Maneuver Drive - How does it work?

[Space Cadet]

The Maneuver Drive is simply a sublight Warp Drive, this particular Warp Drive produces an acceleration by bending space around the ship so that it accelerates in a certain direction. Since one creates gravity by warping space, it is a Warp Drive. While theoretically capable of exceeding the speed of light, practically it can't because in order to do so, it is necessary to create an event horizon seperating the ship from the external universe, and since no device can communicate with the external warp fields, their is no way to shut it down at faster than light speeds, thus Maneuver Drives are limited to sub-light speeds, and due to the difficulty of stressing space around the space ships, Maneuver drives are limited to an acceleration of no greater than 6 times Earth's gravity. On the plus side, no reaction mass is required, only an energy input from the ship's reactor.

 

[Supplement Four]

According to the SOM, the M-Drive works by particle manipulation, not unlike the particle manipulation needed/used in grav plates.

Consider a magnet. Oppositely charged particles attract. Like charged particicles repel.

Ever held two like-poles on two magnets together? You can't make them touch (if the magnet is powerful enough). No matter how hard you try, you can't push them together. The force repelling them is too much.

Well, according to the SOM, in Traveller's day, we have the technology to change the sign of certain particles so that they repel from each other.

And, this is what pushes the ship. This is how the M-Drive works.

If you wanted, you could have the T-Plates (the Thruster Plates) inside the ship--they don't need to me mounted outside the ship. But, they generate so much heat that, typically, they are mounted on the stern of the vessel.

Also, there is a certain amount of ionization that occurs when the T-Plates are active, giving them a dull blue glow--a by-product, along with the heat, of T-Plate operation.

T-Plates, and the M-Drive, is basically just an offshoot of graviton technology, according to DGP's SOM.

-S4

 

[Icosahedron]

IMYU, the M-drive has two components:
1. A reactionless thruster that operates on a space-curvature basis, and yes, has some plasma emission as a by-product (blue glow). This unit would wreak havoc in an atmosphere, hence;
2. A vehicle-type grav thruster for atmospheric use that reacts against a local gravity field. IMTU, vehicle acceleration Gs are related to the ambient field strength, so a grav vehicle that has 2G thrust in a 1G field will only function as a 1G vehicle in a 1/2 G field, etc. Hence they are useless beyond a few planetary diameters.

Further questioning generally leads to:
How am I supposed to know how these things work? they're imaginary. IRL they wouldn't work!

 

[Space Cadet]

Who really knows? It would take a breakthrough and a new understanding of physics, but who can really say if it would be impossible or not?

The Traveller timeline assumes there is a sudden breakthrough and all of the sudden, we know how to make antigravity devices, maneuver drives, and Jump drives. Probably the first discovery is gravity field manipulation and in a couple of decades, maneuver drives and jump-1 drives are invented.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
Probably the first discovery is gravity field manipulation and in a couple of decades, maneuver drives and jump-1 drives are invented.

I just read, a month or two ago, about scientists working in (I think) a university who actually succeeded in an anti-gravity experiment (I think they made a mouse hover using an electrical field).

Details are hazy. I know I read it. I wish I could remember the article in order to post a link.

Maybe a google search will turn up something...

-S4

 

[Space Cadet]

You can levitate such a mouse using sound waves, that's the experiment I heard about.

 

[Ptah]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
Who really knows? It would take a breakthrough and a new understanding of physics, but who can really say if it would be impossible or not?

The Traveller timeline assumes there is a sudden breakthrough and all of the sudden, we know how to make antigravity devices, maneuver drives, and Jump drives. Probably the first discovery is gravity field manipulation and in a couple of decades, maneuver drives and jump-1 drives are invented.

Similar to our breakthroughs in the 19th century with respect to electroagnetism and 20th century with respect to atomic energy.

For millenia we knew of loadstones and static electricity but lacked a cogent theory to explain, and thus truly develop electromagnetism. Enter exmperimenters and the theory of electromagnetism and electrical powerplants become reality. Within decades people go from kerosene lamps to light bulbs.

Or take atomic theory. Radioactive rocks were known but the origin of the rays emanating from them were a mystery. The atomic theory (the modern kind) led to the prediction that an atomic bomb could be made. Once the theory was at hand, rather simple technology could make the bomb.

As to anti-gravity, perhaps the theory that provides a cogent explanation of dark matter, or unifies quantum physics and relativity will show the way to antigravity.

 

[sgbrown]

Originally posted by Icosahedron:
IMYU, the M-drive has two components:
1. A reactionless thruster that operates on a space-curvature basis, and yes, has some plasma emission as a by-product (blue glow). This unit would wreak havoc in an atmosphere, hence;
2. A vehicle-type grav thruster for atmospheric use that reacts against a local gravity field. IMTU, vehicle acceleration Gs are related to the ambient field strength, so a grav vehicle that has 2G thrust in a 1G field will only function as a 1G vehicle in a 1/2 G field, etc. Hence they are useless beyond a few planetary diameters.

