How do Starships stop?

[Cary L. Brown]

Really, that's about the most realistic idea for describing Star Trek propulsion. Warp drive is just magic, impulse drive ignores Newtonian physics, antigravity has no clear rules. At least a drag chute -type device in space travel would meet the important criteria of not being slave to the rocket equation or the need to carry along the propellant required by Newtonian rules. ........

(What is "wavey"?)

Timo Saloniemi

"most realistic idea for describing Star Trek propulsion.", you have to be joking. Thats wind and sails technology, Larry Niven aside, the area of a 'chute' would have to be enormous and would only slow the vessel, not stop it dead.

Impulse does not ignore newtonian physics, in fact, there are numerous projects, see http://www.j2fi.net/2007/09/11/behold-the-impulse-engine/ as an example.

A 'wavey' is a smiley icon the waves a hand.

Albertus... you're obviously totally oblivious to the actual comment being made.

And you know what? That's perfectly all right. But what's NOT alright is to be insulting (which is exactly what you're doing here).

Timo and I are both on the same page here... he clearly gets what I've been saying. And you've clearly missed the boat entirely. So before you start getting snide, please take a step backwards and try to first understand the concept you're making fun of. You clearly do not.

You're saying "the area of the 'chute would be enormous." But that only proves that you didn't actually read what was written (while Timo obviously did).

Let me be as clear as possible.

THERE

IS

NO

PHYSICAL

PARACHUTE

INVOLVED

IN

THIS

CONCEPT.

Get it?

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Actually, Lee Cole said that they were thrusters. In the "official blueprints" which were released at the time of TMP. I'm surprised you've forgotten that.

I'm looking at my copy of Star Trek: The Motion Picture - 14 Official Blueprints (Wallaby Books, 1980) right now and those particular features are completely unmarked in all three sheets that depict the NCC-1701 Refit's exterior.

TGT

 

[ancient]

Man, I could swear I remember something like a subspace anchor in some Voyager episode. One where they're trapped in an anomaly (that narrows it down). For some reason they didn't want to move, sensors were down or something, the usual. Maybe I'm just misremembering. The technobabble all sort of blended together after a while.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Quite possible. But it's not just the order-of-magnitude issue that turns me against this idea (space dust is a known and rather feeble quantity, subspace is a blissfully unknown one)...

The interstellar medium in the vicinity of Sol (aka the "Local Void") is ~0.1 particle per cubic centimeter, whereas the average for the Milky Way galaxy as a whole is ~1 particle per cc (see Local Interstellar Medium - IAU Colloquium #81 for more information). Depending on the maximum area of the deflector field, the resultant drag could save an appreciable amount of impulse reaction mass, particularly when decelerating from relativistic velocities. The actual calculations proving such a blithe assertion shall, of course, be left to the student to solve...

My argument against this would be different, of course... the problem is that this is inconsistent, and thus unreliable.

In reality, you'd either want separate braking thrusters, or (to be more space-and-mass-efficient at the expense of inconvenience) you'd just turn the ship around and use the primary thrust source (which is what's normally done in our contemporary space programs). When I designed my first major "Trek ship" I gave it a set of forward-facing impulse engines, in-line with the aft-facing ones, for this very purpose (as well as to increase manueverability). You'd still "turn around" as often as not, but in cases when you didn't have the luxury of doing that, the forward "braking engines" would do the trick. (If you're interested, click the thumbnail to see a basic overview of the ship... the "braking impulse ports" are on the pylons, by the way, facing forward.)

...it is my quest for an explanation that would fit the annoyingly plentiful evidence of "stopping due to power failure".

If one may ask, did this ever explicitly happen in TOS or TAS?

Actually, in TOS, or TAS for that matter, I don't think it did. And forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall that you reject everything that came after TMP, right?

But for those who don't feel that way, we have TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT that we have to deal with as well. And in those shows, this did happen reasonably often.

