Galactica's engine room and FTL

[BSGfan-atic]

We have finally gotten a look at the engine room of the Galactica, at least that part of it that dealt with FTL. We had a limited view of another engine room, aboard Pegasus, which seemed to also deal only with FTL. I am going to venture a guess and say that the battlestars are similar to real-world ships in that they have several different engine rooms, each dedicated to specific parts of the ship's propulsion system. A real battleship would have had a boiler room, an engine room, a machinery room, a shaft room, and then the actual hull. Because the engine room was deep within the ship, at the bottom, actually, it was very well-protected. Ditto for the Galactica. The cracks that Tyrol was examining were not cracks in the hull, as some have expressed in other postings. They were fractures from the pounding that Galactica had taken over the last four years. And the specific member that Tyrol was examining, being so deep in the ship, it is something that can't be replaced without taking the ship apart around it. It's like a car with a cracked frame. You get rid of it.

The machinery that we saw though, it looked pretty cool. Let the technobabble begin!

[thevarrior]

First glance of the Jump Drive made it look fairly similar to the engines from Stargate's human ships, actually. The spooling motors, the constant movement, etc looked almost straight out of there.

As far as the stress fracture goes, I'm not really sure what to make of it. I feel like the more important question is... how much longer will the Bucket last?

[Zlaticko]

I thought one of the 'you will know the truth' bits showed the fractures in Adama's quarters too....

I'm beginning to think the answer is in less than 5 episodes.

:)

[skooma]

First glance of the Jump Drive made it look fairly similar to the engines from Stargate's human ships, actually. The spooling motors, the constant movement, etc looked almost straight out of there.

As far as the stress fracture goes, I'm not really sure what to make of it. I feel like the more important question is... how much longer will the Bucket last?


Just going by the episode names for the future (Islanded in a Stream of Stars) I'd hazard a guess that the old girl is on her last legs. Maybe the series will end with Galactica crashing somewhere and that is the new human homeworld?

[thevarrior]

Just going by the episode names for the future (Islanded in a Stream of Stars) I'd hazard a guess that the old girl is on her last legs. Maybe the series will end with Galactica crashing somewhere and that is the new human homeworld?

I'd figure as much.

[number13]

I actually paused a few times on close up shots of the outside of the ship in recent episodes... Its got some pretty large holes and damage on the exterior as well. Theyve done a decent job of gradually weathering it. Save fore they totally cheese "FRACK EARTH" tag on one of the walls. Id expect that in a Diorama maybey :lol:

[weedkiller]

When she goes out, it'll be in a blaze of glory and she will take a few basestars with her. No simple crash landing like NCC1701D.

[Osprey]

i still maintain she'll simply keep flying in an ambiguous ending, but that's based on nothing more than a gut feel ...

[thevarrior]

When she goes out, it'll be in a blaze of glory and she will take a few basestars with her. No simple crash landing like NCC1701D.

You can chalk that one up to Deanna Troi piloting the ship. Every time, the crazy woman crashes it. Nutbag.

[quotemstr]

First of all, I don't think the crack came about as a result of Tyrol's FTL shutdown. If you look at the machinery in the second engine room scene, it's gradually running down to a halt. There was no sudden jolt. Also, FTL seems to be inertialess in general, so in general it doesn't seem to put much strain on the superstructure.

Can't cracks like this be repaired by just welding some huge plated on top of the cracked bulkhead?

On the other hand, the beam below the main crack is deformed too. Also look at Adama's reaction to the crack in his quarters: it seems to be utter, complete despair, as if the cracks are fatal and Adama knows it.

Also, the cracks don't seem to look much like metal fatigue. I'm not a material scientist, but according to some searching, metal fatigue in steel seems to look like http://www.corrosionlab.com/Failure-Analysis-Studies/Failure-Analysis-Images/29176.fatigue.stainless-steel-bellow/crack-branching.jpg, if you see anything at all. Failure tends to be sudden. Besides: even today, we have metal fatigue sensors for ships, bridges, and so on. You'd expect the Galactica to have similar features. The cracks seem to be the result of some kind of warping, not fatigue per se.

Heat can cause extensive warping as metal expands, so I suspect the damage we're seeing occurred during the Battle of New Caprica.

(Speaking of which: all SF jump-style drives share the inertia problem. Consider the Battle of New Caprica: when Galactica jumped, it was falling toward the planet at a significant speed. It should have been moving in the same direction when it arrived at its destination, orbit directly above the drop point. [Directly above because it wouldn't make any sense of jump to orbit with the correct velocity, but halfway around the planet.] Instead, Galactica appears to be in a stable orbit after the jump. FTL drives must instantly move the ship *AND* impart a velocity to it on arrival. But if they can do that, why not give Galactica a significant upward velocity on arrival in the atmosphere instead of letting it fall?)

[skooma]

But if they can do that, why not give Galactica a significant upward velocity on arrival in the atmosphere instead of letting it fall?)

Because Galactica burning up in atmo, launched Vipers and jumping away was all kinds of bad ass.

(Speaking of which: all SF jump-style drives share the inertia problem

"Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."

[Shadow Rider]

The whole reason that Galactica was falling was due to gravity. Cut the gravity source and apply a reverse force and it'd be easy enough to stabilize and stop the ship. Also, if Galactica is moving in any direction in gravity-free space, it's not really falling towards anything...so does it really matter what it's relative motion is?

[TOASTERTRASHER]

:detective:

that spinning spear in the back ground reminds me of the spinning rings in Contact and Event horizon......

[fifiaspWeamma]

do not understand

[JDS]

:detective:

that spinning spear in the back ground reminds me of the spinning rings in Contact and Event horizon......Probably supposed to represent some sort of gyroscopic stabilization or magnetic fields overlapping.