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parriah
USA
901 Posts |
 Posted - 29 Feb 2008 : 12:33:09
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"The most powerful type of engine that can be installed on a spaceship is an atomic fission engine. Atomic engines propel the ship by splitting atoms and using the tremendous ammount of energy released as thrust"
This is of course only the crudest description of how our engines work. The description makes it seem that an A bomb is set off in the engine, This would obviously not work. The reaction in the chamber is controlled much the same way a nuclear power plant on a planet works. The energy liberated in the reaction is channeled through many electronic devices using induction coils and other devices to convert the energy into a field, simular in theory to defensive screens, and out the aft of the engines as a propulsion field.
This P-field is also the reason that Atomic powered ships can enter the void by themselves. Chemical rockets and ion powered ships can not do this. For an ion powered ship to enter the void, an artificial field is created by devices powered by the atomic pile necessary to drive the ionization that propels the ship.
When an A powered ship is set to self detonate the control rods are simply completely removed and jettisoned. This is why a self-destruct order can never be belayed.
This explaination is ,of course, nearly as simple and barely more accurate than thje first example, but over the next several 40 day periods, you will come to know much more about these incredible machines that you will learn to operate and service.
Lecture delivered by Professor KIN-A-KAT at Gollwin Academy, FY35
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Quantity has a quality of its own FIAWOL |
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parriah
USA
901 Posts |
Posted - 31 Mar 2008 : 11:51:52
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| NObody has ANYthing to say about this? |
Quantity has a quality of its own FIAWOL |
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rumrogue
USA
112 Posts |
Posted - 01 Apr 2008 : 09:49:30
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Self-destruct cant be belayed?
Hmm. Only one thing left to do, break out the rum.
Seems a bit harsh, mate. |
Rum Rogue
Time flies when you're having rum!! |
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parriah
USA
901 Posts |
Posted - 03 Apr 2008 : 15:44:08
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Yeah, It says in the rules that once a self destruct sequence has started, it cannot be turned off. Only ejectong the engines and getting 10K klicks away will save you. How you do that without the engines, IDK!
BTW, what's the diff in a motor and an engine? |
Quantity has a quality of its own FIAWOL |
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Terl Obar
USA
898 Posts |
Posted - 03 Apr 2008 : 18:52:27
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Maneuvering jets and eject your engines with a lot of velocity . |
To err is human, to really screw things up you need a computer.
Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network |
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Aethelwulffe
USA
1782 Posts |
Posted - 04 Apr 2008 : 03:19:32
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Engine= anything made "ingeniusly", ostensibly any mechanical device period. "Motor" Latin root means "to move", so when applied to an artifact, it indicates a specific type of engine. The rocket term, while commonly referred to as either motor or engine, is officially a "Whoosh Generator"  |
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parriah
USA
901 Posts |
Posted - 04 Apr 2008 : 14:13:42
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| LOL |
Quantity has a quality of its own FIAWOL |
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Aethelwulffe
USA
1782 Posts |
Posted - 10 Jul 2008 : 16:49:30
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Well, what is described as being an atomic engine in the Campaign Book Expansion Rules is more like an antimatter engine or an antimatter sparked fusion engine, but they list plutonium as the consumable, which doesn't make much sense at all.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/11/fusion-propulsion-if-bussard-iec-fusion.html
This page describes a not-so-possible but "nifty-what-if" future of fusion engine types in good detail. Basically, a fusion engine IS an ion engine, or it will need an awful lot of fuel. BTW, the cannon rules do not state that you cannot jump using an ion engine. As a matter of fact, the Heavy Cruisers are ion engine ships.
Another nifty drive, that is quite possible: http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/213.web.stuff/Scott%20Kircher/fissionfusion.html#icanii
For the Star Frontiers setting, there are lots of ways and means to choose from that are based in real science. We can have a nifty fission/air/hydrogen engine for planetary landings that uses a fairly large (but moderate volume) of reaction mass without spewing atomic death into the atmosphere. That would jsut depend on a super-material to act as shielding. We can also have fusion reactors of the IEC type, or powerful RTG's powering ion engines that use as yet undiscovered physics to produce high thrust. This, along with some ultradense fuel (I use the term "Federanium"...a type of collapsed matter ) we can have ships that do not need large volume tankage. Finally, we can have the same types of ship that use ordinary matter for the reaction mass yet at the cost of storage volume and some thrust. We can call these "standard ion" engines. You have your fancy ships that use fancy fuel, but you also have your slow boats that do not waste their expensive strange matter as reaction mass, but rather use normal matter to ionize and eject as reaction mass.