So Timo's take on things (the idea that the drive system not only CAN provide a "space-time drag effect but ALWAYS DOES except when in operation) is the best explanation I've seen for why this might be the case. And you know what? This would also explain why the 1701-D kept its nacelles powered while in orbit (and why a power loss while in orbit would result in an orbital decay rate far exceeding anything we would see under normal circumstances, unless they were under orders to take huge, stupid, unnecessary risks at all times... and yes, THAT applies to TOS, where "orbital decay" was used fairly regularly throughout the series).

Obviously, from an engineering standpoint, I'd want to avoid something like that if I could. But if that was the price you had to pay for being able to travel transluminally... it might be a bitter pill to swallow, but I'm sure we'd go ahead and accept it (instead of just staying at home!).

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Actually, in TOS, or TAS for that matter, I don't think it did. And forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall that you reject everything that came after TMP, right?

I only reject the Trek which wasn't produced by Gene Roddenberry, so I am forced to technically accept the existence of ST:TNG up until Hero Worship (the episode being produced when GR died) even though his actual creative contribution to the show would have been essentially nonexistent for at least a couple of years by that point. That I happen to utterly loathe TNG in its totality is an entirely different matter. Needless to say, I happily ignore TOS Season 3, ST:TNG Post-Hero Worship, DS9, VOY, ENT and films ST:TWOK to ST:XI, but please don't let that derail this thread. My question to Timo was for my own psychological benefit only. Everybody else is more than welcome to disregard it.

TGT

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Man, I could swear I remember something like a subspace anchor in some Voyager episode. One where they're trapped in an anomaly (that narrows it down). For some reason they didn't want to move, sensors were down or something, the usual. Maybe I'm just misremembering. The technobabble all sort of blended together after a while.

Yeah, "Forager" was particularly bad in that regard. It's the only Trek series I don't have on DVD... just too painful to watch!

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think the impulse engines and the inertial dampeners are interconnected.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Actually, Lee Cole said that they were thrusters. In the "official blueprints" which were released at the time of TMP. I'm surprised you've forgotten that.

I'm looking at my copy of Star Trek: The Motion Picture - 14 Official Blueprints (Wallaby Books, 1980) right now and those particular features are completely unmarked in all three sheets that depict the NCC-1701 Refit's exterior.

TGT

Confirmed. Those features are unlabeled.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Actually, Lee Cole said that they were thrusters. In the "official blueprints" which were released at the time of TMP. I'm surprised you've forgotten that.

I'm looking at my copy of Star Trek: The Motion Picture - 14 Official Blueprints (Wallaby Books, 1980) right now and those particular features are completely unmarked in all three sheets that depict the NCC-1701 Refit's exterior.

TGT

Confirmed. Those features are unlabeled.

Hmmm... I'll have to go back and see if I can figure out what, then, I was thinking of. I'm sure I knew that's what they were waaaay back then. (In the first TMP E model I built, I even put "burn marks" trailing from those, because I'd read in something official that they were dockyard-maneuvering thrusters).

Still... suppose that I can't find whatever it is. What do you guys think that they are? And claiming "deuterium fill ports" is just silly... there's no possible engineering argument for a "fill port" to be designed like that, is there? I mean... that's not a "new magic technology," it's a basic design element which would be no different than what we have today. Most likely, a "fill port" would resemble, quite closely, what you have on your car's gas tank - a cover plate which can swing aside to reveal the "plumbing" underneath.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Still... suppose that I can't find whatever it is. What do you guys think that they are? And claiming "deuterium fill ports" is just silly... there's no possible engineering argument for a "fill port" to be designed like that, is there? I mean... that's not a "new magic technology," it's a basic design element which would be no different than what we have today. Most likely, a "fill port" would resemble, quite closely, what you have on your car's gas tank - a cover plate which can swing aside to reveal the "plumbing" underneath.

