Midgardsormr
SOC-10
In order to maintain the rate of hydrogen being moved into the fuel concentrator prior to injection into the reaction chamber.
Total handwave, but it removes the necessity of exterior vents.
"That thing's gotta have a tailpipe."
- Thread starter jcrocker
- Start date
In order to maintain the rate of hydrogen being moved into the fuel concentrator prior to injection into the reaction chamber.
Total handwave, but it removes the necessity of exterior vents.
esampson
SOC-13
That's the thing, though. I'm not seeing anything to tacitly indicate that they are non-rocket like, beyond the assumption that a gravitic drive is automatically 'non-rocket' (in the context of requiring nozzles).
All a gravitic drive really means is that it works through interaction with the gravitational field of large object. Technically it doesn't even mean that the drive doesn't have to use reaction mass. Just as a nuclear thermal rocket gets its 'energy' through a sustained nuclear reaction while using hydrogen as reaction mass it is theoretically possible that a 'gravitic drive' gets its energy through some sort of interaction with gravitational fields and then uses that energy to sling out a reaction mass at high velocities.
Now in the case of T5 we know that ships don't have to carry reaction mass, but is that the end of the story? Actually, no. There are real life spaceship 'designs' (or theories) in which the engine uses reaction mass but that mass is not carried by the ship, such as the Bussard ramjet. Perhaps the gravitic drive works off some sort of principle involving the separation of quantum virtual particles and then projecting them at high velocity. The separation of quantum virtual particles is where the concept of Hawking radiation comes from, so I am not simply pulling it from thin air. Perhaps the engines actually do use hydrogen for reaction mass but simply use such small amounts that it is accounted for in the normal power plant consumption (and the tracking of these tiny amounts is handwaved away like ammunition is). The hydrogen isn't simply fused but is ejected at nearly relativistic speeds by the gravity drive as it redirects the force of gravity attempting to act upon the ship to instead be used to impel the hydrogen atoms.
Yes, things like air/rafts don't have exhaust blasts but the m-drive of a ship does not operate identically to the g-drive of an air/raft. Otherwise they would both have the same 10D or 1000D limit.
esampson
SOC-13
Easier to do that with pumps when the tanks are relatively full and you are preparing for jump. After that the consumption rate of a ship's power plant is so low that you would only need a few atmospheres of pressure. You would most likely be taking measures to reduce the flow of the hydrogen in those cases.
I understand that your idea is a bit of a handwave to remove exterior vents, but I don't think you really need those vents in the first place (except possibly some emergency release vents in case something starts to heat up the L-Hyd and you have to release pressure).
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esampson
SOC-13
I believe the scientifically correct term is 'thruston'.
That is actually sort of my position as well. The nozzles are there to channel thrust. What is the thrust? Not something you want to stand in front of. It isn't anything more inherently damaging than, say, the afterburners of a high powered jet and it has very little effective range so it makes a poor weapon, but you still don't want to stand back there.
Yes, of course. 'Thruston' it is. I got it mixed up with 'graviton'. I'll forget my own name next.I believe the scientifically correct term is 'thruston'.
Hans
I believe the scientifically correct term is 'thruston'.
That is actually sort of my position as well. The nozzles are there to channel thrust. What is the thrust? Not something you want to stand in front of. It isn't anything more inherently damaging than, say, the afterburners of a high powered jet and it has very little effective range so it makes a poor weapon, but you still don't want to stand back there.
Well, that works for me.
No, not really - contained fusion reactors are unlikely to explode dramatically - if anything, they flood the engineering space with hot plasma and the reaction stops near-instantaneously.
On the other hand, a continuous thrust system (be it reactionless or gravitically coupled to the local reference frame masses) makes every shuttle a kinetic impactor capable of Meteor-Crater level kinetic impact force, so the lack of a fusion boom to go with is pretty much "So What?" turf.