Vertical Warp Core?

[Vanyel]

Not as bad as if the ship's orientation suddenly shifts immediately after the core's fired and it impacts the saucer. :P

That wouldn't matter since gravity flows in the direction of the gravity plates and even without direct power, gravity plates in ST will run for quite a few hours on there own.

But the ships gravity doesn't extend beyond the hull. If the core were being ejected and the ship started, for whatever reason, tumbling nacelles over saucer wouldn't the saucer be in danger of being hit?

One of the reasons I asked about a horizontal core would be that the hatch would basically be a slide that directs the core down (from the POV of the ship) and away. Old technology could be used to help speed the core on its way, a spring. Or the just nearly as old directed explosives.

 

[blssdwlf]

You're thinking more like the launch system on the F-22 Raptor where it ejects the missile (in this case, horizontal core) downwards?

 

[Vanyel]

Down at an angle and away. For arguments sake only, the hatch would open at a 45 degree angle from the plane of the ship, then eject it at that angle.

 

[SchwEnt]

I'd like to think that a vertical warp core is not a static component and a ship must be designed around it.

Many Star Fleet ships are primary hull saucers and separate nacelles, but not necessarily similar. I don't think the internal warp engine components must be identical from class to class.

The location of the reactor, the intermix shaft, the dilithium chamber, all that... I'd think it could be varied in accordance with each ship design. Just because a Constitution class featured a vertical intermix chamber, a Reliant-type probably would not, nor would a Grissom-type or a FJ Saladin or Hermes.

And then ENT showed a horizontal arrangement, so there you go. Other layouts of internal warp engine components should be possible with every class of ship.

 

[brian577]

I'd like to think that a vertical warp core is not a static component and a ship must be designed around it.

Many Star Fleet ships are primary hull saucers and separate nacelles, but not necessarily similar. I don't think the internal warp engine components must be identical from class to class.

The location of the reactor, the intermix shaft, the dilithium chamber, all that... I'd think it could be varied in accordance with each ship design. Just because a Constitution class featured a vertical intermix chamber, a Reliant-type probably would not, nor would a Grissom-type or a FJ Saladin or Hermes.

Except it did
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:USS_Reliant_main_engineering.jpg

 

[blssdwlf]

Although the Reliant had a similar intermix shaft it wasn't anywhere as long as the one on the Enterprise. The technology was the same, but it's a different size and probably configuration to run it out to the warp engines on the Reliant, IMO.

 

[Jimi_James]

Who does it seem that all the Starfleet ships we've seen, with the exception of the 1701 in TWoK, have vertical Warp Cores? On the Enterprise D it seemed to take up 2 decks, but specs, as I recall, showed it at 4 decks high. That's some 40 - 50 feet if you assume those decks it transverses have Jefferies tubes.

The warp core on the Galaxy Class is much larger than just four decks. Even the Intrepid and Sovereign class ships, both of which we have seen ejecting their cores, have warp cores that span more than four decks. The Galaxy class Warp Core spans at least 12 decks, and this doesn't even include the antimatter storage pods and the Deuterium storage tank.

The Intrepid class warp core looks to be about eight decks tall, while the Sovereign class core is roughly fourteen decks tall. Comparably, the Defiant class warp core is only three decks tall.

These figures were obtained, by looking at various MSD's of each ship class and simply counting the decks.

You can check out this guys blog: http://lcarsgfx.wordpress.com/
He has some great highly detailed MSD's for those that are interested. You can also find a few on Doug Drexler's blog.

 

[DonIago]

Yeah, for budget reasons which wouldn't on a practical level seem to make sense, most of the warp core is apparently not readily visible/accessible from Main Engineering.

The TMP set made a lot more sense to me in that regard, with Engineering stations accessing the intermix chamber on every level...or at least more than two levels.

 

[Timo]

...Although we never learned exactly what could be accessed there. Would there have been moving parts, or would the platforms merely have allowed repairmen to slap patches over possible punctures?

If seems that the "nodes" of these tube things have at least one "functional" capacity, that of shuttering the flow and allowing a firewall to slide down to cut the tube. (Perhaps the shutters are then opened again and the flow burns its way through the seemingly orifice-less firewall?)

From what we see, it's clear that the tube thing can make turns, including relatively tight ones (we see three 90-degree angles); it being "vertical" or "horizontal" may be a gross oversimplification, really. Perhaps on Kirk's ship, it becomes more like diagonal within the neck, and does a loop around the dilithium chamber for greater effect, whereas on Khan's, it really looks like a spaghetti monster?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jayrath]

If we're ready for filming explanations, having it vertical allows us to see the whole thing. Kind of. Yes, it runs all the way up to the attic, but characters can move all around it, behind it, etc. Otherwise you need a matte or, as in both TOS and TMP, a forced-perspective set that can only be filmed from certain angles.

 

[MacLeod]

You could in theory have a horizontal core, you would just have it run under the deck plates, and have grills/ access panels to gain access to it.

