Tos warp nacelles dome? Material
- Thread starter JoeRalat
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Magicinium? Ultiminium? Kidding. I don't think it's ever been mentioned. It might be a porous material given that in later Treks they're supposed to collect interstellar gases.
The only time we actually see that is in Insurrection and even then we don't get to know if the dome actually folds back to collect the gases or if it simply pulls them in through it, though I do think Riker has a line that mentions the opening of them.
The only time we actually see that is in Insurrection and even then we don't get to know if the dome actually folds back to collect the gases or if it simply pulls them in through it, though I do think Riker has a line that mentions the opening of them.
On the page entitled "MAIN PROPULSION", Franz Joseph's Technical Manual refers to the dome as "SPACE ENERGY/MATTER SINK (ACQUISITION)".
Geoffrey Mandel's blueprint of the warp nacelle from 1978, entitled "INBOARD MAIN PROPULSION UNIT", calls the dome "SKIN PERMEABLE TO INTERSTELLAR GAS AND DUST".
Both of these descriptions are similar, and both predate the placement of the clearly similar Bussard collectors on the Enterprise-D in corresponding locations.
Geoffrey Mandel's blueprint of the warp nacelle from 1978, entitled "INBOARD MAIN PROPULSION UNIT", calls the dome "SKIN PERMEABLE TO INTERSTELLAR GAS AND DUST".
Both of these descriptions are similar, and both predate the placement of the clearly similar Bussard collectors on the Enterprise-D in corresponding locations.
I'm not on board with the (Bussard) collector bandwagon. I recall reading somewhere that the lights in the domes were supposed to give the impression of immense power. It doesn't really matter where I read that but I like the idea. I've just started referring to them as reactor domes. Though I'm not sure why you would put them clear out there on the front. They would probably be made of a opaque material. However, due to the intensity of the reaction light can be seen through it.
I've worked with a cutting CO2 laser. We were using it to make glass from sand. When I held an opaque piece of plastic in front of my eyes I could see through the plastic and watch the laser melting the sand.
I just find the bussard collector thing a bit boring as it falls back into the same formulaic approach to Star Trek. The Phoenix had nacelle domes. I really don't think Zephram Cochrane went to all that trouble to put ram scoops on his one use ship.
I've worked with a cutting CO2 laser. We were using it to make glass from sand. When I held an opaque piece of plastic in front of my eyes I could see through the plastic and watch the laser melting the sand.
I just find the bussard collector thing a bit boring as it falls back into the same formulaic approach to Star Trek. The Phoenix had nacelle domes. I really don't think Zephram Cochrane went to all that trouble to put ram scoops on his one use ship.
+1 here. While the Bussard Collector is demonstrably a capability of starships, I don't think it can be the sole function of the red glowy things (the TMP and plenty of alien designs manage without them in any case).
To me, it reinforces the theory that the M/AM reaction is happening in the nacelles for Cochrane's, Archer's and Kirk's TOS Enterprise. It also matches the depiction of the M/AM reaction in TMP and TNG designs where (for some reason) it is vitally important that it takes place within a transparent chamber..
Plus, you've only got to look at those TOS domes - there's clearly something wicked going on in there!
To me, it reinforces the theory that the M/AM reaction is happening in the nacelles for Cochrane's, Archer's and Kirk's TOS Enterprise. It also matches the depiction of the M/AM reaction in TMP and TNG designs where (for some reason) it is vitally important that it takes place within a transparent chamber..
Plus, you've only got to look at those TOS domes - there's clearly something wicked going on in there!
Hold on, was the original poster asking about the in-universe composition of the nacelle caps or about what kind of clear material was used on the miniature? I took it to be the latter. Presumably it was some kind of clear plastic.
This is the Trek Tech forum, where the default is to discuss tech in-universe....
Hey, everyone..I was not talking about the model, but the real science. I have to double check my TNG Tech book. The ramscoop brings in material. Is that done though the dome? What is the dome made of in the Trek universe? Can the dome be cracked....I think we see a damage done...Domesday Machine.. (Need to double check)
It could be possible that the Bussard Collector part of the dome is just it's surface. There's magnetic fields and shield manipulation being done to funnel space borne matter into the collection system. Probably around the edges of the domes. But the insides of the domes are something completely different. It's mentioned elsewhere that there should be reactors in the TOS domes. Maybe an amplification reactor for the warp plasma before it gets fed into the warp coils in the nacelles. Plus devices to manipulate the warp field at the forward end of the nacelles.
My guess is transparent aluminum. With tiny pinholes.
Aridas Sophia liked that the pinpricks of light were quantum signualrities.
I even seem to remember a quantum ramscoop--eating potential universes--that in a section about ramscoops in general.
I don't like them being bussard collectors either.
As for the material? I'm going to say diamond:
http://www.pricescope.com/blog/lab-creates-worlds-first-perfectly-spherical-diamond
Or it may just be a field.
Now, one of the things that separates TOS ships from the refits is that you see a lot more glowing bits. With refits, you see solid surfaces, vents.
It may be that TOS ships used a lot of dilithium for domes, nacelle caps, etc.
This was vastly reduced--used only in engine cores, etc. And now you get the refit look.
I even seem to remember a quantum ramscoop--eating potential universes--that in a section about ramscoops in general.
I don't like them being bussard collectors either.
