serenity model
POSTED BY: KayleeRulesAll
UPDATED: Thursday, September 1, 2005 12:15
VIEWED: 14022
PAGE 3 of 8
Quote:
Originally posted by R1Z:Quote:
Erm, one problem is where are we going to get the fusion core from?
I'm curious, what leads you to believe Serenity has a fusion core?
The only clues to propulsion I recall are when Wash says "We're down to the wire on fuel cells, if we run hot, we might not even make it."
And then, later, "We should have just enough left in us to hit a fuel station. We'll need to do some patching up. I hope we got paid today?"
And on Persephone, Mal says, "If we don't get paid for this cargo, we don't have enough to fuel the ship, let alone keep her in repair."
and later, "if you depend on luck, you end up on the drift, no fuel, no prospects, begging for Alliance make-work, and towed out to the scrap belt. That ain't us, not ever."
I would think that, with a fusion core, refuelling would be more like an annual thing.
And the "200 in latinum" they get for the Alliance foodstuffs wouldn't buy much in the way of fusion core assemblies.
Any thoughts, anyone?
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein
You say "The only clues to propulsion I recall are . . . ", but don't forget River's comments in "The Train Job" when she's describing the Firefly-class ship that she realizes she's aboard:
"Mid-bulk transport, standard radion accelerator core . . . "
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well, there is no direct evidence in the show states its a fusion core(i think, but it makes the most sense. you know the parts where to do a hard burn and Serenity's tail lights up and all that glowing gas like stuff shoots out the back? well, thats what scientists today refer to as a nuclear burst propellant. a nuclear reaction(read explosion) is created and channeled through an incredibly strong rotating magnetic field, thus creating an insane amount of thrust in an almost instantainous amount of time.
now, u could use nuclear fission to do this, but in that case all that glowing gas stuff would be horribly lethal, what with all the radiation and such. with fusion, theres no harmful radiation or waste to speak of. it just makes more sense that its fusion, cuz if it werent the whole system would probably be dead by now.
As for the fuel issue, maybe the fact that its fusion and therefore a very complicated process plays a role. maybe the feul cells they talk about are used to initiate a fusion reaction and not actually the materials they fuse. for example:
hydrogen feul cells create a large amount of electrical energy. this energy is used to create the magnetic field and to set off the secondary detonators, which then somehow initiate the fusionable material(most likely Hydrogen)into a nuclear fusion reaction, which is then channeled down the magnetic field.
So, they probably wont run out of pure hydrogen for a few years time, but the feul cells may run out after say, five 'hard burns' or so.
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When the stars shine bright through the engine's trail and the dust of another world drops behind; When my ship is free of the open sky, its a damn good day to my way of mind; Theres a barren planet you never can leave, theres a rocky valley where we lost a war; Theres a cross worn 'round a soldier's neck, theres a man's faith died on Serenity's floor, but i stood my ground and ill fight once more; Its the last oath that i ever swore
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In the tenth crew-member documentary the main drive is refered to operate using fusion. The Serenity appears to have what could be a fusion torus between the main engine and the crewdome.
Fusion would be the logical choice for an interplanetary power source also.
Noting that there is what appears to be solar panels, but we know these can't supply the ship with power from 'out of gas'.
The ship also has more conventional thrusters which would require fuel, and we don't know serenitys power requirements, could be the available fusion reaction mass is used comparativly quickly producing the required power.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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Quote:
Originally posted by KayleeIsAll:
As for the fuel issue, maybe the fact that its fusion and therefore a very complicated process plays a role. maybe the feul cells they talk about are used to initiate a fusion reaction and not actually the materials they fuse. for example:
hydrogen feul cells create a large amount of electrical energy. this energy is used to create the magnetic field and to set off the secondary detonators, which then somehow initiate the fusionable material(most likely Hydrogen)into a nuclear fusion reaction, which is then channeled down the magnetic field.
So, they probably wont run out of pure hydrogen for a few years time, but the feul cells may run out after say, five 'hard burns' or so.