Other answers such as antimatter engines or antimatter sparked fusion engines are also good. Only problem is the scariness of antimatter for society. Such material would be very very bad to have in large supply in any kind of hostile arena. A supply of antimatter intended for powering a single ship could be formed into tiny nigh undetectable projectiles used to devestate a continent. Bonus for the Sathar. Thus I stick to having travel effected by use of some advanced physics trickery rather than control of easily abused items like antimatter.
Using the Expansion rules (KnightHawks suppliment) you really can't determine how much fuel a ship really uses. You can cheat because a ship has the same acceleration and uses the same fuel no matter how much cargo they are carrying. Small ships are less efficient by far than large ones, yet for spacecraft the opposite would normally be true (larger structure/more deadweight mass to support it's own structure). To reach .01C and then decellerate, you only need to burn 19kg of plutonium per engine (10cm cube), no matter what the mass is. If you powered the ship with antimatter, you would still need about 2 tons to do that much acceleration with a 100 ton ship (About the size of an assault scout). That means that those engines are getting at least 500 times the energy out of plutonium than you can out of a matter-antimatter engine. This means that they have an ISP of something like 25,000,000. Think of ISP as being a M.P.G. rating for space-going station wagons.
Chemical LOX/LH rocket engines: 455 ISP High thrust.
Solar Ion engines: up to 100,000 ISP+ possible but very very very low thrust.
Nuclear or RTG Ion engines: up to 100,000 ISP+, can get more thrust because of having lots of electrical power...but still not as much thrust as SF ships have, not by a long way. You have a pretty large mass to push due to the shielding needed. This cuts into efficiency greatly.
VECTOR rules ZENI drive: ISP at 50,000, high thrust Fuel is contained in really small packages, but a Scout will still burn a couple of tons in a jump (still just a small cube of fuel though). The idea is less out of line with the laws of thermodynamics than the original rules, and takes into account the mass of the ship. The presence of the reactor gives electrical energy production. Gives explaination for long engine module shape.
Antimatter Catalyzed Micro Fission/Fusion (ACMF): ISP of about 14,000 Uses very little antimatter, is real technology, and can give high thrust. Also needs long magnetic nozzles (looking like most SF ships).
Antiproton Initiated Microfission/fusion (AIM) ISP of about 60,000. Uses a fairly large amount of antimatter compared to ACMF. Otherwise is much the same in effect, just lots more efficient...yet more expensive. Real technology.
Expansion rules Atomic drive: ISP 25,000,000 (?!) Apparently just burns plutonium (for some reason). Gives the same acceleration no matter how massive the ship. Bad Sci-Fi.
Pure matter-antimatter drive: ISP of up to 10,000,000. Real designs may only have a possible ISP of 1,000,000, but no-where near the "Atomic" drive in the expansion rules. Real technology. Either prohibitively expensive to operate, or introduces easily obtainable antimatter into the setting (very very dangerous idea). |
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Ranulfc
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2010 : 15:30:37
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I meant to post this earlier... Ok like the first of LAST year... But I kept getting side-tracked...
Thermonuclear Plasma Reactor for Rocket Thrust and Power Generation:
United States Patent Application 20090000268
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0000268.html
Summery:
"A reactor system produces plasma rocket thrust using alpha-initiated atomic fuel pellets without the need for a critical mass of fissionable material. The fuel pellets include an outer layer reactive material to alpha particles to generate neutrons (e.g., porous lead or beryllium), an under-layer of fissionable material (e.g., thorium or enriched uranium), and an optional inner core of fusion material (e.g., heavy water ice, boron hydride). The pellets are injected one at a time into a charged reaction chamber containing a set of alpha beam channels, possibly doubling as ion accelerators, all directed toward a common point. Alpha particles converging on each successive pellet initiate an atomic reaction in the fissionable under-layer, via a neutron cascade from the pellet outer layer, producing plasma that is confined within the chamber. This may be enhanced by atomic fusion of the optional inner core. The resulting high-energy plasma creates electrostatic pressure on the chamber and is allowed to exit the chamber through a port. An ion accelerator at the exhaust port of the chamber accelerates outgoing plasma ions, possibly with added reaction mass, to generate the rocket thrust. An electric circuit that includes the charged chamber may collect the electrons in the plasma to help power the ion accelerator(s)."
