The Power plant
- Thread starter coldwar
- Start date
Depends on universe, "hardness" of science and version of Traveller.
The archetypical Traveller setup (as described in Books 2 and 5 of Classic Traveller) uses Fusion-based Powerplants (so no waste products at all) and Gravitics-based Drives (which recieve electrical power and use it to generate magneto-gravitic effects that propel the ship).
If you want harder science, you could still use a fusion plant (with no waste products watsoever) or a lower-tech option, a fission plant (and then simply dump the depleted fuel-rods in deep interplanetary space or sell them to a weapon-corp tht uses depleted uranium to produce ammonition); the drive, then, will probably be a "fusion torch" (channels liquid hydrogen through an active fusion reactor to generate thrust), a fission-plasma drive (channels liquid hydrogen or water through a fission reactor to generate thrust) or an ion drive (uses electrical power from the Power Plant to magnetically accelerate ions to generate thrust).
The thing is that most effecive hard-science interplanetary drives are BAD for planetary takeoffs (fusion-torch exsuast will evaporate ANYTHING in a big radious, fission-plasma exsaust is radioactive, ion drives don't generate enough thrust to take off anything which isn't a small asteroid); you'll need an additional propulsion system (usually chemical rockets or rocket-jet-engine hybrids (Ramjets or Scramjets or similar engines, with or without aerodynamic lift-asistance) to take off.
Gravitics make planetary takeoffs and landings easy.
The archetypical Traveller setup (as described in Books 2 and 5 of Classic Traveller) uses Fusion-based Powerplants (so no waste products at all) and Gravitics-based Drives (which recieve electrical power and use it to generate magneto-gravitic effects that propel the ship).
If you want harder science, you could still use a fusion plant (with no waste products watsoever) or a lower-tech option, a fission plant (and then simply dump the depleted fuel-rods in deep interplanetary space or sell them to a weapon-corp tht uses depleted uranium to produce ammonition); the drive, then, will probably be a "fusion torch" (channels liquid hydrogen through an active fusion reactor to generate thrust), a fission-plasma drive (channels liquid hydrogen or water through a fission reactor to generate thrust) or an ion drive (uses electrical power from the Power Plant to magnetically accelerate ions to generate thrust).
The thing is that most effecive hard-science interplanetary drives are BAD for planetary takeoffs (fusion-torch exsuast will evaporate ANYTHING in a big radious, fission-plasma exsaust is radioactive, ion drives don't generate enough thrust to take off anything which isn't a small asteroid); you'll need an additional propulsion system (usually chemical rockets or rocket-jet-engine hybrids (Ramjets or Scramjets or similar engines, with or without aerodynamic lift-asistance) to take off.
Gravitics make planetary takeoffs and landings easy.
You looked behind the curtain. They specifically said not to look behind the curtain.
A big problem with all versions of Traveller and drives. If you're looking for a plausible answer with current physics and using materials only a thousand times better than current ones, I have no answer. Of course, the same applies to FTL drive explainations.
If you are looking for some IMTU explainations that don't permit free energy, perpetual motion or do violence to the laws of thermodynamics, I have some of those.
B
Black Globe Generator
Guest
IMTU that's what the big ports on the back of the ships are for...'cause I couldn't think of any other reason for them to be there on ships with reactionless drives...
You don't see the archetypal jet of flame from the exhaust ports, just a bright glow as they dump heat.
Unlike a fusion torch, starship heat exhausts won't lay waste to a few acres of planetary surface every time the engines are fired up, but they do allow for effects like clouds of steam pouring off them in the rain...
archhealer
SOC-12
Wow, Black Globe, I really like that explanation. I've been keeping the big ports on the backs/bottoms of most of my ship designs, and it never even occured to me to think 'why'. Of course, that would imply that those ports are connected to the power plant and not the drive. Which is fine with me.
Indeed.
However, there is a second waste product that also bears some consideration: helium.
For every ton of hydrogen a power plant burns, it will produce just under a half-ton of helium. Fortunately, being more-or-less chemically inert, this isn't much of an environmental or engineering issue, save for the fact that it will need to be vented overboard. With Really Impressive Engineering, one could even use it as a form of coolant, to take whatever waste heat it can carry overboard with it.
I always figured that this might then be used in combat situations to help befuddle enemy IR sensors: by spewing out a big hazy cloud of 1-million-Kelvins gas, one could create enough local "heat noise" to confound a precise reading of one's position.
But that's more in the realm of "color" than "game mechanic" since the amount of hot helium available is likely to be quite modest at any given moment...
I'd like to know how fusion even works. IRL you can't fuse two hydrogen atoms together willy-nilly, you need energy to do that. Which is why the hydrogen bomb has two stages, the first stage meant to initiate the fusion reaction.
Fusion fuel is what in Traveller? Deuterium/Tritium? Deuterium/Helium-3? The latter is used in things like 'The Night's Dawn Trilogy'. Using tritium is a problem due to the neutrons the reaction releases. After awhile you have to replace the shield of the powerplant.
But then you can enter an atmosphere and grab hydrogen so then I wonder what exactly is the fuel and how does it work? Water can be used as well?
I've found a web page that tries to give semi-hard-science answers to these questions. Other parts of that site include similar discussions of various matters.
Apparently it is proton-proton fusion. Much higher start-up energy but much higher returns. Also it must be very "disciplined" or you get intermediate reactions with neutrons. We all assume it fuzes in a hot magnetic confinement, but it really sounds like some kind of solid-state. Which would explain the low waste heat and how the impurities don't have a larger effect.
Theoretically lowss tech PP should burn He3 or Li-D in aneutronic reactions, but presumably there is some trick everyone learns in a couple of TL.
It'd be okay until the ratio of helium vs. oxygen got too high. For example, a diving gas mix used in deep sea diving has a mix of 79% He / 21% O2.
I just like the idea of the engineer producing a high-pitched, Mickey Mouse, "We've got a leak in the engine room, Captain. I'm trying to find the source" - and then the gas spreads through the ventilation etc.
archhealer
SOC-12
I can't wait to make my PCs send out a GK signal while drifting in space, trying to fix a gas leak... In a super-squeaky cartoon voice, explaining that they need immediate assistance... They'll kill me.
Plankowner
SOC-13
Another thought, not OTU of course is to have the PP interact with the M-Drive through Magneto-Hydrodynamics.
Basically, move the hydrogen plasma through a tube which creates the exhaust for your engines, giving you thrust. Also, you wrap the plasma tube in conductive coils. Plasma moving creates magnetic fields. A moving magnetic field will create electric current in a conductor, so you get electricity from the exhaust gas used for thrust.
This is NOT how the OTU has explained things working, but it is a viable alternative, perhaps used by one of the other races IYTU.
Basically, move the hydrogen plasma through a tube which creates the exhaust for your engines, giving you thrust. Also, you wrap the plasma tube in conductive coils. Plasma moving creates magnetic fields. A moving magnetic field will create electric current in a conductor, so you get electricity from the exhaust gas used for thrust.
This is NOT how the OTU has explained things working, but it is a viable alternative, perhaps used by one of the other races IYTU.
My current explanation is that the fusion going on in Traveller p-plants is being controlled and harnessed at the nano level in little pockets (using specially grown crystals, outright nano-tech, bubbles, whatever), which, possibly via magic, results in high efficiency and little waste. (I like plankowner's idea, maybe I'd turn it into a fusion flywheel thing.)
Maneuver drives are electrograv. I don't like gravitics but I just plain want stable 1G fields inside the starships.
Maneuver drives are electrograv. I don't like gravitics but I just plain want stable 1G fields inside the starships.
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