Steam Powered Starships? It seems a safe bet that the ships in Full Thrust are
Fusion powered. The question is how do that convert heat from the reactor into
electricity?
The best way I know of doing this is by a steam plant as in a 20th century
fission powered submarine. This means that a starship will have steam turbines
and live steam lines running in the engine room. Emergency power might be
generated by a solar boiler. A mirror array focuses sunlight onto water tubes,
producing steam for the turbines.
This brings about the image of a fleet in orbit having to wait until they have
raised steam before moving or fighting.
The more things change... MRB
> Michael Blair wrote:
> Steam Powered Starships?
Actually if they're running fusion plants, electricity would be generated
by MHD - Magnetohydrodynamics. A spinning torus of plasma generates
a magnetic moving magnetic field, perpendicular to the flow of the plasma.
Hook up some wires around it and the magnetic field will generate current.
> The best way I know of doing this is by a steam plant as in a 20th
Electricity generated from steam is done by using the steam to drive a turbine
which is connected to permanent magnets which rotate, generating a moving
magnetic field and causing current to flow in the wires surrounding the
generator.
If you run it the other way - electrical current through the wires, you
get a motor.
The Tokamak in Japan is supposed to be a 1 gigawatt fusion reactor, if they
can ever get to to run for more than a few seconds, but with future technology
I can see room sized reactors providing Terawatts of power with relatively few
safety issues (other than the standard catastropes made possible in handling
materials in the millions of degrees kelvin...)
--Binhan
I seem to remember that the new reactors to be used on the International
Space Station were a type that pretty much directly converted radiation
into energy - the Russians were getting pretty good at small reactor
design & tech before everything went belly up. Has anybody else heard of this?
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
> Michael Blair wrote:
<snip>
> This brings about the image of a fleet in orbit having to wait until
'Neath Southern Skies
> ---- Mick Blair wrote:
eh? why do we want electricity? we do need a spot of electricity to power such
luxuries as computers and lights, but the main point of the engines is to
generate thrust. this could be done extremely effectively by using the fusion
core to heat water, producing superheated steam which would then be jetted out
the back, or through maneuvering thruster
nozzles, to propel the ship - action and reaction, all your basic rocket
theory. i doubt that there would be any other materials with the same
combination of good (high) density, fluidity, cheapness and ease of handling
(only safety equipment required: wellies, waterproof overcoat
and overtrousers and a lifejacket for tank-cleaners!).
this is, i think, how the maneuver drive worked on the orion in
'footfall', in at least one mars-colony story (Earth authorities getting
moody about mars ships landing on earth, filing tanks with seawater and
blasting off, using up all that precious water, so martians capture a achunk
of ice from Saturn for fuel), and probably in n million other
hard-sf stories.
lots of auxiliary machinery could be run off taps into the steam pipes: air
pumps, generators, gyroscopes, cookers, airlock doors, trouser presses...
a network of pipes would run all over the ship to deliver steam at various
pressures (high for generators, low for clothes irons); this would require
steam sockets in most spaces, just like we have electric sockets.
cometary nuclei and gas-giant rings (think Saturn) would be valuable as
sources of reaction mass - two depleted fleets fighting over the only
sizeable chunk of rock in the system might make for a good scenario.
> Emergency power might be generated by a solar boiler. A mirror array
or the crew would have emergency primus stoves ("pump, dammit, pump!").
> This brings about the image of a fleet in orbit having to wait until
rasing steam with a fusion reactor is, i would guess, quite quick.
however, they would be dependent on 'waterers' - equivalent to todays
oilers or yesterday's coalers. hauling water through space might become a
major occupation of shipping lines (shades of Arrakis!).
...Snip...JTL
> rasing steam with a fusion reactor is, i would guess, quite quick.
however, they would be dependent on 'waterers' - equivalent to todays
oilers or yesterday's coalers. hauling water through space might become a
major occupation of shipping lines (shades of Arrakis!).
> Tom
I can see where this if going! Yes, I tink that the movie
'Ice Pirates' was a fun movie and could be used for a background.
Bye for now,
Well, I'd want electricity for life support, jump engines, navigation systems,
running lights, interior cooling (more of a problem than
heating -
ask the MIR crew), water reclamation & reprocessing, those
multi-megajoule
particle beams we all know and love, etc. When you take damage on a ship with
lots of electrics, you'll have shorts and hot wires occasionally.
With steam, you've got 300+ degree-Centigrade atmospheres of pressure -
even if a compartment is not open to space, this guarantees casualties.
Yuck. And if you're running a 100 million degree-Kelvin fusion plant,
most other safety problems will pale by comparison. Not to say that they
wouldn't be concerned, but other stuff (liquid hydrogen, and I think a
carbon-diamond-type ultrafine dust) is apparently much better reaction
mass.
The manuver drive in 'Footfall' was an Orion-type nuclear pulse
drive -
build your ship with a big heavy plate on the back, and throw nukes out
behind (a little more complex, really, involving laser-ignited fusion,
but
nukes will work in a pinch). The blast sends you forward - thank you,
Mr.Newton. They used this to take off from the surface of Terra
(!!!!!!!!).
The attidtude drives were steam vents - there were large ice/water
tanks in the ship, and heat from the thrust plate was collected and used to
heat the water to provide thrust to change attitude. This sort of thing shows
up in my Low-Tech Full Thrust rules (still under development...). I'm
still waiting for 'Footfall' to be made into a movie - sort of
'Armageddon' plus wierd alien invaders.
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
Well, depending on the kind of radiation you're dealing with, the
photoelectric effect (e.g. photovoltaic solar cells) do just that. Depending
on the material used, they can be effective at a many different EM
frequencies.