A plasma rocket concept using pellets... Cool ;)
I'm more of a high-thrust-to-weight NTR fan myself but I'm thinking this concept here is where I'll probably end up basing my SFU background on at some point, but I'm not looking to inject TOO much "reality" into the game.
Randy |
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Aethelwulffe
USA
1782 Posts |
Posted - 21 Jan 2010 : 09:39:14
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Hi Randy, good to see you around!
Too much reality is not desireable at all.
NTR is not a bad way to go, you just have to accept the bad with the good.
What we want is believability, so we can relax and get on with the story.
I note that there have been some interesting additions to the Atomic Rocket pages lately.
Patent application right after this one is for a water rocket. Both ideas will never quite get past first review. Every design concept for pulsed HEPLAR laser or particle beam pumped fusion engines read about the same. Unlike Orion or Daedalius, these concepts have some holes in them. gotta juice that boom up to 50,000,000 then 400,000,000°C for thermonuclear. It takes a long long long tube to contain the mass untill the fusion finishes to get full performance out of it...then a long time to cool off. Containing that amount of juice is a hard thing to do. Since the idea is deemed to be "semi-realisitic" but causes more problems than it solves, I like sticking to the idea of keeping too much reality out of the game. Reality is not necessary, just logic. If you use this type of pulse thermonuclear drive for "little realisim" then you have to stick to the problem that it is a clumsy package, huge, and only has an ISP of about 10,000 or so if you are using it for continuous thrust (intermittent single detonation thrust with long long cooling delays could be far far higher). That would take about a thousand supertankers worth of these little pellets to get a cargo the size of an AS to jump speed.
For "realistic" unreal engines, I think we need either a warp drive (which we use, but only after geting up to speed) or some type electric drive. Electric drives can do the high ISP stuff, without needing to be miles long as in the gasdynamic mirror type drive mentioned above. The above drive collects some electrons at the cost of collecting a lot of that 400,000,000C fusion heat. Even if you have materials that would let you contain and capture more than about 1/600th of an NTR's possible output, you still gotta lotta heat to deal with.
I like the idea of a really high thrust nuclear ion drive. We can make a nuclear ion drive, but we just don't know how to get the whoosh out of it all at once. I think that is a simpler problem to believe has been solved, especially since we already have the physics to perform the interstellar jump. Gives a good reason why only small ships can land on planets (gotta use a different set of engines and be aerodynamic) as well. Just contradicts(well modifies) one or two pages in the original Knight Hawks Campaingn expansion. |
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Ranulfc
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 21 Jan 2010 : 15:14:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Aethelwulffe
Hi Randy, good to see you around!
Nice to be back
I'd just LOVE to get this "ADD" thing under-control enough to STAY with something for more than couple of months...
Eh... not going to complain too much, it could be much worse.
quote:
Too much reality is not desireable at all.
Agree, if I REALLY wanted 'realistic' I'd just play "LIFE" all the time 
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NTR is not a bad way to go, you just have to accept the bad with the good.
What we want is believability, so we can relax and get on with the story.
As the spousal-unit says "Eh-Yup" 
Damn pesky players keep trying to hijack the story though! I mean the NERVE! What? Do they think I run so THEY can have fun? ... Er... Well, maybe...
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I note that there have been some interesting additions to the Atomic Rocket pages lately.
Yep, and still adding... I even managed to track down some information there were questions on. (Why an "M" or "W" wing on the Mars Snooper? Not that I think the game creators actually KNEW this but the same reason for the Assault Scout's wing: Double-sweep wings were studied for use at high-mach speeds and have the 'bonus' of working pretty much the same no matter WHICH way they are going  )
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Patent application right after this one is for a water rocket. Both ideas will never quite get past first review.
LoL 
I don't know about that consider:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5020411.pdf
Patent number: 5020411 "Mobile assault logistic kinetmatic engagement device"
"A portable-mobile-self propelled weapons plateform. Said plateform being propelled by an automated array of plasma engines coupled to a plasma source, energy source and further being coupled to energy weapon systems."
