Why does the Phoenix have Bussard collectors?

[sojourner]

The Phoenix was built specifically to test if warp drive could work. Not for lengthy cruises of unknown duration or destination. So why would it have Bussard collectors? Logically there should be no need at this point in time and would needlessly make the ship more complicated. Is this maybe a point in favor of Bussards not being the device we think they are? (matter collectors to use as fuel)

 

[F. King Daniel]

Because we the viewers associate glowing red endcaps with warp nacelles - and they wanted something instantly recognizable (TOS homage) on the Phoenix.

In-universe reason? I got nothin'.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Are they actually Bussard collectors?

For all intents and purposes, they're merely front-end caps. Later starships may put Bussard collectors in the front-end caps of their nacelles, but that's in the future, IMO...

 

[BlackFire3]

the warp core requires a matter/antimatter reaction. it'd be hard to maintain a steady supply of dispensable matter when at warp, so the deflecter diverts any particles that would normally go through the ship safely into the bussard collectors. a very loose term would be a wood stove with an automated feed that adds a little more fuel to keep it going

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Are they actually Bussard collectors?

For all intents and purposes, they're merely front-end caps. Later starships may put Bussard collectors in the front-end caps of their nacelles, but that's in the future, IMO...

They're the main components of the subspace field compression tensor-delineators.

 

[sojourner]

the warp core requires a matter/antimatter reaction. it'd be hard to maintain a steady supply of dispensable matter when at warp, so the deflecter diverts any particles that would normally go through the ship safely into the bussard collectors. a very loose term would be a wood stove with an automated feed that adds a little more fuel to keep it going

Yeah, we know what they do. The question is why does a ship that runs for at most several minutes at a time have them?

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Because they think fans are dumb and so they put something recognizable as a warp drive-like thing on it. in universe, I got nothing.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

*Shrugs* They're never explicitly referred to as any kind of fuel collector until TNG.

Could be that spinny/flashy nacelle caps AREN'T particle collectors.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Are they actually Bussard collectors?

For all intents and purposes, they're merely front-end caps. Later starships may put Bussard collectors in the front-end caps of their nacelles, but that's in the future, IMO...

They're the main components of the subspace field compression tensor-delineators.

I've been bouncing around the idea that the spinning bits under the domes have something to do with the plasma injection system, but that sounds good, too.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Yeah, they delineate the.... tensoring.

Magnets!

 

[B.J.]

I've always thought that the nacelle caps weren't *just* Bussard collectors, but merely one part of its function.

 

[Saquist]

Because they think fans are dumb and so they put something recognizable as a warp drive-like thing on it. in universe, I got nothing.

Bingo and if anyone doubts that reality

Just look at the stupidity of their apparently ability to minaturize a WARP CORE....(an Matter Antimatter/ Matter REACTOR) and it's containment technology into a Diamater of 3.05 meters for stable Rocket launch to orbit. It's already on the level of 24th century Runabout technology to even be capable of generating a warp field. Let alone launching more mass than the SPACE SHUTTLE's Orbiter and all at the hands of a rag tag organization...

And just emerging out of WWIII only 9 years ago...

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

...magnets?

 

[Albertese]

Been a while since I watched FC. Do they explicitly say that the Phoenix used a M/AMR? If not, I don't see a need for one of those either. A short flash of warp jump might just need a big enough battery. Remember, the in-aptly named "warp core" is really just the power supply to the warp engines. The closest to official explanation in the TNG:TM would have us believe that the M/AM reactor simply generates the wattage to power these huge warp engines. The engines are the critical part to warp speed, not where the power comes from. There's nothing magical about the energy so generated, it's just happens to be the most efficient way to make that much sustained power in a ship-portable system. Enough D-cells would do the job too, if only for a short time.

Also, let's not compare these engines to a runabout's. A runabout is capable of high warp speeds sustained for weeks at a time, where the Phoenix broke light-speed for a few seconds. Hardly comparable.

--Alex

 

[C.E. Evans]

the warp core requires a matter/antimatter reaction.

A matter/antimatter reaction is ideal for a vessel intended for high or extended warp travel, IMO. But for a small "proof-of-concept" craft like the Phoenix on a short loop from Earth at warp one, any high-energy source probably would do, including fusion perhaps.

If Cochrane's team had difficultly getting enough metal to build the Phoenix's cockpit as Lily Sloan said, a matter/antimatter reaction assembly might have been even harder to find after World War III (assuming such a thing was even invented in 2063)...

 

[Captain Robert April]

A really good fusion reactor should be enough to hit Warp 1.5 for a minute or so.

I'd still like to know how they landed the gorram thing....

 

[C.E. Evans]

I kind of imagined it came back down like a missile (either retracting or jettisoning the nacelles) and then deployed parachutes after reentry. Hopefully, it had a heat shield of some kind...

 

[sojourner]

^Maybe they didn't. The cockpit did look awfully similar to a ballistic capsule.

 

[C.E. Evans]

^^^
My first thought was that the cockpit/crew capsule did separate from the rest of the ship and was the only piece of the craft to make it back, with the rest burning up or being slagged beyond all recognition during reentry.

But then Picard said that the Phoenix was on display at the Smithsonian--I guess that still wouldn't preclude that he was referring only to the capsule though...

 

[Timo]

The rest of the ship could have been retrieved at any later date for public display, of course. I guess we'll ultimately have Armstrong and Aldrin's genuine LM lower stage on display in Washington, too, after some expedition goes to the Moon and brings it back, having realized that there will never be enough paying customers who'd bother to go to the Moon themselves...

They're never explicitly referred to as any kind of fuel collector until TNG.

The red caps have never been established to be fuel collectors. All we know is that they are called "Bussard collectors" or perhaps "buzzard collectors", they spit out hydrogen in TNG, and they suck in explosive gases in ST:INS.

For all we know, a warp engine absolutely requires such devices to be able to attain FTL speeds. Possibly they are a vital means of removing obstacles from the flightpath, and the collecting of gases is just a necessary evil and a secondary functionality.

Timo Saloniemi