Building a rocket for a Star Trek experience

[Spacescifi]

 

What kind of rocket would give g-force low enough that you could sit in the chair  comfortably without being pulled back a full 1g in orbit? If your rocket engines were at the rear like Trek? A methane NTR? Or just about anything? Ion won't do I already know.

 

I say this because I have sat with my chair on the ground. It hurts. So bad idea. If you want a Trek experience with engines at the rear and you don't want to change your chairs to standing roller coaster seats, you need an acceleration lower than 1g.

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Spacescifi

[insert_name]

either use 1g thrust upwards or a magical "inertial damper"

[Spacescifi]

17 minutes ago, insert_name said:

either use 1g thrust upwards or a magical "inertial damper"

 

Never enough propelkant for constant 1g, nor am I allowing exotics like antimatter here.

Thus the rear engines.

[razark]

12 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

nor am I allowing exotics like antimatter here.

Then your question is meaningless, as Trek technology is designed to operate in the Trek universe, where Trek physics applies.

You might as well ask what kind of lightsaber Captain Kirk would prefer to duel with Harry Potter.

[adsii1970]

Okay, we all know that science fiction and science fantasy often operate outside the realm of real world physics. Please make sure we steer clear of personal insults and ridicule. Otherwise, there might be some sort of official moderator interaction to come. However, let the hapless speculation and absurd examples of imaginary physics begin!

[Vanamonde]

According to the Trek lore, warp drives do not work by thrust, and while the impulse engines do, the ships have devices which compensate for accelerations. So they can build them any old way they like. 

[adsii1970]

1 minute ago, Vanamonde said:

According to the Trek lore, warp drives do not work by thrust, and while the impulse engines do, the ships have devices which compensate for accelerations. So they can build them any old way they like. 

That's right. Warp engines generate a warp bubble...

[Spacescifi]

6 hours ago, razark said:

Then your question is meaningless, as Trek technology is designed to operate in the Trek universe, where Trek physics applies.

You might as well ask what kind of lightsaber Captain Kirk would prefer to duel with Harry Potter.

 

Surely you have heard that art imitates life and life imitates art?

 

That is why this is in the science forum, to see how we could use real science to imitate the Trek experience.

 

Realy even average car accelerations are good enough, as my back never is sucked back at 1g while driving, so it must be less than 1g acceleration.

[razark]

6 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

to see how we could use real science to imitate the Trek experience.

We can't.  Without the sci-fi magic technology, there's no way to imitate Star Trek chairs.

 

If the ship is accelerating in the direction the person seated in the chair is facing, all force is going to be to the back of the chair, and none towards the seat.  Then it's a bed, not a chair.  That's just the way the real-world physics work.

If the decks (and therefore chair) were to be perpendicular to the direction of acceleration, then you could experience Earth-normal 1g by accelerating at 1g.  If you angle the decks so that they are somewhere between perpendicular and parallel to the acceleration, then you will get a force into the seat and back of the chair.

 

The only way to experience Star Trek style chair sitting is to use Star Trek style artificial gravity and inertial dampers.  Removing a sci-fi magic technology from its context is not going to work, because it relies on the rest of the fictional universe to work properly.

[insert_name]

43 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

to see how we could use real science to imitate the Trek experience.

sit in a sterile looking room with fancy looking screens, maybe smoke and lights if you are feeling ambitious, and glue bits of rubber to various parts of peoples head, no spacecraft required

[Spacescifi]

6 minutes ago, insert_name said:

sit in a sterile looking room with fancy looking screens, maybe smoke and lights if you are feeling ambitious, and glue bits of rubber to various parts of peoples head, no spacecraft required

 

You made my day with that comment. Brought a smile to my face. On the verge of laughing.

 

Would work though. Though if I did this without informing anyone why or without consent... that would be like a trainwreck waiting to happen.

 

Entertaining for others to watch, but not as much for me who would get plenty of stares and hate.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Spacescifi

[RCgothic]

The warp drive uses warp nacelles to generate a subspace field to fold space and propel the ship via inertia-less propulsion, generally powered by an antimatter annihilation reaction in the warp core.

The impulse engines use the plasma product from a fusion reactor both as conventional rocket exhaust and to energise an "impulse driver coil" (and other ship systems) which reduces the effective mass of the ship and makes the plasma exhaust much more effective.

Thrusters are basically evolved current tech.

Inertial dampers ensure high accelerations don't squash anyone.

 

I've never really been clear why warp core detonation is the primary risk to a starship however. Containment failure of the antimatter tanks would be far more devastating, and making safe the warp core should just be a case of reducing the antimatter flow. Even if the core injectors froze you should be able to shut off the antimatter flow elsewhere.

The only thing I can think of is for containment field instability requiring increasing containment field power that only a full power core can generate. In which case there should be a safety system that can provide a enough power to maintain core containment whilst the core shuts down. It's basically the Chernobyl safety gap all over again.

Edited September 11, 2019 by RCgothic

[radonek]

51 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

I've never really been clear why warp core detonation is the primary risk to a starship however. Containment failure of the antimatter tanks would be far more devastating, and making safe the warp core should just be a case of reducing the antimatter flow. Even if the core injectors froze you should be able to shut off the antimatter flow elsewhere.

The only thing I can think of is for containment field instability requiring increasing containment field power that only a full power core can generate. In which case there should be a safety system that can provide a enough power to maintain core containment whilst the core shuts down. It's basically the Chernobyl safety gap all over again.

You are taking the fantasy too much seriously. We all know that  in reality, Federation was destroyed five minutes after someone realized there is no need to fuss around with phasers when technology allows you to deploy  singularity artillery and spew RKV's.