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Technology - Powerplants and Drive Systems The technology discussed here is primarily human-centric. Where deviations in usage or capability exist, they are noted at the end of each subject. Powerplants- The powerplant of a spacecraft is considered to be a full deuterium cycle nuclear fusion reactor, a nuclear fission reactor, or a complex of reactors, all related support equipment for the reactor(s), and the power generation and distribution systems for spacecraft components. Fusion reactors carry enough deuterium fuel to operate continuously at full-rated load for 30 days. Nuclear-heated gas-turbine reactor powerplants utilizing the nuclear fission of uranium, plutonium, or thorium are much heavier and more expensive for the same given rank, and are thus uncommon, generally serving only in the role of an emergency back-up powerplant for ships that operate far from civilized space and thus cannot expect a timely rescue in the event of a main powerplant casualty. NHGTR plants have an operational life of 20,000 effective full-power hours, or EFPH, before they must be refueled and overhauled. HEPLAR Drive - High-powered plasma rocket drawing its superheated reaction mass fuel directly from the fusion reactor of the powerplant, heated by exposure to GHz range high-amplitude microwaves, or heated by passing through the fuel elements of a fission reactor. No matter the souce, this plasma is then magnetically accelerated for use as thrust with a Specific Impulse (ISP) of up to 100,000 - several orders of magnitude higher than a chemical rocket. HEPLAR Drives generate very high levels of thrust, but consume fuel at a similarly rapid pace. Drive Sail - Created by Doctor Gavin Aurimas in 2201, the Drive Sail creates vast "sails" of metallic hydrogen held in place and manipulated by a combination of lasers and low energy particle beams. These sails then create a Casimir Effect, pushing against the vacuum energy field and generating thrust. Drive Sails are extremely weak drives, often generating no more than 0.001 G of thrust and at maximum up to 0.01 G. They have the advantage of being a reactionless drive requiring no propellant, and thus capable of eventually accelerating a spacecraft to near light speed. Drive Sail equipped ships are used to transport wormhole mouths for stargates.Stardrive- Stardrive, also known as Hyperdrive and Jump Drive, is what makes interstellar travel practical. The Stardrive generates a vast amount of exotic matter in much the same manner as a gravity drive. This exotic matter creates a field of negative energy that inflates and stabilizes a wormhole drawn from the quantum foam that spontaneously connects one point in space-time to another point in space-time, and allows the starship to cross the space of many parsecs nearly instantaneously. Starships with Short Jump Stardrive may jump a distance of up to 3.3 parsecs (10.758 light years). Long Jump Stardrives can jump a ship up to 10 parsecs (32.3 light years), but require a large amount of ready antimatter to meet the stabilization needs of the wormhole over such a distance. It is possible to
create
a large “permanent” stable wormhole of up to about 1 kilometer in
diameter.
Such wormholes are known as Stargates, but such a process
requires so
much energy and exotic matter that it is a megascale structure
dependent
upon the mining of entire gas giants or the skimming off of the outer
layers
of stars to supply it. The control system necessary to
stabilize
and hold open such a wormhole is currently beyond the abilities of
Humans
and Ratalshas in Sagittarius, though a handful of human Stargates
existed
around Sol Space prior to the exodus, so the technology is
theoretically
available to humans once the vast infrastructure to create a Stargate
is
realized. The Dhaoghissi are believed to have a network of
Stargates
linking core Imperial systems with their most important subject
systems.
The Lantere do not have Stargates, though they are certainly capable of
creating them. Little is known of the Quilah and their possible
Stargate
technology. |
