Why aren't Bussard Collectors on the saucer hull

[DumbDumb2007]

Why aren't The Bussard Collectors on the saucer section as well ? I would think that smaller ones would be built onto the forward or upper level of the Saucer Hull to feed the Impulse Engines especially as a backup in case the ship has to separate.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Well... want a semi-plausible real-science answer?

Bussard ramscoops, as invented by Dr. Bussard himself, are actually massive physical SCOOPS which, at reasonably high velocity, would funnel free hydrogen found in space into a collector. This hydrogen, as Bussard envisioned it, would then be used to fuel a fusion reactor based engine. Self-sustaining propulsion.

Now, in Star Trek, the bussard collectors don't have actual PHYSICAL scoops. Instead, they use powerful fields to attract free hydrogen. In fact, some descriptions say that they project a forcefield cone out in front of them.

The point is that the hardware that generates this cone is probably a very high-energy piece of hardware. At least as much so as the navigational deflector beam.

Now, the saucer is the main inhabited portion of the ship. The secondary hull has engineering, support systems, cargo, the shuttlebay, etc. Most of the crew, and their quarters, are in the saucer.

I'd say that the bussard collectors are on the nacelles for the same reason that the subspace field coils are in the nacelles... they generate energy that could be potentially hazardous with prolonged close-up exposure.

Alternatively, there's also the original concept... which was that the warp nacelles were self-contained... they had antimatter generation, matter collection, matter/antimatter reactors, and warp field generation hardware, all in a single system.

Take your pick. Either is equally valid, and neither is necessarily true, but those are the most common explanations for why this is the case.

 

[AudioBridge]

Probably a couple real-world reasons. The original function of the nacelle caps in the original series was not established. Later they were established to be "space-matter energy sinks", back when the nacelles were thought to function by pulling the fabric of space through, rather than warping space around the ship. This was somewhat unofficial, though. By the time of the next generation it was officially decided they were bussard collectors.

Oldtimers feel free to correct me

 

[Waugh]

Two reasons. Jeffries clearly indicated that he designed the warp nacelles to be as distant from the ship's personnel as possible as they were highly dangerous bits of the ship's technology. The collectors are not on the front of the ship as the hydrogen is needed in the nacelle only for warp drive, not for impulse. Impulse works under more or less a rocket principle, propelling the ship by accelerating matter (note the dorsal linear accelerator), while the warp drives use a matter/anti-matter reaction to warp sub-space around the ship allowing FTL travel protected by a sub-space bubble from relativistic effects.

In short, that where the hydrogen is used, not in the saucer. Remember hydrogen is highly inflamable (think Hindenburg).

 

[Timo]

Actually, hydrogen is not particularly inflammable. You have to mix it with air in just the right ratio to make it dangerous, and the mixture you find inside an airship (pure hydrogen gas) won't light up even if you use a flamethrower on it. One would also expect hydrogen to be stored pure aboard a starship.

The two answers above, "dangerous tech" and "possibly has to directly feed into the warp engines anyway", both seem plausible and perhaps are both "true". We have one or two exceptions to the first theory, though - many ships mount their warp engines very close to the inhabited spaces, and thus also have the ramscoops close to crew quarters. Think Steamrunner or Oberth or Defiant. But even in those cases, the second theory would hold true.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

Has anyone mentioned the large magnetic fields to funnel the hydrogen into the collectors?

 

[Timo]

Only in the sense of whether they would be hazardous for the crew; see Cary's post. But that shouldn't be - starships should be well shielded against such minor nuisances. What is even a thousand-Tesla field compared with the might of a disruptor bolt?

Then again, it is a valid concern that those funneling fields might be disturbed by the presence of certain hull bits. Perhaps they are even more severely disrupted by the warp fields, so that the only location where they can smoothly channel the hydrogen is right in front of the warp coils?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[B.J.]

I tend to think that the strict definition of a Bussard collector is not its only function. Seeing as we see these parts attached to just about every Federation warp nacelle (and most alien ones, too) and always on, I think that it has some other function directly related to warp drive. Like the deflector dish/main long range sensor/whatever, it's a multi-functional piece, where hydrogen collection is just one of its uses.

 

[Santaman]

An even simpler answer would be that they're probably quite large and that they're on the nacelle's because else they would simply take up too much space if mounted inside the saucer or engineering hull.

 

[Unicron]

There are at least two classes whose designs do include the collectors mounted on or near the saucer: the Steamrunner and the Saber.

 

[Jimmy_C]

B.J. said:
I tend to think that the strict definition of a Bussard collector is not its only function. Seeing as we see these parts attached to just about every Federation warp nacelle (and most alien ones, too) and always on, I think that it has some other function directly related to warp drive. Like the deflector dish/main long range sensor/whatever, it's a multi-functional piece, where hydrogen collection is just one of its uses.

Yea, the idea to me that these were Bussard Collectors always seemed absurd to me. I think the original idea was that the Warp Engines "sucked" space though them and dragged the ship along for the ride.

I rationalized their use as having a dual role too. The hardware's main purpose was to function as part of the warp drive. However, since they also tend to attract interstellar gas through their operation, it makes sense to use them to collect it if needed. I mean, the warp engines are basically really really big magnets, so any other function which uses them (like attracting interstellar plasma) can use the same hardware.