I seem to remember that the new reactors to be used on the International Space
Station were a type that pretty much directly converted radiation
into energy - the Russians were getting pretty good at small reactor
design & tech before everything went belly up. Has anybody else heard of this?
Noah
> ---- Noah wrote:
some of the life support - pumping air and fluids - could be done with
steam-powered pumps.
> jump engines
ah, but who says jump engines run off electricity? i have always pictured them
as doing something a bit more exotic. not that i'm suggesting they're steam
powered.
> navigation systems, running lights,
granted, you will need auxiliary generators to power a multitude of critical
electrical widgets.
however, who says computers in the future will be electronic? optical
computers will still need electricity to power the lasers, but
mechanical computers could be driven by steam pressure. don't laugh -
nanotechnology is essentially mechanics, and there are designs for a turbine
built from benzene rings...
> interior cooling (more of a problem than heating -
cooling can be done with a mechanism as in a fridge - pumping a suitable
heat-transfer medium; this is done elctrically in fridges, but could be
done by stream turbine.
> water reclamation & reprocessing,
if you have a steam engine, you tend to carry quite a bit of water around with
you, thus reducing the need to reclaim so much of it
(admittedly, reaction-mass water might not be of drinking quality, so
procesing would be needed).
> those multi-megajoule
again, are these necessarily electric? what about ds2-style DFFGs, which
(IIRC) use self-contained rounds, or lasers based on disposable chemical
lasing cells, a bit like excimers. the cells might be semidisposable -
load them, fire them, collect the empties and return to an arms plant for
recharging (perhaps the recharging process needs complex chemical processes
not feasible on starships).
> When you take damage on a ship
> With steam, you've got 300+ degree-Centigrade atmospheres of pressure
unless your crew are in vacc suits, which is a fairly sensible
precaution in deep-space combat: if you anticipate hull breaches, then
you will need vacc suits anyway. plus, you get cool damage effects ("sir! we
have twelve hull breaches, eighteen pipe fractures and steam on all decks!").
> Yuck. And if you're running a 100 million degree-Kelvin fusion
i remember reading that one of the reasons why (currently anticipated) fusion
plants are so safe is that the density of the plasma is so low that it has a
tiny thermal mass, so when it hits the reactor wall, it cools down to ambient
temperature and the wall hardly changes temperature at all. not *quite* sure
about that, though.
> Not to say that they
> carbon-diamond-type ultrafine dust) is apparently much better reaction
> mass.
gah! don't you believe it. ignore those other r-masses: buy Anderson's
Patent hydrogen oxide reaction mass! :-) (although that smiley is
somewhat redundant)
seriously, though, those are both going to be a lot more expensive and harder
to work with. i don;t think LH2 is going to be better at all, although i can
believe carbon might be (so we will need coalers after
all - but for reaction mass, not fuel! :-).
> The manuver drive in 'Footfall' was an Orion-type nuclear pulse drive
yeah, yeah, i know how an orion works! i was flying those things when i
was in short trousers (i had a simulator for an orion-type starship on
an old mac though it always used to lock up when you hit 2/3 lightspeed
- this may have been relativity or just bad code ...)!
> The attidtude drives were steam vents - there were large ice/water
that's what i meant by maneuver drive - sorry, i wasn't clear there;
think star trek - "ahead, maneuevering thrusters only, mr sulu"
all in all, even if steam-powered ships are decidely low-tech and a Bad
Idea (nobody tell the US procurement people! :-), they have a certain
appeal lost to backgrounds with neat and tidy ST:TNG-style neat-o-matic
technology.
> still waiting for 'Footfall' to be made into a movie - sort of
aren't we all!
Y'know, Tom, you may have something here - H2O is a lot more common than
LH2 - and I always wondered how many extreme-cold-casualties were
'acceptable' in Traveller. 'Sir, we've got a fuel leak, and Ensign
Johnson's shattered.' Maybe a jump engine is heat-powered - just keep
pumping live steam by it, or maybe thru a turbine for rotational energy?
I
can see the gun stations quickly filling up with 'empties' from the lasers
- we'd need big chain hoists for the rounds going from magazine to
weapon.
I assume everybody is in vacc suits in combat situations - we're not as
calm about decompression as the Star Trek types. H2O as reaction
mass/etc.
would make those Jovians really important - Europa-types and rings may
be
mostly water ice. But I really do like the Orion+Steam concept -
especially with those shuttles strapped on the sides. Saw 'Armageddon'
today - no spoilers, don't worry, but I was envisioning the climactic
battle between the Humans & Snouts the entire time. I also need to write
up some kinetic bombardment rules for FT/DS2...
Noah
BTW - US Procurement would be more interested if it was high-tech, and a
Bad Idea...
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 08:19 PM 7/20/98 -0500, you wrote:
ROTFLMAO!!!
<wheeze>
Oh, my, haven't had that good a laugh over e-mail in a while. And
that's a
possibility, too... I'm gonna have to pass this one around. ^_^
(Though the Heavy Gear mailing list turned up a doozy this time 'round,
too. Check out http://members.tripod.com/~ABolton/project.html. ^_^;; )
> ---- Noah wrote:
that's it! warp drives work by spinning a lump of some exotic matter
(don't know what - that stuff with imiaginary mass or whatnot),
therefore causing the dimensions of spacetime to rotate and opening a jump
path. i know this sounds like PSB with a vengeance, but it is actually vaguely
similar to some real physics (i refer you to 'the cartoon history of time' by
gribbin and charlesworth; if you don't like it, take it up with john
gribbin!). the lump of stuff is rotated by a steam turbine. maybe nearby
magnetic fields (brought on by flow of current) disrupt the effect, so it has
to be mechanically powered?
> can see the gun stations quickly filling up with 'empties' from the
yeah! roll on world war one (my secret agenda is revealed at last :-)!