prudence (04/06/83)
Something has been bothering me for a while, and maybe some of the trekkies
can help me out. The warp drives on the Enterprise are obviously providing
force along a vector that does not intersect the center of gravity of the
ship. As we learned from the TDRS, this causes the craft to tumble. So,
how can Kirk go where no man has gone before if he's rolling around like
a released balloon?
Thanks in advance
Charles Prudence
{!decvax or !ucbvax}!trw-unix!prudenceCSvax:Pucc-H:Physics:crl (04/07/83)
#R:trw-unix:-7300:pur-phy:11900005:000:780 pur-phy!crl Apr 7 11:01:00 1983 Uh, I find this discussion about the Enterprise's "off-center" propulsion REALLY silly. Who says that they are off center? We're talking about a WARP engine here, not a reaction motor! (Of course, I am assuming that the whole thing is possible in the first place.) The Enterprises engines are supposed to create some type of field effect around the ship that puts them (at least partially) into "sub-space" (or hyperspace, if you prefer). Thus it doesn't matter where the matter/anit-matter exhaust goes, it probably isn't much of an effect. This reminds me again of those amusing "Gold Key" comics I read when I was ~10 years old, where they show the Enterprise's nacelles spouting flames like the SRB's on the shuttle! Charles LaBrec pur-ee!Physics:crl purdue!Physics:crl
anteop (04/12/83)
I have the following solution for the offcenter warp engine problem.
You are all looking at the problem to primatively. The warp engines
don't push the ship forward like a rocket engine. The impulse engines
function more along that line and are in a better position on the hull
for it too. As for the warp drive, the antimatter-matter reactions of
main reactor are used to provide power for the warp drive modules. They
stress the field of space around the ship (i.e. warp drive) by use of
the abviuos artificial gravity in the technology of the series. By
stressing space they create a effective motion. Also, it would be much
easier to move in any direction if you had two such generators and could
polarize them so to speak. It would also be a very good idea to keep
something like that away from the rest of the ship to prevent to much
distortion of the onboard gravity. This is a concept only so NO physics
flames; I don't want to here about it.
anteop
nmtvaxjonab (04/12/83)
Reply-To: jonab@sdcvax.uucp (Jonathan Biggar) Organization: System Development Corp. (A Burroughs Company) References: <trw-unix.73> Another possible solution is that the warp drive produces an inertia-less effect, thus removing the rotational moment that would cause spin. A good side effect is that the ship would move as if it were massless, thus circumventing special relativity. Jon Biggar decvax!trw-unix!sdcrdcf!jonab