 

[DonIago]

If TMP or TNG are any indication, a horizonal warp core is/would be large enough to merit its own deck if placed horizontally...plus if you give it a deck then there's no need to worry about any potential issues accessing it.

 

[Patrickivan]

And if you're in the camp where the TOS warp nacelles held the warp engines, then the engineering hull was the place where all the energy from those nacelles was shunted for ship wide use. And in the case of ejection, it was the nacelles being popped off... I posted a thread a while ago where I went through the 79 episodes of dialogue using key word searches, and that justified them being the "power pods" as was also labelled on an early sketch of the Enterprise.

Anyway- not the point completely, but there is no reason that every ship throughout the history of the Federation would contain the same type of warp engine.

Let's say something like the past 100 years of ships having similar characteristics like propellers, but to drive those propellers, we had (coal) steam, diesel electric, diesel, gas, nuclear (steam again), electric... et c... Regardless of the location of the power source, my point is that there were different sources throughout a short period of time. Having warp power coming from the Nacelles could have been revolutionary, but then deemed not needed on following classed due to different engine power source configurations... Whatever the reason... Work now!

 

[publiusr]

Well the TOS Impulse deck had this long spine infront of it ant on top of the saucer. I had an idea of it sliding out the back and being caught between the two warp nacelles with remaining anti-matter in them warp accelerating the spine far away from the ship, like a warp mass drive picard maneuver type deal.

 

[DonIago]

That seems like another case where, if the ship suddenly changed orientation, things could go very badly...

...though it isn't as bad as ejecting the core "ahead" of the ship.

 

[Darkwing]

Anyway- not the point completely, but there is no reason that every ship throughout the history of the Federation would contain the same type of warp engine.

Yes, I quite like the idea that the TMP refit was major change in the tech, and the TNG warp core was a refinement thereof, far more than the idea that every generation of warp drive had the same type of reactor. Seems like better verisimilitude to me.

 

[Timo]

Also, people in- and out-universe seem to think starships don't haul much cargo, but the TMP ship has cavernous holds, ones that look like an afterthought in all their clumsiness. A direct result of a propulsion/power system refit similar to that performed on coal-powered WWI battleships before WWII, liberating lots of internal space as the modern gear is much more compact than the original?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Surely it's been mentioned before but the vertical shaft from TMP was envisioned as a power transfer conduit from the reactor to the impulse engines as well as the warp nacelles; the reactor itself was far below decks at the very bottom of the hull. Thus it is "vertical" only because the impulse engines are fairly far away from the reactor. Reliant's vertical segment would be only high enough to connect the reactor to the engine, so the guy who fell over the railing wouldn't have fallen far

The TNG warp core simply works differently. No particular reason for it to be vertical except it used the same set as TMP and they needed to fill that space with something meaningful.

 

[Timo]

What you describe seems to make the TMP and TNG layouts rather equal, with a compact reactor and its power conduits - whereas the TMP layout in Probert's concept was reputed (yeah, citation needed, but Probert's website isn't working too well) to feature power generation all along the length of the piping, an idea Sternbach perpetuated for the VOY core. But none of the theories ever got onscreen verification or even much in the way of support.

Personally, I favor this piping being mere power leads in TMP, just like the same set piece supposedly serves as power leads in TNG. And everything we see could fit on the same curve in this particular sense: STXI shows the cluttered innards of a mid-23rd century starship engine room, TOS shows the sterile control rooms of the same, TMP again returns to the rarely accessed innards where people work in heavy protective gear, and TNG finally advances the tech so that vanity covers hide most of the clutter but the main machinery is now safe enough to be directly exposed to the control room. The actual machinery is pretty much the same all the time, though: reactors looking like big boilers, power leads looking like neon tubes, and dilithium inserted into the reactor somehow. But a row of huge beer tanks becomes a single compostor-sized thing between STXI and TNG.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SicOne]

I have a little issue with the idea of the warp core in the Constitution original and refit-classes taking up space in the "neck". It seems a bit careless to have something so important to have half of it in the exposed neck, close to the surface.

Then again, it seems careless to have the bridge be atop the primary hull, even though in-universe explanations about overshielding that area help explain it away.

And when they refit Enterprise and put twin torpedo launchers right next to the warp core, if it indeed goes up through the neck, well, that seems especially daft.

I tend to think of the Constitution (refit, at least) as having a warp core some 5 decks in height and entirely within the secondary hull. Such an arrangement would also fit in the Miranda-class without controversy and appeals to my sense of symmetry.

Regarding the "impulse engine deflection crystal", it's my understanding that it is meant to deflect energy from the warp core towards the impulse engines when needed, is that correct? And yet it seems strange that it's situated atop the primary hull when the warp core is at least a few decks down from it, or should be, to accommodate saucer separation. I could see the purpose of some kind of "deflection crystal" being a way to divert power from impulse engines to the phasers, perhaps (especially in separated flight mode), but not necessarily in relation to the warp core to the impulse engines.