Warp Core security

[General Zod]

Finally somebody worded it in a coherent fashion. as to the answer, well . . .it's fairly simple. Both the NX-01 and the GSC starships' primary mission were exploration into the unknown, where they could be gone for a month or more at a time and refueling might be difficult at best. Even though it's risky they should carry enough fuel to last them through long missions. Better than being stranded over a month's journey from the nearest outpost they can get more at.

[Lord Revan]

Finally somebody worded it in a coherent fashion. as to the answer, well . . .it's fairly simple. Both the NX-01 and the GSC starships' primary mission were exploration into the unknown, where they could be gone for a month or more at a time and refueling might be difficult at best. Even though it's risky they should carry enough fuel to last them through long missions. Better than being stranded over a month's journey from the nearest outpost they can get more at.

But I Would still carry in the fuel tanks and not in the recator.

[Ted C]

From TNG "Contagion":

GEORDI: In the event of a breach of seal integrity there is an emergency release system which dumps the antimatter.
DATA: Apparently such a dump began, was then halted, and the containment seals were dropped. There was still sufficient antimatter present to lead to the result we observed.

IIRC, this incident was described as a "warp core breach" elsewhere in the episode. This looks like a core containment failure, not an anti-matter storage pod containment failure.

It's possible that the Galaxy-class designers returned to an older, less stable core design in order to coax more power from the reactor. Unless I'm mistaken, the Galaxy-class is the largest Federation starship design ever, and despite a more efficient warp drive, they may still have needed an unusually large amount of power to move the ship at the desired speed. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't duplicate the robust containment system of the original NX-01 core design, using "modern" active control systems instead. The result was a flying time bomb.

The Leah Brahms pages of the main site are full of speculation along these lines.

[Ted C]

Finally somebody worded it in a coherent fashion.

I'd cut him some slack, at least in the short term. English apparently isn't his first language.

as to the answer, well . . .it's fairly simple. Both the NX-01 and the GSC starships' primary mission were exploration into the unknown, where they could be gone for a month or more at a time and refueling might be difficult at best. Even though it's risky they should carry enough fuel to last them through long missions. Better than being stranded over a month's journey from the nearest outpost they can get more at.

As Lord Revan points out, that doesn't explain why so much fuel is in the reactor, instead of in the fuel tanks.

[Lord Revan]

I'd cut him some slack, at least in the short term. English apparently isn't his first language.

True. Finnish is my first language, but can't write in that since then nobody would not understand me. vai väitätkö vastaan?

[General Zod]

Finally somebody worded it in a coherent fashion.

I'd cut him some slack, at least in the short term. English apparently isn't his first language.

*shrug* it's hard to debate someone properly if you can't understand what they're saying.

[Lord Revan]

Finally somebody worded it in a coherent fashion.

I'd cut him some slack, at least in the short term. English apparently isn't his first language.

*shrug* it's hard to debate someone properly if you can't understand what they're saying.

If don't understand then ask what I mean. I like keep my post brief, can make them longer.

[Lord Revan]

Thanks for the replies

Ok my point is that earth and (TNG) federation starfleet ships have SAME problem of massive excess reactivity (odly TOS starships don't have this problem.). you would think that even starfleet would know not to use. Are basic operating princebles of a modern nuclear reactor any different of that where made in the 50's. Of course the warp drive systems of the NX and Galaxy have little if anything in common. The warp core of GCS and the main Reactor of NX are both M/AM reactors. So tell my how much has operating princeble a car piston changed since the Model T ford?

You aren't listening to anyone. TNG starships don't have this problem either. It was simply a design flaw in the GCS.

And the Intrepid class (Voyager)

[Lancer]

Thanks for the replies

Ok my point is that earth and (TNG) federation starfleet ships have SAME problem of massive excess reactivity (odly TOS starships don't have this problem.). you would think that even starfleet would know not to use. Are basic operating princebles of a modern nuclear reactor any different of that where made in the 50's. Of course the warp drive systems of the NX and Galaxy have little if anything in common. The warp core of GCS and the main Reactor of NX are both M/AM reactors. So tell my how much has operating princeble a car piston changed since the Model T ford?

You aren't listening to anyone. TNG starships don't have this problem either. It was simply a design flaw in the GCS.

And the Intrepid class (Voyager)

In the various "Year of Hell" episodes, whenever Voyager was destroyed, it took a heavy beating first. It's not like the pre-War Galaxy's "explode even though the hull isn't breached yet."