Emergency vents for venting stuff (except anti-matter) in emergencies? The equal number of vents pointing in opposite directions is presumably intended to stop unwanted momentum from being imparted upon the ship during the venting procedure.

TGT

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Still... suppose that I can't find whatever it is. What do you guys think that they are? And claiming "deuterium fill ports" is just silly... there's no possible engineering argument for a "fill port" to be designed like that, is there? I mean... that's not a "new magic technology," it's a basic design element which would be no different than what we have today. Most likely, a "fill port" would resemble, quite closely, what you have on your car's gas tank - a cover plate which can swing aside to reveal the "plumbing" underneath.

Emergency vents for venting stuff (except anti-matter) in emergencies? The equal number of vents pointing in opposite directions is presumably intended to stop unwanted momentum from being imparted upon the ship during the venting procedure.

TGT

Ah, so as the ship flies past a planet, they "purge" and chunks of blue ice fall on the hapless folks below???

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Still... suppose that I can't find whatever it is. What do you guys think that they are? And claiming "deuterium fill ports" is just silly... there's no possible engineering argument for a "fill port" to be designed like that, is there? I mean... that's not a "new magic technology," it's a basic design element which would be no different than what we have today. Most likely, a "fill port" would resemble, quite closely, what you have on your car's gas tank - a cover plate which can swing aside to reveal the "plumbing" underneath.

Emergency vents for venting stuff (except anti-matter) in emergencies? The equal number of vents pointing in opposite directions is presumably intended to stop unwanted momentum from being imparted upon the ship during the venting procedure.

TGT

Ah, so as the ship flies past a planet, they "purge" and chunks of blue ice fall on the hapless folks below???

That would explain the wooshing sound every time the ship flies by a planet.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Ah, so as the ship flies past a planet, they "purge" and chunks of blue ice fall on the hapless folks below???

I would hope that the NCC-1701 Refit is equipped with a tightly integrated, closed-cycle environmental support system, although I suppose that CHON refills can always be acquired from comets, carbonaceous chondritic asteroids and the surface of M-Class planets. On a slightly less serious note, I refer you to Cornell University astrophysicist Prof. Thomas Gold's "Rotten Tomato Theory", described thusly:

"A billion years ago spacemen came to earth from another star. They came for the usual purposes: exploration, scientific examination, and military reconnaissance. They found an inhospitable planet with a methane and ammonia atmosphere. They realized it wasn't suitable for settling so they left and moved on. But before they left they dumped their garbage disposal units. Bacteria from the garbage thrived in that environment and evolved into our life. Now we're starting the same program and will probably do the same thing on another planet of another star. Maybe this is the real purpose of the space program. We're just the tools of bacteria to infect the universe." - Extracted from The Life and Death of a Satellite: A Biography of the Men and Machines at War with Space by Alfred Bester (Little, Brown and Company, 1966)

If such is indeed the case then Mr. Scott thoughtlessly purging the Enterprise's waste tanks over random worlds is truly an example of divine intervention.

TGT

 

[CuttingEdge100]

With warp-drive, the propulsive-effect is achieved through the warp-field itself. In TMP, the warp theory was more or less like Alcubierre's warp-drive concept (which was actually created like 2 decades later) in which space in front of the ship is compressed, and stretched in the back: An effect which essentially yanks and pushes the ship forward at the same time, and simultaneously allows it to cover more distance in the same time.

From my understanding of it, you cut the drive, the warp field dies and the effects of the warp field die with it. The ship simply drops back to whatever speed it was doing before the warp drive was engaged.


In regards to impulse power to slow the ship down you would use retro-thrust. Essentially you'd use engines mounted on the front of the ship to slow it down. To the best of my knowledge the vent just below the torpedo-tube on the Refit USS Enterprise performed exactly that function (the vent on the back of the tube was for the torpedo's exhaust), though I could be wrong.

There also to the best of my knowledge was some kind of field component to the impulse-drive which essentially lightened the mass of the ship up allowing it to accelerate and decelerate faster than would normally be achievable with that level of thrust.


