Why do so many parts of a starship glow?

[Phil123]

Firstly I'm new so apologies if this has been covered before.

Following on from some comments of the "overuse of saucers" thread, I'd like to know if anyone else gets irritated by how many glowing parts some starships seem to have. I'm not talking about windows or lights intended to illuminate the ship, but about bussard collectors (and why the ever swapping red to blue), nacelles, impulse engines etc.

Is it meant to be heat? That seems an awfully inefficient energy waste. Makes all the ships look less realistic to me. Constitution refit has the least of this and seems most realistic to me. I don't like when later uses of ship of this time make the nacelles glow blue.

my two cents!

 

[sojourner]

Short answer? Visual interest.

In universe answer? I think the blue glow of warp nacelles portrays the great and exotic energy used to create a warp bubble. Impulse engines glow because they are ejecting hot exhaust. The color of bussards? depends on the manufacturer.

And yes, sometimes the FX team can go overboard and make the glows a bit garish.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Cause it's the future.

 

[Christopher]

I think the blue glow from warp nacelles might be intended to represent Cherenkov radiation. That tends to be produced by high-energy phenomena like nuclear reactors and cosmic rays, so it stands to reason that it could be a byproduct of warp engines. Perhaps it's also produced by navigational deflector beams, given how powerful they'd have to be.

I can't think of a good reason for Bussard collectors or deflector dishes to glow, though.

 

[Push The Button]

Making stuff glow was big in the 1980's, remember shows like Miami Vice?

 

[Timo]

Glowing is realistic. The ship produces immense energies. All of that energy has to go somewhere, and most of it is going to end up as waste of one sort or another. For all we know, waste exhaust at optical wavelengths is the stealthiest way to go: infrared or below would be spread more tellingly, there having to be more of it in a sense, while "harder" radiation might stand out worse against the background.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Phil123]

I think visual impact/it's the future are the most likely answers. Energy/heat can glow, but I would Imagine most of that would be in the warp core (also glowing). The core produces the energy, the nacelles use it to warp space by creating a field/bubble. Can't see why that would glow.

I have no idea how impulse is supposed to work.

Note on Bussards - they were never mentioned during TOS and were obviously contrived long after that series. Judging by the red rotating almost sparking lights on TOS, I'd say the designers/builders (real world) envisioned reactions happening in them. Hence the glow.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Glowing is realistic.

No it isn't, dude.

I think the blue glow from warp nacelles might be intended to represent Cherenkov radiation. That tends to be produced by high-energy phenomena like nuclear reactors and cosmic rays, so it stands to reason that it could be a byproduct of warp engines. Perhaps it's also produced by navigational deflector beams, given how powerful they'd have to be.

I could buy that. It would make a certain amount of sense, and it might also explain why sensors find it so easy to identify approaching starships at a distance (they're producing alot of radiation on a lot of wavelengths that gives off a traceable silhouette).

But I really only buy it as an after-the-fact ad-hoc explanation. In general, you don't want your ship spewing high energy radiation all over the universe even if you DO have a way of protecting your interior spaces from it. If your ship is giving off a "glow" on the visible spectrum, lord only knows what it's putting out in alpha particles, microwaves, soft x-rays and gamma rays. Your ship is a giant radiation hazard to every planet you've ever visited.

I can't think of a good reason for Bussard collectors or deflector dishes to glow, though.

For deflectors, I think it would just be static discharges on the surface, like the auroras at the poles of a planet's magnetic field. Maybe that's the only part of the ship that physically couples to the deflector shield barrier?

 

[Timo]

No it isn't, dude.

Sure is - it's just a matter of deciding the wavelength. A starship isn't some puny nuclear plant only generating the temperatures of a damp campfire, but a machine shuffling significant energies. The waste heat goes somewhere, and if the ISS pumped out as much of that, its radiator wings would outshine the Moon, too.

The only issue here is whether Star Trek has managed to redefine realism so that the waste heat goes to subspace or whatnot. Perhaps, perhaps not. The option of channeling reality into excusing the glow is one of the many available.

I could buy that. It would make a certain amount of sense, and it might also explain why sensors find it so easy to identify approaching starships at a distance (they're producing alot of radiation on a lot of wavelengths that gives off a traceable silhouette).

Of course they would. How much of it they can regulate, modulate and obfuscate defines their stealth. Any two-bit UFP starship can adjust its warp emissions to emulate foreign vessels, but it takes skill to adjust the visual emissions.

But I really only buy it as an after-the-fact ad-hoc explanation. In general, you don't want your ship spewing high energy radiation all over the universe even if you DO have a way of protecting your interior spaces from it.

In which case your only option (barring above adjustment of reality) is to modulate it into low energy radiation of equal (or, usually, greater) amount. If warp engines can turn significant parts of their waste energy into flashes of visible light, that's a very good solution.

If your ship is giving off a "glow" on the visible spectrum, lord only knows what it's putting out in alpha particles, microwaves, soft x-rays and gamma rays.

Hmm. I recommend taking your living room lightbulbs to a lab to be tested, just in case...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[uniderth]

The Pilot Version of the Enterprise didn't even have glowy nacelle domes. If I recall correctly the nacelle domes were made glowy to illustrate the immense power being generated there. That's right, those nacelle domes aren't bussards they are were the matter anti-matter reactions are. I'll say it again, the original Enterprise didn't have bussards!

 

[Christopher]

I'll say it again, the original Enterprise didn't have bussards!

So? The original Kirk's middle initial was R. The original Spock was "probably half-Martian" and smiled and yelled a lot. The original Picard had a Chekov-like obsession with his French heritage. The original Incredible Hulk was a gray-skinned, intelligent villain who emerged when night fell. Darth Vader originally killed Luke's father. Fictional concepts evolve over time.

 

[Timo]

...Not that we'd even today know what a "Bussard ramscoop" does for a living, in the Star Trek context. All we ever see the thing doing is venting out assorted gases for tactical gain - perhaps that's exhaust from the m/am reactors behind the domes?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Sure is - it's just a matter of deciding the wavelength.

Yes, and the higher the wavelength, the more energy is being pointlessly radiated into space for no reason. We're not talking about a blackbody infrared glow from a radiator housing, after all. Blue, violet, ultraviolet and x-rays are relatively high energy frequencies and it takes ALOT of energy to produce them as a waste product. You wouldn't want to design an engine that produces that kind of waste as part of its normal operation, you'd want to capture most of those emissions and use them for power generation. Or, if you can't, at least keep the radiation from killing everyone you meet in space.

 

[scotpens]

Making stuff glow was big in the 1980's, remember shows like Miami Vice?

Even making people glow was big in the 1980s.

 

[Vorpal_Blade]

I think it looks good.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Realism-wise, I'm less worried about whether it's glowing and more worried about why the entire outside of the ship is always evenly lit.

 

[FormerLurker]

So you'll see it on your puny 50 inch TV. As opposed to the 40 feet across movie screen.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Poor radiation shielding.