As for the material? I'm going to say diamond:
http://www.pricescope.com/blog/lab-creates-worlds-first-perfectly-spherical-diamond
Or it may just be a field.
Now, one of the things that separates TOS ships from the refits is that you see a lot more glowing bits. With refits, you see solid surfaces, vents.
It may be that TOS ships used a lot of dilithium for domes, nacelle caps, etc.
This was vastly reduced--used only in engine cores, etc. And now you get the refit look.
Not mutually exclusive. A Bussard collector would need to generate and shape an intensely powerful magnetic field in order to draw in the diffuse hydrogen in the interstellar medium. It would also have to emit some kind of beam to ionize that hydrogen so that it would be susceptible to magnetic manipulation. So it wouldn't be some simple, passive system; it would have to generate massive amounts of energy.
In the original FX, both domes were no longer there (destroyed):
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0119.jpg
In the new FX, one of the domes is still visible but damaged:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0148.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0192.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0119.jpg
In the new FX, one of the domes is still visible but damaged:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0148.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd0192.jpg
Well, this will be too long.... I have been writing up an ST universe (happens before TOS - but close enough). Part of that includes describing the tech and trying to get it to merge as much as possible with plausible theory - thus a good deal of research (it's fun).
So I will take a shot at giving you a *plausible* explanation in the absence of canon - because I think that is where you are at.
Those are not Bassard collectors, they are way too small to be the ram collectors - and they were never called that to my knowledge. However, they serve a similar function (canon). They collect matter - likely H and He ions - but other light elements as well.
If we assume they are actually functioning real things, we can start to speculate in an educated way about the function - then what they are made of. So, in order for them to be part of a collector that small (and I am talking about the whole front of the nacelle), they need an energized pre-collector - it creates a negative field to collect positively charged ions. This way you don't need a large Bussard ram collector. In the pilot, the little rods would make sense. But they dropped them implying they didn't need them anymore. That leaves the dome for that function. And it makes sense - a dome would create a wide field grabbing matter from all around it.
The dome has to be permeable to small particles so glass is out. We know it has to be somewhat transparent. So it could be crystal - crystals can have very large d-spacing and allow light elements to pass - and also light. But how would you charge one?
How about a screen made of some exotic alloy instead - or a chargeable permeable membrane? You can charge that. From a distance it could look semi-transparent. And the stuff behind it - plasma - exactly what you might expect.
Just as an aside. I have been very impressed as I do "research" on TOS tech. They must have consulted with science folk of the time - or at least been serious enthusiasts and up on all the popular science stuff - it's pretty uncanny how well the tech (most of it) can fit with theory.
PS: By the way things are described, if the warp nacelles operated like a modern theoretical warp drive, the collectors do not have to be operating to create a warp field in a pinch. There is plenty of matter stored on board - but using them would greatly improve the matter fuel stores. Also, they are not reactors. Those are further back. They are plainly called collectors or matter acquisition.
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The collector is a funnel-shaped magnetic field that channels the hydrogen into the nacelles. Sure, the usual artistic renderings of ramjet ships have big collector funnels, but those are just the final intakes that the much huger, invisible magnetic fields channel the hydrogen into. After all, we're talking about extremely diffuse quantities of hydrogen spread across an enormous volume of space. The collection field would be far larger than the ship itself. The difference between one of those big funnels and a little dome is barely significant on that scale.
In TOS, no, but they were called that in TNG and later (the earliest mention being in TNG: "Samaritan Snare"). The idea that the nacelle caps are Bussard collectors was a retcon introduced by the modern Trek shows' senior illustrator/tech consultant Rick Sternbach, who worked with Robert Bussard on some earlier projects (and who did the Bussard ramjet painting featured in Carl Sagan's Cosmos).
If you want to research the development of TOS's ideas, then you absolutely must read The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry. It describes how Roddenberry consulted with engineer friends and scientific think tanks to develop the ideas behind the show. Granted, it also shows how much poetic license he took and how often he ignored their technical notes for the sake of drama, but still, few other SFTV shows have made even the slightest effort to engage with real science.
They're not meant to, in Sternbach's formulation. They're just an auxiliary source of fuel to supplement the ship's stores.
I was under the impression that the ram is an array that is in part the source of a torroidal energy/magnetic field. SO, I agree that the ram is not the field, but the field will drop off at d^2 - thus you want a large ram or array to extend that field.
I think it is a bit of semantics. They do the same thing, but it does not appear they function exactly the same.
I will check it out - that might be the book I have been looking for!
Yes. Thing is, and maybe why they don't have the ram (other than it's fiction and someone might have thought them ugly), at non-warp in ST, they would be pretty useless. Sure, you get something, maybe enough to justify keeping them on, but not much. However, in warp it is different. Warp doesn't just make a ship disappear from point A and appear at point B. The distance is still being traversed - but it is compressed. SO, the collector doesn't need a huge field. Imagine how much H is in a column a few hundred meters wide and a few lightyears long There is njo point in making the fields larger than the warpfield.
Anyways, I will check out the book - and thanks for the informative reply!
This is a universe that has artificial gravity and wall-like force fields. Presumably they can do things with energy fields beyond what real-world theory allows.
I was referring to your statement "and they were never called that to my knowledge." I wasn't addressing what they do, merely whether the name "Bussard collector" was used -- which it was, though only in TNG and Voyager.
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