CuttingEdge100

 

[GodThingFormerly]

With warp-drive, the propulsive-effect is achieved through the warp-field itself. In TMP, the warp theory was more or less like Alcubierre's warp-drive concept (which was actually created like 2 decades later) in which space in front of the ship is compressed, and stretched in the back: An effect which essentially yanks and pushes the ship forward at the same time, and simultaneously allows it to cover more distance in the same time.

Jesco von Puttkamer actually recycled for ST:TMP the Proto-Alcubierre FTL drive system he came up with to propel the Raumfahrzeug Transzendor in his 1956 LitSF short story Zu jung für die Ewigkeit ("Too Young for Eternity").

From my understanding of it, you cut the drive, the warp field dies and the effects of the warp field die with it. The ship simply drops back to whatever speed it was doing before the warp drive was engaged.

I imagine that Trek's warp drive shall function in whatever way the episode/film writer du jour wants it to, just as it has done for the last 26 or so years. Indeed, the cretins behind ST:XI will show the Enterprise being built on the planet's surface so as to "balance the warp engines in a gravity field".

In regards to impulse power to slow the ship down you would use retro-thrust. Essentially you'd use engines mounted on the front of the ship to slow it down. To the best of my knowledge the vent just below the torpedo-tube on the Refit USS Enterprise performed exactly that function (the vent on the back of the tube was for the torpedo's exhaust), though I could be wrong.

You are wrong. Andrew Probert intended that feature to serve as a tractor beam emitter.

There also to the best of my knowledge was some kind of field component to the impulse-drive which essentially lightened the mass of the ship up allowing it to accelerate and decelerate faster than would normally be achievable with that level of thrust.

...which was described by Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda in their ST:TNG-TM. As for the original NCC-1701 and her Refit, if she needs to futz around with the local spacetime metric for improved performance while at impulse she can do it with her warp nacelles while leaving the impulse engines as strictly Newtonian devices.

TGT

 

[bintak]

According to the TNG Tech Manual, impulse engines reduce the inertial mass of a starship to make it easier to accelerate. Since momentum equals mass times velocity, and momentum is conserved, then simply reducing a ship's effective mass would automatically cause it to go faster, and conversely, increasing its effective mass would cause it to slow down. So all a starship has to do in order to decelerate is to dial back the mass-reduction effect of its impulse-drive field. Conversely, though, if the mass is reduced as much as possible, then that makes it easier to accelerate or decelerate with thrusters (assuming that the thrusters' reaction mass is not itself subjected to mass reduction).

And of course no starship ever "stops," it just matches velocity with some other object in space or goes into orbit of some other body. How much deceleration or course change is needed would depend on what the ship's velocity is relative to its destination or to the other vessel it's rendezvousing with.

Incorrect. The result would be an explosion. MASS and INERTIA is real. You have to conserve it in space-time. You cannot just magically add and subtract it. That curving of space that the mass occupies and the resistance to change in velocity and direction has to be present to give matter form. The modulation or transformation of same instantaneously means energy-violent energy.

You would be better off with a gravitational flywheel effect. That is just barely plausible. It would allow you to use dynamic braking by storing energy in the form of gravity in a capture ring. Doctor Forward suggested this as a means of relativistic braking.

 

[Timo]

But once again, magical adding and subtracting is the starting point here. And there's no particular reason to assume that it has to be conserved in space-time when clearly the very nature of the space-time metric is being mangled by subspace technology anyway.

By the rules of this fictional mass/inertia control technology, subspace could easily act as the "flywheel" or dumping medium that receives or donates inertia. Or if inertia as such cannot be dumped (and the illusion of this in Trek is explainable in some other manner), then subspace could harmlessly receive the energy released in the process.

Really, these "barely plausible" methods compatible with the universe known to us are meaningless in the Trek context. The warp drive already makes such seeming violations that the universe of Trek has to be assumed to be differently construed.