Further questioning generally leads to:
How am I supposed to know how these things work? they're imaginary. IRL they wouldn't work!

Sounds like a fun system with a plausible explanation - I particulary like the ultimate response!

 

[Ishmael]

bah!
reaction mass is fun because of how it makes you plan for fuel usage in combat....( do I waste thrust by dodging missles/evading? or do I save it for closing range...hmmmm )..Big flames out the back are pretty, too, and for canonistas...LBB talks of using exhaust plume as a weapon, IIRC.

dunno know if this is realistic...don't really care....fuel skimmed is cracked into liquid hydrogen and liquid nitrogen...N2 becomes reaction mass.

grav tech, I hate in its present game form...too easy and cheap...ruins it for airplanes,trains and zeppelins.

instead...power used = mass*planet's G's*alitude / drive efficiency ( proprotional to tech level )

waste power is heat/noise ...more can make it easier to spot on sensor tasks

its only a game.

 

[Space Cadet]

If you want any decent thrust for long periods of time with a reaction drive, you are going to need that matter/antimatter reactor. In a universe where spaceships are powered by matter/antimatter reactions, skimming gas giants will do little good. Frontier operations will be hard as you will need to save antimatter for the return trip back to the source of antimatter. Antimatter will typically be made in huge antimatter factories that expend enourmous quantitites of energy in order to reverse Einstein's famous equation E=Mc^2 to produce equal amounts of matter and antimatter out of energy, this is not an efficient process so you will probably have a fusion reactor or solar array powering this process and waisting huge quantities of heat and radiation trying to produce and store tons of antimatter. Antimatter in the best of worlds is not cheap, and if it were, there is the added danger than small quantities of it can be easily turned into terrible weapons simply by allowing it to come into contact with matter.

Where to you park your antimatter powered starship? In a starport? If you keep many antimatter powered ships in a starport, should the containment system of any one starship fail, the entire starport and all the other starships parked in it are destroyed! If you are going to have civilian control of starships and merchant vessels plying the starlanes, then you are going to hve to have civilian control of the antimatter that powers them, that means placing nuclear weapons into private hands! How can a society like this survive. Alternatively, each starship is under the control of and operated by a government. All merchants are also naval officers or scouts working for the government, and thus the government gets dragged into space commerce. All passenger vessels, and cargo ships are operated by the government military. The antimatter in the power plants must be kept under the strictest control by the military so rogue elements can't use it to destroy cities.

Alternately fusion rockets don't provide enough thrust to get off the surface of an Earth-sized planet, their acceleration is low and many fusion thrusters operate only in a vacuum.

 

[atpollard]

My personal favorite space drive is the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket. High thrust AND high ISP.

The biggest drawback is the cloud of radioactive particles behind the ship (very bad for a surface to orbit craft) but I figure that space already has so much harmful radiation that a little more will not matter.

The danger that a system failure will vaporize the ship just adds some of that "the right stuff" feel to space travel.

Of course there is always the criticism that it will not work, but that's what they said about powered flight in 1900 and space flight in 1959.

 

[Space Cadet]

Most high thrust nuclear interplanetary rockets are either dirty or dangerous. Fusion is clean, but a realistic fusion rocket doesn't produce high thrust, it produces a long lasting low thrust instead which makes it suitable for interplanetary travel, but not for getting off a planet's surface. The maneuver drive does both, but its not real, it pushes on nothing and uses no reaction mass, but it is safer than an antimatter rocket. Hydrogen, at leased does not explode except in a chemical way in the presence of oxygen. To get hydrogen to fuse is very difficult, you need a working fusion reactor, and if the fusion reactor does not work, you get no thermonuclear reaction and no explosion. Antimatter is just the opposite.

 

[Ishmael]

I don't have ships that use high thrust for long periods of time. Fractional G's if fine by me. No antimatter. Heplar for common stuff....various available tables for lower tech stuff. IMTU..tech12 is fairly high, too.

I have worked out travel time equation that takes coasting into consideration and use orbital transfer stuff from SOM

I never said I followed OTU-like practices with starships. Space travel is not like riding an airliner of cruise ship.

Its the style of play I prefer.

 

[BlackBat242]

Well, that is why "reactionless" drives were invented... massive pressure from "GreenSpace", and other such Astro-environmentalist groups!


Oh, and the glowing "nozzles" are a legal requirement... an outgrowth of Insurance industry lobbying after several high-MegaCredit liability suits over the lack of warning devices to alert bystanders that a spaceship was about to maneuver!

 

[shadowdragon]

actually its rather easy to get hydrogen to fuse. the hard part is getting ENOUGH of it to fuse at the same time to be usable. look up "fusor" reactors.