Self-Repair Ships

[Timo]

The problem seemed to be power failure, but the solution might have involved using a solar sail to either towing the ship to a location where evacuation would be possible, or perhaps adjusting the ship's attitude so that she could catch local starlight for energy.

However, my favorite theory has usually been that a solar sail would be necessary for erecting the vast (and we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of kilometers here) emergency photovoltaic cell that would restore enough power for life support. Or alternately for deploying a magnetospheric tapwire for the same purpose.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Silversmok3]

(An example is in ST:Voyage Home when the alien probe neutralized the USS Saratoga,and the chief engineer was attempting to jury rig a solar sail to keep the crew alive)

I've long wondered about this. How was a solar sail supposed to extend the Saratoga's life-support system capacity?

TGT

Probably a script mix up.What the engineer meant to say was solar PANEL,as a sail wouldn't do anything but move the ship.
In any case,a power outage in space is some serious sh-* .Freezing to death in vaccuum would suck hardcore.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

The problem seemed to be power failure, but the solution might have involved using a solar sail to either towing the ship to a location where evacuation would be possible, or perhaps adjusting the ship's attitude so that she could catch local starlight for energy.

A solar sail wouldn't be of much use as a propulsion system in the dark depths of interstellar space for obvious reasons.

However, my favorite theory has usually been that a solar sail would be necessary for erecting the vast (and we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of kilometers here) emergency photovoltaic cell that would restore enough power for life support.

Sure, but a solar sail functions by reflecting photons and photovoltaics function by absorbing them, so they would be two mutually-exclusive operations.

Or alternately for deploying a magnetospheric tapwire for the same purpose.

Are you referring to an electrodynamic tether? That would require orbiting a planet with a strong geomagnetic field, and the Whale Probe didn't appear to pass through any stellar systems on its way to Earth (from what I remember of the Starfleet HQ graphics, anyway).

TGT

 

[FalTorPan]

The solar sail wouldn't have kept the crew alive, but it would have given their corpses great tans!

 

[Timo]

Of course, a solar sail in the future might refer to a large sail-like area erected for the purpose of gathering solar output, not specifically for gathering the momentum of solar photons.

It often irks me that certain Trek writers (mostly in the novel side of things) try to impose latest 21st century scientific findings and engineering achievements, or oftentimes latest 19th century findings and achievements, as elements of the 23rd or 24th century world. Sure, it may sound cool that Kirk's ship is powered by nanomachines in microwheels or something - but that technology will be outdated by two centuries by then, that theory probably discredited three times over, and the 23rd or 24th century world has probably already been shown working on principles quite distinct from our own.

It's even worse when historical terminology is forcibly applied on the fictional future. Those people wouldn't be talking about Alcubierre drives: they would be working on what they know as warp drives, based on the Shuvinaaljis principle that builds on the Cochrane theory which coincidentally resembles the 20th or was it 19th century speculative fiction written by that whachamacallem Alcupierre or something.

So I'm quite ready to believe that "solar sails" in the future are power generation devices, and that "magnetic boots" have nothing to do with the electromagnetic force, and that "impulse drive" isn't related to the quantity I any more than it is related to the psychological phenomenon of impulsiveness. Hell, submarines today certainly don't use their sails for wind-based propulsion!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

A solar sail wouldn't be of much use as a propulsion system in the dark depths of interstellar space for obvious reasons.

Why "dark depths"? We don't know the circumstances of the Yorktown's distress. The same goes for the use of magnetospheric taps - the ship could have been defending a colony world at close proximity, rather than reconnoitering against the intruder in deepest space.

I don't think the ST4 SF HQ graphics would be particularly informative in this, as they don't appear to refer to the Neutral Zone as one of their features. We could be seeing extreme zoom-ins of parts of the Probe's route, or zoom-outs that hide detail such as star systems except when specifically highlighted.

Sure, but a solar sail functions by reflecting photons and photovoltaics function by absorbing them, so they would be two mutually-exclusive functions.

I'm not claiming these would be one and the same device. I'm simply suggesting that rigging a solar sail to tug the photovoltaic cell open would be a necessary step in restoring power in this fashion, and a crucial step when power was so completely lost that no other means of deploying the cell would be available.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GodThingFormerly]

^ Surely any onboard photovoltaic arrays would be spring-loaded/gas-inflatable or extendable via hand-crank in the event of a catastrophic power loss.

TGT

 

[Timo]

I seriously doubt anything like that would work for a 100-klick array needed for providing even a fraction of the fantastic power levels usually found aboard starships. NASA and the Soviets regularly managed to get ten-meter arrays all fouled up already.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

In the BattleTech universe, solar sails are used to collect solar energy which is then shunted into the ship's propulsion and engines to create a hyperspace field around the hull, and propel it to the target system. The sail is strictly an energy collector, and not an actual means of propulsion by itself.

 

[roguephoenix]

like i mentioned before, whatever power system it runs on it will be separate from the rest of the ship as it would be useless in times of crises since power failure is almost a certainty.

 

[Meredith]

I'd argue that all TNG era ships are already self-repairing. After all, all "repair" work we have seen conducted has consisted of pressing buttons or, in the rare occasion, of manually closing down a valve that is leaking thick white smoke. The buttons would have to connect to some sort of repair system capable of undoing actual physical damage.

Whether that system consists of a roomful of redshirts waiting for their orders to be button-pushed onto their duty roster screen, or an army of robots ranging from nanosized to gargantuan, or a set of forcefield-based "virtual" arms and tools, or a mixture of all of the above, remains unknown. But some of the above must be in use to allow the ships to recover from severe damage as demonstrated.

Timo Saloniemi

Everyone knows that the white smoke that flows out of pipes on starships is what makes em' work!


Scotty did more hands on re-pair that LaForge ever did. Scotty always liked the gettign hands on, I think Laforge just coordinated repair teams which seems to make more sense on a large ship, O'Brien, B'ellana, and Tucker were more like scotty in being hands on types.