Timo Salonimei

 

[Cary L. Brown]

According to the TNG Tech Manual, impulse engines reduce the inertial mass of a starship to make it easier to accelerate. Since momentum equals mass times velocity, and momentum is conserved, then simply reducing a ship's effective mass would automatically cause it to go faster, and conversely, increasing its effective mass would cause it to slow down. So all a starship has to do in order to decelerate is to dial back the mass-reduction effect of its impulse-drive field. Conversely, though, if the mass is reduced as much as possible, then that makes it easier to accelerate or decelerate with thrusters (assuming that the thrusters' reaction mass is not itself subjected to mass reduction).

And of course no starship ever "stops," it just matches velocity with some other object in space or goes into orbit of some other body. How much deceleration or course change is needed would depend on what the ship's velocity is relative to its destination or to the other vessel it's rendezvousing with.

Incorrect. The result would be an explosion. MASS and INERTIA is real. You have to conserve it in space-time. You cannot just magically add and subtract it. That curving of space that the mass occupies and the resistance to change in velocity and direction has to be present to give matter form. The modulation or transformation of same instantaneously means energy-violent energy.

You would be better off with a gravitational flywheel effect. That is just barely plausible. It would allow you to use dynamic braking by storing energy in the form of gravity in a capture ring. Doctor Forward suggested this as a means of relativistic braking.

I'm not sure Christopher is "incorrect" here. But you also raise an interesting point... and that, also, isn't "incorrect." That's one of the real issues that many folks have with "relativistic" physics today... it allows you to come up with multiple "real" solutions to the same problem (yet it seems impossible to believe that you could ever see more than one solution in reality).

Christopher is absolutely correct... given the basic precept of relativity, all you ever do is achieve "zero velocity relative to any given frame of reference." Yet, as you point out, there are problems with that approach.

For this reason, I tend to think that our understanding of physics is dramatically incomplete in this regard. I suspect, though I cannot prove, that there is some "ultimate reference system" to which everything relates... and relativity works only as a shift-function within that frame of reference.

But I can't support that with experimental data, so it that's not even a theory, only a hypothesis.

 

[bintak]

But once again, magical adding and subtracting is the starting point here. And there's no particular reason to assume that it has to be conserved in space-time when clearly the very nature of the space-time metric is being mangled by subspace technology anyway.

By the rules of this fictional mass/inertia control technology, subspace could easily act as the "flywheel" or dumping medium that receives or donates inertia. Or if inertia as such cannot be dumped (and the illusion of this in Trek is explainable in some other manner), then subspace could harmlessly receive the energy released in the process.

Really, these "barely plausible" methods compatible with the universe known to us are meaningless in the Trek context. The warp drive already makes such seeming violations that the universe of Trek has to be assumed to be differently construed.

Timo Salonimei

You still have to work with the physics you have or you will have science fantasy instead of science fiction.

In reality the gravitational flywheel makes a lot of sense as a means to modulate inertia That is your big heartburn in Trekteck. How do you handle relativistic effects?

We use the flywheel effect to handle inertia every day, we understand it and can clumsily control it [dynamic braking is using angular momentum and conservation of inertia for us; instead of against us when we brake trains on a down grade. We use the diesel electric motor's own mechanical resistance when we flip the charge polarities to apply a braking influence electromagnetically.

Modulate gravitation and you can do supposedly the same. Conservation is NOT violated. Physics and I will be very happy.


----------------------------------------

According to the TNG Tech Manual, impulse engines reduce the inertial mass of a starship to make it easier to accelerate. Since momentum equals mass times velocity, and momentum is conserved, then simply reducing a ship's effective mass would automatically cause it to go faster, and conversely, increasing its effective mass would cause it to slow down. So all a starship has to do in order to decelerate is to dial back the mass-reduction effect of its impulse-drive field. Conversely, though, if the mass is reduced as much as possible, then that makes it easier to accelerate or decelerate with thrusters (assuming that the thrusters' reaction mass is not itself subjected to mass reduction).

