Engineering question (spoilers)

[trek.punk]

One of the things that I couldn't wrap my head around watching the movie last night was when Scotty ejects the warp core(s) to help the Enterprise escape the singularity's event horizon. With their warp system effectively offline, how did they move away? Did they simply ride the blast wave and then require a tow back to spacedock?

Yeah, I know it's a movie, but wondered if I missed something.

 

[nx1701g]

I thought that they said in dialogue that the detonation of the warp core would push them away from the area.

 

[Plecostomus]

Hm. No. They were at warp after, I'm almost sure of it. (WRONG! )

Maybe going with the "multiple redundant engine cores" theory he only ejected X number of engine elements and left Y online to power the engines...

 

[evil saltine]

I thought they used their impulse engines, and it was implied that another ship came and picked them up.

 

[Brent]

They did NOT go to warp after. They were at impulse.

 

[Plecostomus]

They did NOT go to warp after. They were at impulse.

I stand corrected.

 

[shapeshifter]

Hm. No. They were at warp after, I'm almost sure of it. (WRONG! )

Maybe going with the "multiple redundant engine cores" theory he only ejected X number of engine elements and left Y online to power the engines...

That is really a quite brilliant idea!

The warp speed capability, (factor) could be dependent on the number of cores available. As long as they have one warp core remaining a factor of at least 1 could be attained.

Before the Warp Engineers come out of the woodwork & start railing on me, you should know; I haven't spent minute one studying the fictional way these things work. I depend on things, "sounding like they could work" Plecostomus idea sounds like it could work, to me.

 

[Brent]

Things about the warp core could actually change between this version of the E and then when it gets refit to Enterprise-A. Perhaps by that time, they had advanced warp cores further and went with one single chamber in the center of engineering, but before that, with this Enterprise, it is multiple cores.

 

[Falconfire]

The new engeneering was a interesting design MUCH more in line with a real ship than a "Star Trek" ship.

I enjoyed the fact that everything was exposed like a REAL ship would have, that they had more than 1 warp core for redundancy, and that the matter-antimatter explosion WAS HUGE like a real one would be.

The explosion was somewhere along the lines of 20 times as large as the ship, possibly a LOT bigger since its cut off on both sides.

 

[Plecostomus]

Hm. No. They were at warp after, I'm almost sure of it. (WRONG! )

Maybe going with the "multiple redundant engine cores" theory he only ejected X number of engine elements and left Y online to power the engines...

That is really a quite brilliant idea!

The warp speed capability, (factor) could be dependent on the number of cores available. As long as they have one warp core remaining a factor of at least 1 could be attained.

Before the Warp Engineers come out of the woodwork & start railing on me, you should know; I haven't spent minute one studying the fictional way these things work. I depend on things, "sounding like they could work" Plecostomus idea sounds like it could work, to me.

Warp drive ain't real... I make stuff up based on my love of steam engines, power plants and my abandoned attempt to become a Nuclear Engineer (I switched majors)...

More or less this is my take: The NX engine was great, so were the nacelles but they couldn't be scaled up due to technology limitations so they went in a different direction for awhile.

Later on as technology advances (ships out exploring and bringing new ideas back) new nacelles are designed, new types of cores developed...

Technology ain't static. The central-station boiler of 1905 is a totally different beast then a central-station boiler of today yet they both burn coal and boil water to operate a prime mover to provide electric current.