#1 A possible reason for the warp nacelles to stick out
Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:47 pm
I was thinking about my own sci-fi universe today and yesterday, and the FTL system I have has some things in common with Star Trek's warp drive, including the name, the concept of the coils and the nacelles. I was thinking about how it works and how that would influence design when I found myself individually deciding to stick the nacelles some distance away from the ship, and having an even number of them, despite my plan was not to take any more from Star Trek than the name.
As I worked this out a little more, then went back and watched TOS, I noticed more similarities than I expected (and of course, many more differences, but that is beyond the scope of this thread).
In my system, the warp coils are inside the nacelles and to go to warp speed, they are literally spun and provided a constant flow of energy, to keep their temperature constant (as they would spin forever excepting friction).
In TOS, you can see some spinning lights at the end of the nacelle. I doubt this is physically related to their operation, but it has got to be there for some reason.
There are two because of angular momentum. Spinning up one thing means something else should spin in the opposite direction. This could be done by letting the whole ship spin in the other direction, spinning a flywheel, or spinning another identical object in the other direction.
Since there are so many ways to deal with this, it hardly requires two nacelles, but two would easily solve the problem. However, for Star Trek, since they go off in a right angle to the rest of the ship, this seems rather unlikely for them.
Another reason for having two would be to balance the warp field. Imagine if each one made a cylinder shaped warp field, getting weaker with distance. If there are two, they combined field may be able to make a more stable strength throughout. One in the middle wouldn't make a stable field since the strength at the edges may be very different than the strength in the middle. I actually like this a little more than the angular momentum reason, and it seems to make sense. Here is a picture to demonstrate what I mean:
The gradient on the left is one nacelle. Notice how it tapers off with distance. The one of the right is two of the left ones pasted on top of each other with blending turned on. It has a bigger zone of blackness. While the image was created with a linear weakening and a real field would probably be an inverse square (that is, a sphere), the concept remains the same.
I figure the dark black would be where the nacelles themselves must be, with the rest of the ship inside those. This might provide another reason for them to be sticking out; the geometry of the field is more stable inside the two, so that is where most the ship goes.
Also, in my universe, warp drives get hot as they run because of simple inefficiencies in ball bearings, etc, and I am thinking about some technobabble as well, but that probably won't even be needed. This gives another reason for the nacelles to stick out: give them more surface area to radiate away the waste heat of their generation. I am also thinking about adding little 'finger' like things to mine to increase the radiator area more, which Star Trek doesn't have, but in any case, keeping them at some distance allows any radiation from heat to more dangerous things to be more safely sent away.
Also, in my universe, since it physically spins, the warp drive may be loud, especially spinning up. By moving it away, the vibrations can be dampned by the struct, and of course the sound won't go through the vacuum, so that could help it run quiet. We know Star Trek warp drives do make sound when they operate, and they vibrate the floor (Scotty mentions he can feel the speed based on the vibrations), so this might be an issue for them, too.
Also, mine, again due to the spinning, wear out. like any moving part, and sometimes need replacing. But if one were to have an imperfection, it could cause serious problems. You know what happens if you try to spin something that is not weighted properly: the center of mass being somewhere other than the axis causes it to shake and could break out of the holding equipment.
Also, since they run hot, improper heat distribution might cause one section to heat up and expand or just otherwise weaken. This could cause it to go off balance, or even break under the tensile stress, which has some obviously bad side effects.
If the system was running and an error goes unnoticed, the warp coil breaking could cause the ship to drip out of warp, possibly off course, or worse yet, send hot metal where it isn't supposed to be. It probably wouldn't break out of the nacelle itself - the outer shell would serve as a barrier to protect the rest of the ship (another reason to keep it separate in some way), but imagine if the hot warp coil broke through some electric components, causing them to short out. Hopefully, this would simply blow a fuse and it would be a vacuum so any fire started wouldn't last long, but with a new technology, like warp in TOS, they might not have wanted to take the risk and had another feature: nacelles which could be jettisoned away from the ship automatically in case of failure. Having them at some distance would help get rid of them before they do any other damage (if it explodes, the high velocity metal chunks could really fuck up the rest of the hull, especially without shields up).
EDIT: In fact, it could do worse than just send the ship off course. If the warp field was changed by the unexpected moving of the nacelle, one part of the ship might go one way and the other part go another way: the warp field could basically beam a chunk of it away, causing an even bigger problem. </edit>
Also the nacelles being easily removable could help for routine maintenance: pop the unit off, stick a new one on when they start to wear out.
In fact, I am considering that to be one of my story lines in my universe when the warp technology was young: an early trip has an accident that risks the ship as they are now stuck a mere light-year away from home slightly off course, a quick jump at warp, but an agonizing long distance for sublight (if they even carry enough fuel), and even for radio distress calls (my FTL communication is directly tied to warp travel, and maybe not invented yet if it is a really early run).
As the technology matures though, this risk may get smaller and the operation more efficient, so the nacelles could be moved in closer to this ship, like we see in Star Trek's USS Defiant.
I don't know if the designers of the Enterprise model thought of any of this or if their design was basically just that it looked cool, but it does seem to make sense both for my universe and the Star Trek universe for the warp coils to be located out for a number of reasons.
I really liked Matt Jefferies' design, and since it seems to be a logical choice for my own warp drive, it makes me like it even more.