[Kamakazie Sith]

Thanks for the replies

Ok my point is that earth and (TNG) federation starfleet ships have SAME problem of massive excess reactivity (odly TOS starships don't have this problem.). you would think that even starfleet would know not to use. Are basic operating princebles of a modern nuclear reactor any different of that where made in the 50's. Of course the warp drive systems of the NX and Galaxy have little if anything in common. The warp core of GCS and the main Reactor of NX are both M/AM reactors. So tell my how much has operating princeble a car piston changed since the Model T ford?

You aren't listening to anyone. TNG starships don't have this problem either. It was simply a design flaw in the GCS.

And the Intrepid class (Voyager)

I didn't really watch much Voyager. However, from what I understand its star drive system was much more stable than the GCS.

I mean what limits are we talking here? With an M/AM system you can only be so safe, if an enemy manages to inflict enough damage directly to the core or the pods no safety system would be able to stop a catastrophic explosion. It's simply the nature of the beast.

The reason the GCS is looked at so harshly is because its M/AM system seemed extremely vulnerable when compared against other starships from the franchise.

[Chris OFarrell]

And the Intrepid class (Voyager

How so? The only time I remember a major warp core incompatibility problem was when Seven tried to open a Transwarp conduit without a coil in 'Day of Honor' which was directly incompatable with the core somehow. It didn't breach the core but it did result in an ejection as a precaution.

Appart from that, Voyager has taken massive amounts of damage and come out with the warp core still humming.

The Galaxy class (specificaly the E-D and other first flight ships) have been the only ships that have really constently had warp core problems.


Oh and how much reactents are in the core at a time appears simply to be a product of the NX's design. Look at ST cores in the TNG+ era. You can see them dumping M/AM down into it in pulses when activated. Its possible the NX core simply has a 'local' tank of matter and antimatter which stores the reactents for the core. Then when it gets low, only then does it activate a transfer system and take more fuel from the main antimatter tanks.

I don't see exactly where you get the idea that the actual REACTION chamber has a months worth of fuel siting in there idely. Nor do I see where everyone is claiming the E-D does either. A Warp Core Breach doesn't appear to have that much to do with antimatter / matter reactions. Its some kind of chain reaction that builds up no matter if you shut off the reactats intake, building up to a massive explosion. Even ships that are preaty much out of antimatter like Equinox can have a warp core braech that can vaporise it and anything near it. The Delta Flyers warp core which physicaly couldn't even CARRY very much antimatter internaly. Even if you falsely assume it to be packed to the GILLS with antimatter. It was able to shake ships millions of kilometers away with its shockwave upon detonation.

Hell I'm even working on a theory that the M/AM reaction is simply a kind of intiation. If the warp core truely was simply a M/AM reaction chamber, there would be no need for Dilithium. But bits and peices of evidence from the various series leads me to belive that its the Dilthium that actualy generates the energy. Kinda like how a H-Bomb has an atomic trigger, the warp core has a M/AM trigger.

I'm not going to go into it now because its quite long and not ready yet, its a working theory. But I will say this.

With the exception of the E-D, no Federation ship has ever struck me as having an inherently flawed or unsafe warp core. And the E-D mostly because the writers were stuck in the TNG rut of using the technology as the plot rather then the background. Which is why so much of their amazing powerful technology cosntently fails for pathethic reasons.

[Uraniun235]

From TNG "Contagion":

GEORDI: In the event of a breach of seal integrity there is an emergency release system which dumps the antimatter.
DATA: Apparently such a dump began, was then halted, and the containment seals were dropped. There was still sufficient antimatter present to lead to the result we observed.

IIRC, this incident was described as a "warp core breach" elsewhere in the episode. This looks like a core containment failure, not an anti-matter storage pod containment failure.

It's possible that the Galaxy-class designers returned to an older, less stable core design in order to coax more power from the reactor. Unless I'm mistaken, the Galaxy-class is the largest Federation starship design ever, and despite a more efficient warp drive, they may still have needed an unusually large amount of power to move the ship at the desired speed. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't duplicate the robust containment system of the original NX-01 core design, using "modern" active control systems instead. The result was a flying time bomb.

The Leah Brahms pages of the main site are full of speculation along these lines.

It could be that keeping the warp core running requires a constant flow of antimatter in sufficient quantities, if released uncontrollably, to result in a catastrophic explosion large enough to rupture the AM containment pods.

I do wonder, though, why Starfleet insisted that it's biggest and newest starship also be it's fastest.

[Dennis Toy]

I didn't really watch much Voyager. However, from what I understand its star drive system was much more stable than the GCS.

I mean what limits are we talking here? With an M/AM system you can only be so safe, if an enemy manages to inflict enough damage directly to the core or the pods no safety system would be able to stop a catastrophic explosion. It's simply the nature of the beast.