Which is my favorite example of what CAN be patented
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I like sticking to the idea of keeping too much reality out of the game. Reality is not necessary, just logic. If you use this type of pulse thermonuclear drive for "little realisim" then you have to stick to the problem that it is a clumsy package, huge, and only has an ISP of about 10,000 or so if you are using it for continuous thrust (intermittent single detonation thrust with long long cooling delays could be far far higher). That would take about a thousand supertankers worth of these little pellets to get a cargo the size of an AS to jump speed.
I can actually see ways to make it work and I think the ISP/Thrust-To-Weight could be improved even if you don't get fusion out of the detonation using some suggested methods for "pumping-up" a VASMIR plasma engine. Heat is always a problem in thermal engines of any type, in this case most of the heat is going out with the plasma burst. Protecting the ignition chamber would use the porous-surface/oil-film method proposed for the Orion pusher-plate. (It also adds reaction mass to the plasma) I'd thought that once the plasma is pushed/accelerated out of the reaction chamber there would be extra reaction mass pumped into the plasma stream for increased ISP/T2W needs.
But that's mostly just engineering work, in any case once you have a source of plasma you're 2/3rds of the way to a working, efficent space drive system.
quote:
For "realistic" unreal engines, I think we need either a warp drive (which we use, but only after geting up to speed) or some type electric drive. Electric drives can do the high ISP stuff, without needing to be miles long as in the gasdynamic mirror type drive mentioned above. The above drive collects some electrons at the cost of collecting a lot of that 400,000,000C fusion heat. Even if you have materials that would let you contain and capture more than about 1/600th of an NTR's possible output, you still gotta lotta heat to deal with.
Uhm "electric" drives need long accelerators or high-voltage difference plates and while they have wonderful ISPs they can't generate appreciable Thrust-To-Weight. For the most part they require a seperate power source (solar panels have been used but larger manned vehicles would require nuclear power reactors) and their associated cooling systems. In any case the majority of the heat for any thermal engine is transfered to the propellant or it doesn't work at all. Electric drives, depending on the type use the electricity to not only heat the propllant but accelerate it too so the actual 'utility' is a wash in either case. The suggested method does away with the need for converting the "reaction" to electricity and then moving and using the electricity to heat and accelerate the propellant by using the reaction "waste" to create the heated propellant and to power the acceleration.
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I like the idea of a really high thrust nuclear ion drive. We can make a nuclear ion drive, but we just don't know how to get the whoosh out of it all at once.
It's a nice idea true, but it's not the "whoosh" as much as the power requirements to accelerate the ions and the propellant molecular mass. I recall the idea behind the ZENI drive is it manages to "add" mass to the accelerated ions. Works for me
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I think that is a simpler problem to believe has been solved, especially since we already have the physics to perform the interstellar jump.
At one point you were going to go into a bit more detail on how you'd "fusioned" the concept behind the ZENI from someones theory, did you ever get around to that?
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Gives a good reason why only small ships can land on planets (gotta use a different set of engines and be aerodynamic) as well. Just contradicts(well modifies) one or two pages in the original Knight Hawks Campaingn expansion.
Ya, well landing "larger" ships becomes problematical even if you're assuming some sort of "gravity" assist drive. Ground pressure get silly real quick along with control issues of trying to balance something the size of a aircraft carrier on thrust columns
Randy |
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Aethelwulffe
USA
1782 Posts |
Posted - 21 Jan 2010 : 16:37:03
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ADD? More like "too many cool things to decide on".
As far as the Mars Snooper, I don't know. What I did realize long long ago is that the Star Wars B Wing was taken from one of those old Moon ion transport designs. They just pointed the engines 90 degrees out and put on a capsuled cockpit.
I am pretty sure that we have known that inwicep forward swept wings were a usable concept for generations, we just didn't have the control systems to keep them in the air. Dihedral may not be sexy, but it keeps planes in the air all by itself, y'know?
As far as those patents, the trick is that they are patent applications. Not patents. I've put in plenty of patent applications.
As far as the argument of one type of engine or another, I am pretty sure it's gotta be a multi-level hybrid system with a good bit of balognium added in. I guess what I was really trying to say is "go beyond the pale" to find the propulsion answer. The way the canon atomic engines were described was trying to extrapolate something known at the time...I just think that it has to be pumped up into a different level of tech entierly.
I am in no way trying to make an argument for a theory. More like arguing that the theory should state:
1. "X" exists.
2. "Y" exists.
3. "Z" exists.