EDIT 2: There is a thread on SDN right now that is saying Jefferies did think of many of these things, and more that we never saw used on screen, so it seems as if he was very on the ball. /edit 2
I guess this would have probably made more sense to stick in the blog, but since it is here, any further thoughts on this?
As I worked this out a little more, then went back and watched TOS, I noticed more similarities than I expected (and of course, many more differences, but that is beyond the scope of this thread).
In my system, the warp coils are inside the nacelles and to go to warp speed, they are literally spun and provided a constant flow of energy, to keep their temperature constant (as they would spin forever excepting friction).
In TOS, you can see some spinning lights at the end of the nacelle. I doubt this is physically related to their operation, but it has got to be there for some reason.
There are two because of angular momentum. Spinning up one thing means something else should spin in the opposite direction. This could be done by letting the whole ship spin in the other direction, spinning a flywheel, or spinning another identical object in the other direction.
Since there are so many ways to deal with this, it hardly requires two nacelles, but two would easily solve the problem. However, for Star Trek, since they go off in a right angle to the rest of the ship, this seems rather unlikely for them.
Another reason for having two would be to balance the warp field. Imagine if each one made a cylinder shaped warp field, getting weaker with distance. If there are two, they combined field may be able to make a more stable strength throughout. One in the middle wouldn't make a stable field since the strength at the edges may be very different than the strength in the middle. I actually like this a little more than the angular momentum reason, and it seems to make sense. Here is a picture to demonstrate what I mean:
The gradient on the left is one nacelle. Notice how it tapers off with distance. The one of the right is two of the left ones pasted on top of each other with blending turned on. It has a bigger zone of blackness. While the image was created with a linear weakening and a real field would probably be an inverse square (that is, a sphere), the concept remains the same.
I figure the dark black would be where the nacelles themselves must be, with the rest of the ship inside those. This might provide another reason for them to be sticking out; the geometry of the field is more stable inside the two, so that is where most the ship goes.
Also, in my universe, warp drives get hot as they run because of simple inefficiencies in ball bearings, etc, and I am thinking about some technobabble as well, but that probably won't even be needed. This gives another reason for the nacelles to stick out: give them more surface area to radiate away the waste heat of their generation. I am also thinking about adding little 'finger' like things to mine to increase the radiator area more, which Star Trek doesn't have, but in any case, keeping them at some distance allows any radiation from heat to more dangerous things to be more safely sent away.
Also, in my universe, since it physically spins, the warp drive may be loud, especially spinning up. By moving it away, the vibrations can be dampned by the struct, and of course the sound won't go through the vacuum, so that could help it run quiet. We know Star Trek warp drives do make sound when they operate, and they vibrate the floor (Scotty mentions he can feel the speed based on the vibrations), so this might be an issue for them, too.
Also, mine, again due to the spinning, wear out. like any moving part, and sometimes need replacing. But if one were to have an imperfection, it could cause serious problems. You know what happens if you try to spin something that is not weighted properly: the center of mass being somewhere other than the axis causes it to shake and could break out of the holding equipment.
Also, since they run hot, improper heat distribution might cause one section to heat up and expand or just otherwise weaken. This could cause it to go off balance, or even break under the tensile stress, which has some obviously bad side effects.
If the system was running and an error goes unnoticed, the warp coil breaking could cause the ship to drip out of warp, possibly off course, or worse yet, send hot metal where it isn't supposed to be. It probably wouldn't break out of the nacelle itself - the outer shell would serve as a barrier to protect the rest of the ship (another reason to keep it separate in some way), but imagine if the hot warp coil broke through some electric components, causing them to short out. Hopefully, this would simply blow a fuse and it would be a vacuum so any fire started wouldn't last long, but with a new technology, like warp in TOS, they might not have wanted to take the risk and had another feature: nacelles which could be jettisoned away from the ship automatically in case of failure. Having them at some distance would help get rid of them before they do any other damage (if it explodes, the high velocity metal chunks could really fuck up the rest of the hull, especially without shields up).
EDIT: In fact, it could do worse than just send the ship off course. If the warp field was changed by the unexpected moving of the nacelle, one part of the ship might go one way and the other part go another way: the warp field could basically beam a chunk of it away, causing an even bigger problem. </edit>
Also the nacelles being easily removable could help for routine maintenance: pop the unit off, stick a new one on when they start to wear out.
In fact, I am considering that to be one of my story lines in my universe when the warp technology was young: an early trip has an accident that risks the ship as they are now stuck a mere light-year away from home slightly off course, a quick jump at warp, but an agonizing long distance for sublight (if they even carry enough fuel), and even for radio distress calls (my FTL communication is directly tied to warp travel, and maybe not invented yet if it is a really early run).
As the technology matures though, this risk may get smaller and the operation more efficient, so the nacelles could be moved in closer to this ship, like we see in Star Trek's USS Defiant.
I don't know if the designers of the Enterprise model thought of any of this or if their design was basically just that it looked cool, but it does seem to make sense both for my universe and the Star Trek universe for the warp coils to be located out for a number of reasons.
I really liked Matt Jefferies' design, and since it seems to be a logical choice for my own warp drive, it makes me like it even more.
EDIT 2: There is a thread on SDN right now that is saying Jefferies did think of many of these things, and more that we never saw used on screen, so it seems as if he was very on the ball. /edit 2
I guess this would have probably made more sense to stick in the blog, but since it is here, any further thoughts on this?