Ohh, I like that! Antimatter-initiated fusion perhaps? Serenity certainly isn't big enough to carry a particle accelerator, so she'd have to carry rather than produce antimatter.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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eh, i dont really know about the antimatter. that would require a hell of a lot of power to generate magnetic feilds capable of sustained antimatter containment. anyway, an antimatter explosion makes a fusion explosion look like a mexican jumping bean. even just one atom of antihydrogen reacting with one atom of hydrogen would produce like 5000 times the force of 1000 pounds of hydrogen in fusion. if they had antimatter, they might as well just use it to propell the ship and forget about fusion alltogether. not to mention that producing antimatter is so damn expensive that theres just no way you could make an antimatter device of any kind standard on 40,000 ships. its just not economical. plus, i remember Joss saying somewhere that he didnt want to bring antimatter into firefly, because it was too trekkie.
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When the stars shine bright through the engine's trail and the dust of another world drops behind; When my ship is free of the open sky, its a damn good day to my way of mind; Theres a barren planet you never can leave, theres a rocky valley where we lost a war; Theres a cross worn 'round a soldier's neck, theres a man's faith died on Serenity's floor, but i stood my ground and ill fight once more; Its the last oath that i ever swore
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Serenity appears to have what could be a fusion torus between the main engine and the crewdome.
What exactly is a fusion torus? ive wondered what that spinning ring on Serenity is for, and this idea intregues me.
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When the stars shine bright through the engine's trail and the dust of another world drops behind; When my ship is free of the open sky, its a damn good day to my way of mind; Theres a barren planet you never can leave, theres a rocky valley where we lost a war; Theres a cross worn 'round a soldier's neck, theres a man's faith died on Serenity's floor, but i stood my ground and ill fight once more; Its the last oath that i ever swore
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oh, wait, are you refering to a Tokamak?
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When the stars shine bright through the engine's trail and the dust of another world drops behind; When my ship is free of the open sky, its a damn good day to my way of mind; Theres a barren planet you never can leave, theres a rocky valley where we lost a war; Theres a cross worn 'round a soldier's neck, theres a man's faith died on Serenity's floor, but i stood my ground and ill fight once more; Its the last oath that i ever swore
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I didn't know that about joss, but a magneticfield to contain antimatter is no more expensive than one to contain a fusion reaction.
Antimatter-initiated fusion is in no way Star-Treky tho 
...
Heres a few links on Antimatter initiated fusion:
http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/web_LiH_final.pdf
http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/AIMStar_99.pdf
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep602/SPRING00/TERMPAPERS/mcmahon.pdf
Basically the antimatter is used to kick start a fusion reaction, if antimatter was injected into the fusion torus this could give a kick start to the whole high-speed burn thing...
That would also explain how you could run out of fuel.
Although its expensive to produce antimatter, its likely gonna be cheaper in 500 years. That and the manufacture would be done planet side...
I'm afraid I can't be much more coherent than that, its kind of late here...
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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thats all well and good, but an eaiser and simpler way to initate fusion would be with a Takomak. the deuterium and trinium gas is heated to over 100 million degrees by microwaves, and at that temperature the fusion reaction begins. after the reaction begins, you no longer need the microwaves as the reaction is self sustaining. a hydrogen feul cell or two should have enough charge to jump start the fusion in this way, and then you will have power enough to run for several years. then, to initiate a burn, you just trigger the microwaves again, using the feul cells, and speed up the reaction so that u produce alot more thrust in a short time. pretty simple, really.
BTW, where are you?
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When the stars shine bright through the engine's trail and the dust of another world drops behind; When my ship is free of the open sky, its a damn good day to my way of mind; Theres a barren planet you never can leave, theres a rocky valley where we lost a war; Theres a cross worn 'round a soldier's neck, theres a man's faith died on Serenity's floor, but i stood my ground and ill fight once more; Its the last oath that i ever swore
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Are you sure its easier and simpler? I mean the AIM engine is one planned to actually go into space is all. I'm prepared to conceed the point tho, if for no other reason than Joss's comments . Have to say though the tokamak fits, there seems to be a torus as I said and that works for Tokamak as well as anything else.
A further thought occures tho. Couldn't you just place reaction mass in contact with fusion plasma and eject it?
And I'm in Britain, just south of london in fact.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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