 

[Ronald Held]

The problem with the collectors in this universe is that they limit speeds to ~.1c(AFAIR)

 

[shipfisher]

I have a sort of half-baked rational for bussards at the front of the nacelles, based on the assertion that starships out in deep space would almost certainly need to have the capacity to generate their own antimatter. I know there's that am generator on the lower decks of the 1701D in the TNG tech manual, but I think anything that can create conditions "violent" enough to warp the fabric of space and time would make a great matter cracker (in a secondary mode of course, when not being used for propulsion). The nacelle kind'a looks like a linear particle accelerator anyway, and I don't see much use for interstellar gas for fusion, as it would be mostly simple hydrogen, with relatively little deuterium and even less helium 3. Protonic fusion only happens in stellar cores (with a reaction heat density less than bodily metabolism in humans! - stars are really hot because they're really big), so I say if your sucking interstellar gas (and incurring all that drag), it must have some value over and above fusion fuel, and no, I don't expect too many happy campers with this theory.

P.S. We can make antimatter now with big head-ons in particle accelerators @ a cost of about a trillion dollars an ounce I believe. Firing protons down what should be the pretty eccentric conditions at the centerline of row of warp coils could be a way of cheating the dealer energy-wise and pumping out AM efficiently with low enough energy input to make the whole affair workable. It's at least as plausible as warp drive is in the first place.

 

[Timo]

Hmm... Where would the power for the am generator function come from, if not fusion? If there's an alternate source, why not use it directly for warp propulsion and forget all about fusion and antimatter?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Timo said:
Hmm... Where would the power for the am generator function come from, if not fusion? If there's an alternate source, why not use it directly for warp propulsion and forget all about fusion and antimatter?

Timo Saloniemi

the thing is, in Trek lore, it requires much less energy to "flip the spin" of conventional particles and convert them into antiparticles than what energy is released from an annihilation reaction.

So, here's what I see... the bussards collect only hydrogen (bypassing other materials entirely). They "sort" the higher-order isotopes off and send them to the fusion fuel supplies, keeping the no-neutron hydrogen in the nacelles. This is then ionized, so you basically have loose protons and loose electrons. Then, you "flip" these two particles, and recombine as anti-hydrogen.

How do you "flip?" Tell ya what... if you can invent a practical way of doing this, you'll be rich enough to stop worrying about Star Trek and just buy Paramount... just with the spare cash in your pocket...

 

[shipfisher]

My apologies to you Cary. I glossed through the thread before reading your first post properly with regard to possible AM generation in the nacelles - your explanations are much more technically credible and hard sci than what I cook up.

As for the AM generation cycle power source Timo, it would still be the main core, but hopefully @ a much lower power output than required for warp drive, as Cary pointed out, the point here is to wind up with more energy stored as antimatter annihilation mass than it took to create it. It would be great if the AM generation cycle was efficient enough to be run off the ship's fusion plant(s), using what higher isotopes of hydrogen the bussards could sift from the interstellar medium - that has a sort of nice symmetry to it.

As for releasing the energy and using it simultaneously, that sounds more like a quantum zero point tap powered drive cycle which probably shows up by the 25th century. Before this we'll assume the nacelles are limited to either drive or AM generation mode at any one time.

As a related aside, I see Zefram Cochrane discovering the AM generation cycle of verterium cortenide (spelling?) coil rails before building the Phoenix (perhaps during WWIII related weapons research - we know he didn't start off as much of an idealist), which is why it apparently has bussard nacelle caps (polarized lattice, gas porous crystal domes?), although I like another dual purpose idea here in that these can also be "field inverted" to help generate a re-entry helping plasma sheath - they sort of glossed over that whole landing thing in ST:FC.

 

[ncc-1017-e]

DumbDumb2007 said:
Why aren't The Bussard Collectors on the saucer section as well ? I would think that smaller ones would be built onto the forward or upper level of the Saucer Hull to feed the Impulse Engines especially as a backup in case the ship has to separate.

Because they are not!!!!!

 

[ncc-1017-e]

^ the saucer is not warp capiable

 

[Timo]

Yours, or Kirk's? The saucers of the E-D and E-E might well have warp drive, since nothing to the contrary has ever been stated, and since the E-D saucer at least did move at high FTL speed in the pilot episode.

Of course, if one can install warp drive in the saucer without it being seen, one could install invisible ramscoops there as well. Or perhaps these features pop out from behind various hatches, and the camera turned away too soon in "Encounter at Farpoint" for us to see this?

We don't know if all Federation warp engines absolutely require integrated ramscoops in order to work. Some of the shuttle nacelles, and those of e.g. the Oberths and [/i]Excelsiors[/i], are shaped so that it's difficult to identify any of their features as a Bussard collector. OTOH, whenever we do see this red-glowing thing that we think is a ramscoop, it's always right next to the warp nacelle.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

shipfisher said:As for releasing the energy and using it simultaneously, that sounds more like a quantum zero point tap powered drive cycle which probably shows up by the 25th century. Before this we'll assume the nacelles are limited to either drive or AM generation mode at any one time.

Which actually makes a fair amount of sense... since we sometimes see the bussard collectors "swirling" in planetary atmosphere, it's not unreasonable to think that they're picking up hydrogen, filtering it out, and doing the "flipping" when the ship is essentially parked and has plenty of spare power output.