The Enterprise... Now?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I just did a bit of thinking, and came up with something: with today's technology, you could theoretically create a (less capable) version of the Enterprise. Here is how it would work:

 

 

Propulsion:

I know that with today's technology, you really can't make warp drive or whatever. But part of it is possible. You have several fission reactors powering the ship. These also power giant electromagnets which suck up all the atoms floating around in space. These are heated up and blasted out the back, like a rocket. Some of the gases could be used for maneuvering, also. You could get to maybe half light speed in a year or so, but you really wouldn't have the ability to do quick stops and high-speed acceleration. Dashes between planets would have to be carefully planned so you can get into orbit without overshooting because you can't decelerate fast enough (which is hard, considering how much thrust you have, compared to the Enterprise).

 

Atmosphere and Food:

On a long-range ship like this, you'd need lots of food. Replicators aren't possible yet, so you would have to grow your own. The plants would also have to recycle some of the CO2. There would also have to be scrubbers, so you could balance oxygen and carbon dioxide so both humans and plants have the optimal amount. Too little CO2, plants die. Too much, the humans do. There also would have to be heating and cooling, but mainly heating, since in deep space there is hardly any light to heat up a ship.

 

Crew Comfort:

On a ship like this, you need a large crew. Preferably you would have cabins for the officers, and bunk spaces for the crew. Since artificial gravity is not yet possible, you would have to let them all float around, and use the space version of a sleeping bag. (you just float inside it, arms hanging out and floating in front of your face) To keep the crew's muscles and bones strong, you need to have some sort of centrifuge to let them feel like they have gravity, at least once a week.

 

 

The technology (I think) would work for this, the only problem is money, and how much you are willing to risk.

 

So, is it really feasible? Any suggestions? Possibilities? Whatever?

 

 

note: I'm doing this in installments, as I haven't the time to write it all at once.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Oops. Forgot weaponry and such...

 

Weapons:

With several fission reactors, I suppose you could easily power large lasers mounted in some sort of turret on the ship. These would easily heat up to the melting point the hull of another ship, or, burn through a threatening asteroid and separate it into pieces. There could be smaller systems to track incoming projectiles and destroy them, lest they blast a hole in the ship (little meteroids pack a big punch at high speed).

 

Sensors:

Again, with the reactors, you could power a large radar and infrared array that would detect objects and meteroids that pose a danger to the ship. Then the laser system would blast them out before they perforate the hull. The infrared is to pick up objects that are warmer than the environment (which is very cold), like incoming rockets or, in some cases, stars.

 

 

So is it feasible?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The last installment:

 

Communications:

We all know that the farther from Earth you get, the longer it takes for a message to get back and forth. Subspace communication doesn't exist at all, so you need an alternative to communicate rapidly. What is it? Quantum entanglement. You have a cloud of entangled particles on the ship, and one at base. They are entangled with each other. As you change the properties of one, it changes the other. So if you have it so you change it one way, get a binary 0, another, get 1. With a cloud, you can have hundreds of these at once, so you get bandwidth. The only problem is I don't know if both particles react instantly, so tell me: Would that work?

[Sayonara]

We have the technology to make a cruiser of similar size and complexity to the NX-01 (with the notable exceptions of warp and impulse engines, and the transporter).

 

Unfortunately due to the financial requirements of such a project nobody is willing to actually do it. It would cost about the same as running a medium-GDP country for the better part of 20 years, and most likely fail in its mission anyway.

[ydoaPs]

What about phasers. Are they lasers or particle weapons (putting aside photons are particles)? Wouldn't the cruiser be restricted to the Sol system. And it would probably tend to stay near the terrestrial planets. Unless it was a generational ship, in which case, it would need to be larger.

[ydoaPs]

How would said cruiser protect itself against meteors and cosmic rays? I suppose it could have that foam used on spacehab for meteors. A berillium and carbon composite would help with the radiation or it could use large electromagnets.

 

Using magnets to collect gas would be impractical. It would take a long time and more fuel to collect enough fuel to use. Unless it collected the gas from our atmosphere on the way up, but that would make a great deal of drag.

 

The entanglement would work instantaneously.

[Dave]

Sayo should know, he posted what their full long winded name is.

 

However from recollection, it was some made up stuff that doesn't exist.

