Hydrogen and Jump, some musings...

[infojunky]

Consider this, your basic Hydrogen atom has a Positive electrical charge. It takes the addition of an electron for it to acquire a negative charge.

Thus to form a stable jump bubble interface you need a bunch of negatively charged hydrogen.

Negatively charged Hydrogen wants to bind with a bunch of other elements.

Hence the catastrophic results of trying to jump in a atmosphere, also a strong local gravity field will also deform the bubble.

 

[whulorigan]

Consider this, your basic Hydrogen atom has a Positive electrical charge. It takes the addition of an electron for it to acquire a negative charge.

Actually, a Hydrogen atom is electrically neutral (one positive proton and one negative electron) unless it has been ionized. If stripped of its charge (i.e. a solitary proton) it is positively charged; If Hydrogen gas is turned into plasma it is electrically but not magnetically neutral (it becomes a fluid of positive protons and negative electrons whose net electric charge is zero, but whch can flow and interact magnetically).

Alternatively, a neutral Hydrogen atom can pick up an extra electron and become a negatively charged ion.

 

[mike wightman]

Yup, atoms are neutral, ions are charged.

And hydrogen can indeed form anions...

Hydrogen anion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[infojunky]

Sorry my chemistry is more than 20 years in the past.

But I was really pondering Jump Bubbles and the hydrogen requirement as defined by the rules.

Thus a cloud of charged Hydrogen forming the normal space volume for transiting Jump Space.

 

[Condottiere]

I think what you want is surface tension on the bubble, the hydrogen giving some form of mass to form on.

 

[infojunky]

I think what you want is surface tension on the bubble, the hydrogen giving some form of mass to form on.

Pretty close... Just reaching for some simplified Tecno-Babble...

 

[Condottiere]

Also, the physical laws in jumpspace might have a different effect when interfacing with hydrogen.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You can jump without any hydrogen fuel ( collectors, antimatter), so hydrogen is hardly necessary for anything but the fusion process…

 

[Condottiere]

After I had read the collector paragraph when High Guard was published, I theorized that it's possible that the hydrogen is turned into exotic particles.

 

[whartung]

You can jump without any hydrogen fuel ( collectors, antimatter),

Great! How many solar panels, what do I need to charge, and for how long before I can jump?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Great! How many solar panels, what do I need to charge, and for how long before I can jump?

The short answer: Lots...

You could use solar panels, store the energy as antimatter, use an antimatter power plant to turn it into energy again quickly enough for the jump procedure. How long it would take would depend on how many km² of solar panel you have...


If you want it to fit inside the jumping ship at reasonable TL (≤15?), you use a fusion power plant and hydrogen fuel. There is also some exotic alien tech (collectors) probably not available in some settings.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

T5, Book 2, p79:
AM Slug Production. An AM Plant can operate “in reverse” to produce AM Slugs. Supported by a Power Plant of equal potential, an AM Plant in Production Mode can produce 1 AM slug per 100 EP per day.

1 slug can power J-1 in a 100 Dt ship.

By T5 100 EP_T5 (A drive) in a 100 Dt ship is PP-2.
By CT a PP-2 in a 100 Dt ship produces 2 EP_CT = 500 MW.
500 MW for a day is 24 h × 3600 s/h × 500 MW = 43 200 000 MWs = 43 200 000 MJ = 43.2 TJ.

So, a minimum jump in a minimum ship would require in the region of 40 TJ.

And a battery that can produce in the region of 200 GW for a few minutes that fits into a few Dt.
Perhaps a million EV batteries à half ton each ≈ 500 000 tonnes in a 1 000 tonne ship?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

At a near perfect 1 kW/m² it would take 500 000 m² of solar panels one day to harvest enough energy. Or 100 000 m² for five days.

And a battery that stores 40 TJ.

For J-1 in a 100 Dt ship.


Or, in other words: Fusion power plants are amazingly practical and fuel efficient.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

And a battery that stores 40 TJ.

At a current energy density of 2 MJ/l it would be 40 TJ / 2 MJ/l = 20 000 000 l = 20 000 m³ ≈ 1400 Dt.

For J-1 in a 100 Dt ship...

 

[whulorigan]

The short answer: Lots...

You could use solar panels, store the energy as antimatter, . . . How long it would take would depend on how many km² of solar panel you have . . .
At a near perfect 1 kW/m2 it would take 500 000 m2 of solar panels one day to harvest enough energy. Or 100 000 m2 for five days. And a battery that stores 40 TJ. For J-1 in a 100 Dt ship. . . . If you want it to fit inside the jumping ship at reasonable TL (≤15?) . . . .

And when building it under T5 Thingmaker, you simply use the "disposable" modifier . . .

 

[whartung]

The short answer: Lots...

Well, as I've mentioned before. The incongruity of it all stems from JTAS 24, and the concept of the jump capacitors. It always seemed from the article, that the real key to jump was charging the capacitors, and then discharging them to jump.

