M/AM Pheonix not far fetched?

[zDarby]

I read here:
<http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/09/details-on-antimatter-triggered-fusion.html>
that mass production of antimatter, in the amount of 10^18 protons per day, is within the realm of possibility. This translates to 1.67 micrograms per day.

The link at the top of the above page goes to an arxiv article with an analysis of one of the possible ways this might happen. It also discusses one method of making a fusion explosive without using any fission fuel, if only you had enough antimatter. (Very interesting reading!)

This article:
<http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/28/4659834/unlocking-the-positron-fusion-annihilation-laser>
from 2013 is about a company, still in existence, called Positron Dynamics, expressing their intent to turn positrons (anti-electrons) into a marketable commodity. They claim it can be done in 5 years.

I bring this up and post it here because there have been several discussions about Cochrane's Pheonix and how it powered its warp engines. The main objection to antimatter as being the main fuel is its rarity. But if you can manufacture at this level, in a single year you'd have enough antimatter to accelerate the Enterprise-D to 1wf, cruise at 1wf for 56 seconds, get out of warp, turn around and do it again to return to where you started.

This is almost exactly what Pheonix did: ramp up, cruise for less then 60 seconds, ramp down, turn 180, repeat.

If the Montana base Cochrane was on could produce and collect antimatter at 10^18 anti-protons per day than in just 4 years he'd have enough antimatter not only to do his warp trip but also fuel a special Titan rocket engine that pumped a few micrograms of antimatter per second into the rocket exhaust, allowing for the amazing performance we saw in First Contact.

So it's not as far fetched as it seems when it was released.

 

[uniderth]

I used to be a proponent of the standard fusion theory, but I've since changed my mind. I now think it was more of a anti-matter spiked reaction. Meaning the ratio was not 1-1. So possibly some sort of anti-matter spiked fusion(yeah, I just made that up). I haven't thought about it in depth and I'm liable to change my views.

I have also change my view in that I now think each nacelle had it's own reactor. Similar to how the anti/matter reaction took place in the nacelles in the original Enterprise. Now, I just have to wrangle an explanation for Riker's warp core(not cores) comment.

 

[Ronald Held]

It could be easier Post WW III to use fusion power for powering the warp coils, but I vaguely could see antimatter catalyzed fusion.

 

[zDarby]

Earlier in this forum I posted a speculation that Pheonix could have been powered by antimatter catalysed plutonium fission:
<http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=252148>

It didn't require much antimatter, indeed the amount could be harvested from Earth's Van Allen belt.

Antimatter catalyzed fusion is perfectly possible. You can find several engineering proposals for this kind of rocket engine all over the web.

But the new data, linked to in the first entry, above, suggests that Pheonix might be entirely paowered by antimatter. And suddenly the notion that each nacelle IS an antimatter reactor seems much more likely.

 

[Mytran]

Uniderth:
The term "warp core" is only problematic if we think of it in terms of a "TNG Warp Core". In the 24th century it refers to the M/AM reactor but in other eras it only needs to be whatever is the "centre" of the warp drive. For the Phoenix, my bet is on the warp control circuits (which were mentioned in TOS) and which do the difficult but incredibly important job of balancing the nacelles into a unified warp field

Glad to see another advocate for the "reactors in the nacelles" viewpoint, too! ;-)

 

[uniderth]

Glad to see another advocate for the "reactors in the nacelles" viewpoint, too! ;-)

Not only that but I don't think the nacelle endcaps are bussard collectors. Sacrilege, yes I know. But I am of the opinion that the domes are where the anti/matter reaction takes place. That is why I refer to them as reactor domes.

 

[Ronald Held]

I would find it harder to believe, post WW III that Cochrane could get significant amounts of antimatter with the world in the poor shape it was in.

 

[Mytran]

There's a lot of things about Cochrane's launch that don't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe making a small amount of antimatter to spice up an old Titan missile was the least of his problems?

 

[Go-Captain]

If the Titan missile he used had an antimatter triggered fusion warhead then it's possible he could have used those materials to create a reactor for his engines. It's also definite the Phoenix is antimatter powered, because it leaks theta radiation as noted by Data when he scans it with his tricorder.

To add to the antimatter mass production news, plasma wakefields can no successfully be used to accelerate antiprotons.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/08/progress-to-smaller-cheaper-particle.html

Also, Tri Alpha and Helion both have fusion reactor designs which look like warp cores.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/08/helion-energy-raised-109-million-and.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/06/tri-alpha-energy-enables-field-reversed.html

Imagine if the technologies could be combined, we would have antimatter reactors which look like TNG warp cores.

 

[uniderth]

Imagine if the technologies could be combined, we would have antimatter reactors which look like TNG warp cores.

Yes, but we need reactors that look like the ones in Kirk's era first. Then, we can develop ones that look like Next Generation.

 

[Mytran]

We don't know what the reactors inside the nacelles would look like - maybe there would be similarities to TNG reactors?

 

[Mytran]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of antimatter triggered fusion power - it could be what sets "simple impulse" up above other forms of propulsion and yet still requires the presence of basic radioactive materials that were occasionally referred to in TOS.

It also means that The Phoenix is essentially an impulse powered craft equipped with subspace field generator nacelles - in other words, a TOS shuttlecraft! I very much like the idea of 21st century cutting edge technology evolving into the mundane travel machinery of the 23rd century, it adds a realistic flavour of design lineage to the whole enterprise :-D

 

[Ronald Held]

I might buy this if he had access to antimatter catalyzed fusion warheads. This seems harder to believe than access to deuterium, as the tritium would decay about a half life from the end of WW III until the Phoenix flew.

 

[Mytran]

Deuterium on it's own wouldn't do a lot - you'd need some way of producing a compact fusion reactor small enough to fit inside the Titan missile - and thanks to zDarby's exhaustive research we know that this is somewhat impossible.

We know that the Friendship One probe carried highly advanced data on antimatter just a couple of years after Cochrane's launch, so it's not too much of a stretch to suppose that antimatter creation was at least a practical reality in the 2150s

 

[Go-Captain]

Imagine if the technologies could be combined, we would have antimatter reactors which look like TNG warp cores.

Yes, but we need reactors that look like the ones in Kirk's era first. Then, we can develop ones that look like Next Generation.

You mean the series of giant triangles in the main engineering space? One theory I read says that's a series of Dean Drives, invented by Norman L. Dean. The idea goes, the designer of the Enterprise loved the idea of the promise that the Dean drive could lift a submarine into space making it a spaceship. He took the idea and used it on the Enterprise, which means placing that space at the impulse engine in the aft part of the saucer.

Enterprise Engineering Room


Dean Drive

Note the triangular configuration, and cross members at the base, just like the triangles in the ship's engineering space.

If that's the case it means the power source, or sources are below the deck, or only the protruding portion into which dilithium is placed.
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