[Sayonara]

The way phasers are supposed to work is a bit of a cheat really (well I say "cheat", it's more like a total con), and to be honest a half-decent cutting laser would be much easier to use as a short range weapon for surgical strikes and missile interception.

 

I did mention that such a vessel, made now, would be lacking warp and impulse so yeah; unless we came up with some sort of [acr=Effectively Faster Than Light]EFTL[/acr] drive it would have to be either for local research or generational. Neither of those are particularly a problem though assuming we have limitless funds to play with.

 

Cosmic rays aren't too much of a problem really - we already employ sufficient shielding on our manned space vehicles, and it's a given that this craft is going to be superior to those. Micrometeors might present more of a problem depending on how fast this baby goes, and how far it is meant to travel.

 

Federation ships use Bussard Collectors (essentially an electromagnetic ram-scoop) to collect hydrogen, and a deflector field to repel space debris from the path of the ship (from the main deflector, oddly enough). I think we could probably cobble together some form of bussard collector but the deflector might be a bit trickier to duplicate, since it is supposed to work by emitting some kind of graviton pulse.

 

MrL. Make us a graviton pulse blowing kerjigger.

[Rakdos]

how would the replenish the fuelfor the fission reactors

[ydoaPs]

Any type of shuttlecraft should have a magnetic launching (like a rail gun) to save fuel. That would also be a good way to launch from any moon base.

[Sayonara]

how would the replenish the fuelfor the fission reactors

I'm guessing at some point in the design process an engineer and a physicist would gang up on him and hit him with spanners until he accepted that fission reactors on a mid-range cruiser would be fkin stupid.

 

 

Any type of shuttlecraft should have a magnetic launching (like a rail gun) to save fuel. That would also be a good way to launch from any moon base.

If you were very clever about it you could do all sorts of "conservation of momentum" stylee tricks for launching shuttles.

[Rakdos]

I'm guessing at some point in the design process an engineer and a physicist would gang up on him and hit him with spanners until he accepted that fission reactors on a mid-range cruiser would be fkin stupid.

im american so WTF is a spanner??

[Sayonara]

A wrench.

[Rakdos]

thanks it is a great idea maybe i could break into NASA and smack them with some spanners

[Dave]

Especially the guy that ordered Hubble effectively dead.

[Rakdos]

i'll be sure to give him a smack for u dave

[ydoaPs]

I'm pretty sure that it would have to be built in space. It could be built at the ISS.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Why no reactors on a mid-range cruiser?

You can't get enough power for things with the alternatives.

 

Money is the biggest problem here. Unless we get replicators so materials cost is zilch, it will be hard to make it without causing scandals.

 

Deflectors, I agree, are hard to make, since it really isn't possible to make a magnetic field (what it might use) to deflect uncharged items made of things other than iron, nickel, or cobalt, without it being ridiculously powerful.

Especially because the ship would be affected by it too.

 

 

 

Shielding: You don't need that much. Just enough to lower levels down enough. If there's a solar storm or something that bombards it with radiation, have a section of the ship (bridge included, so you can command it) heavily shielded. Just hide in there for an hour and you're fine.

[ydoaPs]

What about micrometeors? Hide in the bridge? I don't think that would work. There should be several airlocks inside the ship in case of an impact.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Micrometeors-what do you think the radar and lasers are for? Blast them to smithereens!

 

 

THEORY ALERT!

 

If it was possible, couldn't you lower the ship's mass to 0, hit light speed, then drop to negative mass, and accelerate further? Assuming you can change the mass of an object, of course.

[ydoaPs]

use lasers on micrometeors? that would be some good lasers and radars.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Hey, modern radar could pick up a football at hundreds of miles away, getting it to get micrometeors is easy.

The Air Force picks up and tracks all objects over a foot in diameter in Earth orbit, so why can't you pick up a golf ball on radar and zap it?

 

If you're thinking itty-bitty micrometeors, think depleted uranium armor.

[ydoaPs]

i was thinking very small like a mm or smaller

[Rakdos]

Why no reactors on a mid-range cruiser?

You can't get enough power for things with the alternatives.

Fission Reactors on a Mid-Range Crusier would be Underkill. They simply wouldnt be strong enough do get up to proper speed to make a Round-trip to Alpha Centuri in less than 40 Years

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

How about 4 of them?

 

I mean, there aren't any good viable alternatives besides fusion, and that's unlikely.