In our modern time, an electronic capacitor, as a general rule, can be charged at various rates, and can take quite some time to naturally discharge (i.e. leak). Obviously if the charge rate is faster than natural discharge rate, at some point you will have enough charge to do whatever it is you wanted in the first place.

Whether jump capacitors do this well, I can't say.

The premise of the burning all the fuel "inefficiently" in order to charge the capacitors "quickly" was one mechanic on why jump took so much fuel. You needed not just a lot of power, but the capacitors are very leaky, so you must overcome that and that's why something like a fission or solar system can not drive jump. Simply can't get enough power into the capacitor quickly enough.

Then the whole filling the jump bubble, "cooling the drive" and the other nonsense started cropping up as to why jump required so much fuel, and simply made the whole story around a game mechanic more and more contrived.

 

[Commander Truestar]

So, this brings up a potential "Engineering disaster" I am now planning to add to my TU....
I write news stories for my players, some of which are hooks while others are basic information on the universe, large-area-imact events, etc...

Following this thread, I have decided there will be a release from a Spinward Marches naval command regarding "so-far" unsuccessful experimental work to compress Hydrogen fuel into "metallic Hydrogen" using cryogenic temperatures and gravitics.
The goal of this research would be to compress starship fuel in order to free up ship tonnage for other use.
The challenges are "energy cost" based as well as "fuel translation" based.

The news story will be based on an unexpected and significant explosion aboard the most advanced of the current test vessels.
The story will suggest that, while it is not expected to be the case, investigation will also consider sabotage or random acts of espionage...

For those who game in the Marches, where would you put such an experiment?
I am considering Macene/Rhylanor, Pixie/Regina or Glisten/Glisten

 

[Grav_Moped]

So, this brings up a potential "Engineering disaster" I am now planning to add to my TU....
I write news stories for my players, some of which are hooks while others are basic information on the universe, large-area-imact events, etc...

Following this thread, I have decided there will be a release from a Spinward Marches naval command regarding "so-far" unsuccessful experimental work to compress Hydrogen fuel into "metallic Hydrogen" using cryogenic temperatures and gravitics.
The goal of this research would be to compress starship fuel in order to free up ship tonnage for other use.
The challenges are "energy cost" based as well as "fuel translation" based.

The news story will be based on an unexpected and significant explosion aboard the most advanced of the current test vessels.
The story will suggest that, while it is not expected to be the case, investigation will also consider sabotage or random acts of espionage...

For those who game in the Marches, where would you put such an experiment?
I am considering Macene/Rhylanor, Pixie/Regina or Glisten/Glisten

Metallic hydrogen gets you up to about 13.5 mass tons of H₂ per Traveller displacement ton.

It also requires active containnent at insanely high pressures. This... is a challenge.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Metallic hydrogen gets you up to about 13.5 mass tons of H₂ per Traveller displacement ton.

It also requires active containnent at insanely high pressures. This... is a challenge.

And now I want to work this out as at least a system of internally consistent technobabble.

- Needs a compressor (analogous to running a T5 antimatter power plant backwards to create antimatter). This may be off-boarded from the using ship (load pre-crunched tanks of MetH2). Nuclear dampers might help here?
- Needs significant energy input (proportional to fuel tonnage) to keep contained
- there are mechanical limits to rate of conversion back to liquid state for use as fuel
- containment failure might not be catastrophic (thanks to blow-out panels and such) but it will be destructive.

 

[Grav_Moped]

And now I want to work this out as at least a system of internally consistent technobabble.

- Needs a compressor (analogous to running a T5 antimatter power plant backwards to create antimatter). This may be off-boarded from the using ship (load pre-crunched tanks of MetH2). Nuclear dampers might help here?
- Needs significant energy input (proportional to fuel tonnage) to keep contained
- there are mechanical limits to rate of conversion back to liquid state for use as fuel
- containment failure might not be catastrophic (thanks to blow-out panels and such) but it will be destructive.

Thinking it over a bit, and still just sketching on the back of an envelope.

1. The basic technology is TL-15 but there are good reasons nobody uses it despite the obvious advantages.
1a. Has to use refined fuel as feedstock.
1b. Needs a TL-15 nuclear damper (or something TL-15 with the characteristics of a Factor-2(?) nuclear damper) to make.
1b.i. Power to run the "damper" can come from a power plant in "jump-drive overclocked" mode (40-minute bursts with mandatory cool-down period)
1b.ii Fuel to be processed can be in collapsible tanks. Fuel used for "overload" power plant operation must be in hard tankage or drop tanks.

2. Tanks require factor 15 armor (included in the 13.5 mass-tons per Td volume allocation -- maybe drop it to 10 tons per Td -- but it still needs to be paid for).

3. Can't be transferred (pumped into or between ships) except by cross-loading filled tanks. These store as in small/large craft bays with drop-tank fittings.

4. Fuel hits take out 10Td of fuel or 10% of tankage (and that AV-15 doesn't protect from damage, since it's all needed to keep the material contained).

Questions, comments, or concerns?