coils.

After the blue energy passes through the warp field it is largely stripped of it's energy.

The reactor is the sole power source to enter warp.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

T'Girl,

I don't know if that would work. The warp-field design I'm thinking of is based on the alcubierre method

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Any other ideas?

CuttingEdge100

 

[Myasishchev]

Here's a idea. The deflector initially diverts particulate matter, free hydrogen and blue shifted energy out of the direct path of the ship. The free hydrogen is then selectively re-diverted into the bussard collectors on a pathway shaped like a American football.

I dunno, I don't the bussard collectors can or should be used that way. There's a real problem in the conception of Trek bussard collectors--Bussard proposed the idea to supplement the fuel reserves of fusion-driven sublight interstellar ships, basically to cut down on the mass the ship has to drag with it. With a magical FTL system, interstellar hydrogen is no longer useful whatsoever, because planetary hydrogen is free and plentiful and exatons of it are oribiting almost every star in the sky in the form of gas giants. In the Star Trek context, trying to utilize stretches of interstellar space to obtain hydrogen is like sticking your head in a lake to get at the oxygen.

As for blueshifting, I doubt that light striking the starships is blueshifted. It's never appeared to be, and looking out windows open to a gamma ray source doesn't seem like a very good idea.

Also, there's the question of preferentially invoking only one physical result of relativistic travel--if there's a blue shift because of the ship's motion relative to the light source (stars, CBR, whatever), does the ship also experience also time dilation?

 

[Timo]

A side note:

that's pretty much what "regenerative shields" appear to be

To be sure, "regenerative shields" may be the same thing as "regular shields".

After all, this piece of technobabble was never actually spoken by any character. Instead, it was part of a list of technological features the computer of USS Prometheus provided for her "body" starship. Had the computer been installed aboard an automobile, it might have listed an "internal combustion engine" as part of the automobile's systems - but this wouldn't mean that "internal combustion engine" would be an exceptional new type of automobile engine!

Generally, most shields in Star Trek have been shown to regenerate, if given enough time. Certainly all starship shields have this feature.

It's a bit different when Sisko and pals explicitly discuss "regenerative phasers". The context, from "Field of Fire", more or less dictates that "regenerative" is not a property of the common phaser, or at least wasn't before the Borg were encountered and this type of technology was adopted. Unless we are to think that the Borg made Starfleet briefly think of using slugthrowers, but then return to standard phasers - but then Sisko's use of the word "regenerative" would be superfluous and confusing, and Sisko isn't a computer and thus doesn't carry the license to be superfluous and confusing...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Regardless

When you consider that the Enterprise in the TV-series was already around 20 years old, it would have been more capable than it was when commissioned.

It could do 0.73 LY/Hr max from 2265 to 2270, during April or Pike's time, I wonder what would be a reasonable speed to list? I'd say 0.65 LY an hour would be good during Pike's time (at least 2260 to 2265).

For 2245 to 2260 I don't know what would be good.

I was thinking with the topic of Transwarp coming up in Star Trek III it seems possible that up until the mid 2260's advances could have been fairly fast but were beginning to flatten out. By the 2270's it's possible some kind of plateu could have been reached.

That would lead to thee Transwarp development.

Sound good?

 

[publiusr]

Rather like an energy version of a ramjet, if I understand you enough. Transwarp would thus be like a scramjet.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

The question I need to know is, is there any logic to my idea that in order to absorb such insane loads of energy without getting burned-out or blown up, and able to not be invincible to phaser fire, that the device would somehow have to use energy to protect or shield itself to some degree, or even somehow strengthen itself (you could also use the energy, and the hydrogen and particle streams to somehow partially shield it?) relying on the energy it's collecting to do it (Obviously more energy would have to be taken in that would be needed to shield itself) -- that it would have to "warm" up as it goes to tolerate it (and that a sudden burst of energy to the collector while "cool" could impose a thermal shock effect)?


Publiusr,

It would be a ramjet device sort of, but it wouldn't just collect energy, it would collect hydrogen and energy.

As for transwarp being a scramjet, I'm not sure. It could play a role, but I assume the engine itself would have to be substantially more efficient than would a standard warp-enigne. I'm talking transwarp like Excelsior Transwarp, not Voyager/Borg Transwarp.


CuttingEdge100

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I've given this some thought. Blueshift effects would probably be reduced as a result of the warp-field itself. There would still quite a lot of energy so it wouldn't have to be so tolerant to the energy flooding in. You include both matter collection, and energy collection.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I'm also wondering if it's possible to somehow have the collectors emit some of the energy they collect, using the energy emitted to react with the energy going in as to make matter.

I remember hearing that if two energy beams cross at skew-angles to each other you get particle and anti-particle production...

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I don't know if it's even worth coming up with a reasonable technical explanation for all this. The amount of energy to make a bussard collector work would be obscene, and the amount of heat the bussard collectors would reach would already be smokin' hot if they're glowing.

I would not be surprised if the blue-shifting effect would be partially neutralized by the warp-field itself, although from what I remember regarding a NASA diagram regarding the proposed Alcubierre drive, they did show what blue-shifting would look like ahead of the ship and red-shift behind so there would be SOME doppler effect going on. I would not be surprised if you were doing several hundred times the speed of light you would probably receive at least some energy which could be collected to help out.

At lower warp-factors this could compensate the hydrogen-collecting process which doesn't collect enough hydrogen from space until you're going faster by collecting energy which could be used directly, which indirectly would reduce fuel consumption from the ships tanks.

At higher warp-factors the additional energy influx drawn in could allow the warp-engines to run at higher energy levels than the matter/anti-matter reaction could produce on it's own, allowing much higher warp-factors. Also that energy could feed to the navigational deflector to allow it to work even at these very high warp-factors, and produce the huge energy requirements dictated of it at such speeds.

As I mentioned, in the warp-nacelle one could direct the energy collected along a variety of paths in the spacing behind the bussard collector so that you get a lot of skew-line interactions (the waves pass along that kind of trajectory -- I don't know what you call such a energy interaction so I just call it a skew-line interaction) which produce matter/anti-matter, which can be cooled, and stored in the ships tanks or pumped into the reactor, allowing the matter/anti-matter in the tanks not to be used and just shoot it straight into the reactor.

The grilles on the nacelles could be used for getting rid of excessive energy collected by the bussard-collector/energy-ramjet. The energy waves from each grille can be emitted out of phase with the grille on the opposite side so they largely neutralize and avoid damaging things. I suppose some energy could be emitted out the back of the nacelle (The early NCC-1701 design did have vents, or a nozzle-like device, DEG-3D's 5.2 design did have a glowing section in the back which could be an emission source)

 

[publiusr]

It might be nice to talk to a physicist to have them explain what an FTL crew might see in a warp bubble--if anything... If you are running into a lot of light it might be blinding.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Publusr,

Good point