4. The propulsion system uses X,Y,and Z to perform in such and such manner.
5. The setting must now incorporate in every way the realities that X,Y, and Z entails. You have to explore a bit to find out how those three bits would affect the wider technology setting.
In my quest for this, I needed to incorporate all the unbelievables in Star Frontiers into a logical package. The "Fusion" you were speaking of was Solanus's idea that stasis fields were the same technology as was used to perform a jump. It was obvious that matter that exceeds .1 C does not jump into space plus and disappear. There had to be something else. Folks attempting to use stasis fields on a sleeper colony ship caused the ship to enter the void. I ran with this a good bit. It resulted in:
1. Stasis fields travelling through a magnetosphere at a great enough relative velocity warps you through space multiverse travel).
2. If stasis fields exist, they can possibly act inversely, perhaps linking matter in other frames of the multiverse to ours. This gives us the field pumped ion engine.
3. If we have hand held lasers, we must have super capacitors, and probably room-temperature superconductors. We already know that we have "federanium" which is an unknown material that we can use for very thin shielding. With these two more things, as well as advanced reactors of some sort, we have power, storage, and lossless conduction of power. That makes electrical plants much more viable for high thrust/mass ratios.
4. All the above meant that electrical vehicles, even hovercraft might be possible. I modified the concept of the parabattery to tinker with this some.
5. As species develop the Unified Theory, and they discover the "stasis field" and eventually they may wind up accidentally jumping somewhere. It may have been Solanuses' idea or mine, but from his SFlist post about navigation in the void, it seemed reasonable that there might be some "dumping ground" either in our galaxy, some other, or even some alternate reality where all these castaways wind up. It provides a great rational for the existence of the Frontier. I know it says that those humans arn't from Earth, but there is no reason why they shouldn't be with this reasoning.
The "Big ships can't land" idea comes from the issues of using an ion type engine in atmosphere. Even my "magic field" fails when it is forced to operate in atmosphere, as it has numbers of issues trying to operate in that situation.
Back to that "W wings operate in both directions" tag. I did notice a problem pretty quickly when trying to fly an AS in Orbiter. When I was trying to land it on it's tail dropping tail first at any decent rate, the wings developed lift and tended to tip me over. I believe I just coded in a "Landing Mode" where the lift was simply turned off, but a real-world solution would have been much more difficult. Having a trailing edge of a wing bite at any angle is not good for stability. In any case, I agree that huge ships would create huge heat, pressure, danger, you name it. Better to have the VTOLs swoop in, hover for a second, land, and shut the barbeque off before burning a hole through the planet.
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Ranulfc
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2010 : 16:12:08
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Ya, well vaporizing the "friendly" port both on arrival and take-off would tend to downgrade relations rather quickly :o)
I'd also stolen most of Solanuses' ideas since they 'jib' well with the background I was working into you SFU. (Ya, my humans are from "Earth" too, by way of the wandering starship "Warden") I'd also figured that "Federanium" (given it's "heavy-metal" reference to "pumping" same) was probably some form of collapsium. I didn't try to 'rectify' the un-believable stuff in SF since for the most part my players, (unlike me :) accept what they are given and move on with the story rather than worry about the sequence of events that transpire when they flip on the light switch.
Me, I have some 'issues' with "hand-wave-ium" and tend to over-think things. A freind and I are doing an email collaberation on a Traveller game he's planning on running where he's trying to figure out the various possibilities that his players might throw at him from the starting basic situation. (We already figure that the players will NOT do what we expect them too nor be satisfied with their current situation until they have tweeked, poked, and generally exhausted every option their fiendigh minds can come up with) We've both had the same problem in that we tend to get too deep into 'details' and then are disappointed when no one notices we've coordinated the "Fresher" wall-paper and the towels on the wrecked space-freighter they are searching...
On the other hand I really hate having to come up with 'background' on the fly when someone DOES ask how things work so I tend to keep plugging background material and concepts into the universe until it's ready to bust. Now if I can find folks to PLAY, and a core game system I like....
::::sigh:::
RAndy |
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parriah
USA
901 Posts |
Posted - 01 May 2010 : 15:26:50
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BTW, my initial post didn't say that Ion engines can't enter the void, it said that the piles that power the ionization reactions also had to generate a field, thus allowing the ion powered ship to jump.
It might have been confusing to read. |
Quantity has a quality of its own FIAWOL |
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How the Atomic engines might work as stated in KH