The reason the GCS is looked at so harshly is because its M/AM system seemed extremely vulnerable when compared against other starships from the franchise

why does everyone keep saying the GCS warp core was flawed? In my years of watching TNG, only 4 times in the series has the warp core actually breached to cause an explosion. In Best of Both worlds, the Enterprise-D took a hit in the engineering section and the warp core didn't breach. Then the battle in the episode where the crew loses memory of who they are, the ship took hits and didn't explode. The safety of warp-cores can be compared to safety of airliners. There has only been 100 crashes in the US compared to the countless flights that occur.

[Alyeska]

The GCS did appear to have a warp core issue more then other classes of ships because they seemed to be more tempermental even when it didn't blow.

This problem did get adressed and the Galaxy II fixed this.

[RedImperator]

It could be that they store fuel in reserve chambers in the reactor itself because they don't like pumping antimatter from the storage tanks to the reactor any more than they have to. And we don't know how much "a month's supply" is. It's a curious design, but so far as I know the NX class hasn't had many problems with reactor safety.

I agree, it would be stupid to hold a month's supply of antimatter in the reaction chamber itself, but there's no evidence that I know of that suggests they do. The GCS core, we know from "Contagion", actually had more antimatter than was necessary to sustain the reaction in the reaction chamber at any given time, but there's no evidence that's the case with the NX core.

[Uraniun235]

why does everyone keep saying the GCS warp core was flawed?

Two lines. We can thank the writing genius of Brannon Braga for this:

TNG Cause and Effect
GEORDI: "We've got to eject the core!"
DATA: "Ejection systems are offline."

And, for a little bonus, the destruction of the Ent-D over Veridian, where they didn't even mention the ejection... one has to wonder if the GCS warp core ejection system had simply been written off by that point.

I'm sure we can thank Braga for that too... or if not him, then Ron Moore.

[DaveJB]

How complex does an ejection system have to be? I'd have thought you could just build a system that attached the pods to the ship with two electromagnets and one fixed magnet, like so:

N-------S-------N
S-------S-------S

Left and Right = Electromagnets
Middle = Fixed Magnet

Thus, all that needs to be done is cut power to the electromagnets, then the fixed magnet should repel the pod away from the ship!

(Bear in mind I don't claim to be an engineer, that possible system didn't take me a minute to come up with!)

[Stormbringer]

From TNG "Contagion":

GEORDI: In the event of a breach of seal integrity there is an emergency release system which dumps the antimatter.
DATA: Apparently such a dump began, was then halted, and the containment seals were dropped. There was still sufficient antimatter present to lead to the result we observed.

IIRC, this incident was described as a "warp core breach" elsewhere in the episode. This looks like a core containment failure, not an anti-matter storage pod containment failure.

It's possible that the Galaxy-class designers returned to an older, less stable core design in order to coax more power from the reactor. Unless I'm mistaken, the Galaxy-class is the largest Federation starship design ever, and despite a more efficient warp drive, they may still have needed an unusually large amount of power to move the ship at the desired speed. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't duplicate the robust containment system of the original NX-01 core design, using "modern" active control systems instead. The result was a flying time bomb.

The Leah Brahms pages of the main site are full of speculation along these lines.

Akiraprise aside, I find it highly doubtful that the NX-01 and the Ent-D share a similar warp core design. More likely it's a case of both ships have that much excess reactivity in order to produce the power required. In other words both operate on the edge of a catastrophic, uncontrolled reaction simply to squeeze sufficient power out of systems that can't safely generate it.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I'd cut him some slack, at least in the short term. English apparently isn't his first language.

*shrug* it's hard to debate someone properly if you can't understand what they're saying.

If don't understand then ask what I mean. I like keep my post brief, can make them longer.

It's not about brevity or length but about coherency.

[Stormbringer]

Spanky, the guy is obviously trying. Don't be a dickhead about. Try showing a little bit of understanding.

[Knife]

We know that the matter part of the M/ARA system is stored as slush, could the anti matter be stored simularly? Perhaps the large amount of anti matter present in the core is there to pre heat it? Or thaw it, or warm it before actual injection with the matter?

We know that the anti matter has to be moved to the core from the pods via magnetic fields so perhaps when it arrives at the core itself, a little prep work needs to be done before actual use. Just a thought.

[The Third Man]

Is anything said about the power output? A month at absolute minimum power output might represent a much shorter time at full bore. By analogy, if every last drop of fuel mysteriously vanished from the tank of your car, then the fuel in the pipes, pumps, filters, float chambers etc would keep the engine running much longer at tickover than at full power.

[Lord Revan]

I would say a month in warp 4 min. Because the had find the Xindi Probe before it was launched