And of course no starship ever "stops," it just matches velocity with some other object in space or goes into orbit of some other body. How much deceleration or course change is needed would depend on what the ship's velocity is relative to its destination or to the other vessel it's rendezvousing with.

Incorrect. The result would be an explosion. MASS and INERTIA is real. You have to conserve it in space-time. You cannot just magically add and subtract it. That curving of space that the mass occupies and the resistance to change in velocity and direction has to be present to give matter form. The modulation or transformation of same instantaneously means energy-violent energy.

You would be better off with a gravitational flywheel effect. That is just barely plausible. It would allow you to use dynamic braking by storing energy in the form of gravity in a capture ring. Doctor Forward suggested this as a means of relativistic braking.

I'm not sure Christopher is "incorrect" here. But you also raise an interesting point... and that, also, isn't "incorrect." That's one of the real issues that many folks have with "relativistic" physics today... it allows you to come up with multiple "real" solutions to the same problem (yet it seems impossible to believe that you could ever see more than one solution in reality).

Christopher is absolutely correct... given the basic precept of relativity, all you ever do is achieve "zero velocity relative to any given frame of reference." Yet, as you point out, there are problems with that approach.

For this reason, I tend to think that our understanding of physics is dramatically incomplete in this regard. I suspect, though I cannot prove, that there is some "ultimate reference system" to which everything relates... and relativity works only as a shift-function within that frame of reference.

But I can't support that with experimental data, so it that's not even a theory, only a hypothesis.

A testable hypothesis it is. You would need a gravitational strain gauge or wave detector. In mapping gravity wave phenomena, the detector has of necessity a direction component built into it. The experiment uses gravity wave interferometry to detect the cosmic egg origin expansion point by parallax. That would be your space time ZERO point.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

The God Thing

Jesco von Puttkamer actually recycled for ST:TMP the Proto-Alcubierre FTL drive system he came up with to propel the Raumfahrzeug Transzendor in his 1956 LitSF short story Zu jung für die Ewigkeit ("Too Young for Eternity").

Well, it would seem that Jesco von Puttkamer happened to get it right, and it was incorporated into TMP at least...

I imagine that Trek's warp drive shall function in whatever way the episode/film writer du jour wants it to, just as it has done for the last 26 or so years.

Unfortunately, yes.

Indeed, the Cretins behind ST:XI will show the Enterprise being built on the planet's surface so as to "balance the warp engines in a gravity field".

Yeah, I saw the trailer for that... just awful, and quite impractical.

Gene Roddenberry was very specific about that one -- it was supposed to be built in space.

You are wrong. Andrew Probert intended that feature to serve as a tractor beam emitter.

Okay, I concede -- Regardless it is in a perfect place for a reverse-thruster (right on the ship's centerline)

However, I should note that parts of the ships have been re-defined periodically...

1.) The dish used to be just a sensor antenna, later it became a navigational deflector
2.) Photon torpedoes were not clearly stated to be solid masses like in TWOK; in fact until TMP (when it was stated they were loading torpedoes when Kirk arrived on the bridge) it seems there was no sign they were an actual torpedo, but simply matter and anti-matter seperated with a magnaphoton field and simply flung out into space... (in fact, even in TMP the special effects guys assumed this)
3.) The blue glowing impulse deflection crystal was supposed to be a means of translating power from the intermix into propulsive force for the impulse-drive, later on it was speculated that it was part of a mass-reduction device that reduced the ship's mass for accelerating faster.


Bintak,

You would be better off with a gravitational flywheel effect. That is just barely plausible. It would allow you to use dynamic braking by storing energy in the form of gravity in a capture ring. Doctor Forward suggested this as a means of relativistic braking.

Gravitational Flywheel???

Also, who's Dr. Forward?


CuttingEdge100