Battlestar Propulsion

[buerger23]

I know GAlactica has to be fuelled w/ tillium so we know that it's not nuclear but why isn't it nuclear powered because we have the technology today to make our shuttles and space craft nuclear powered. If the main drives cannot be driven by nuclear power why wouldn't they power everything else in the ship with nuclear power. Was the Battlestar Pegasus run with nuclear power?

[ShadowEnigma]

I believe tillium was used for Pegasus as well.

As for why they don't use nuclear power? They might not have created it. Or maybe tillium is more efficient in some way. It seems that tillium is a very multipurpose material, and that maybe even though they could still run the engines, they couldn't do anything else without more.

Also, tillium seems to be strongly linked with the FTL system, so maybe tillium has to be used for FTL, and nothing else could work.

[JDS]

Well aside from the REAL reason being that the original BSG wasn't thought through as well as the new BSG, and the whole aircraft carrier motif wasn't as explicitly built into the show...

Galactica uses tillium for the FTL drive. It's quite easy to say that FTL technology actually requires tillium, rather than just energy. Note that they often talk about having enough tillium for a particular number of jumps, but they do not seem to talk about eating up tillium while cruising around. Even when they're running low on tillium, you'd think that they could just shut down the engines and let the ships coast, I mean it's space after all, they're not gonna lose much velocity. So maybe tillium is so efficient for the main engines that once they've already got to have it for the FTL, using it in the main engines, too, is more efficient than building a separate reactor and facilities to handle that fuel.

And for the Vipers and Raiders...maybe they have just as much trouble miniaturizing nuclear propulsion as we do?

Or, there's another, however unlikely, possibility. I mean it doesn't make much sense if they've mastered FTL technology, but maybe they still haven't figured out ion propulsion or ramscoops or any of those things, so energy isn't enough, they actually need to carry something to throw out the back of the ship to generate thrust.

[ShadowEnigma]

Would ramscoops work in space?

[Shane]

Would ramscoops work in space?
Star Trek Insurection

[JDS]

Would ramscoops work in space?Um. They're theoretical spacecraft engines, where else would they work?

[ShadowEnigma]

Haha sorry I don't keep up with the theoretical spacecraft engine journal.

[buerger23]

"Would ramscoops work in space?"
I beleive you were thinking of ramjets or scramjets. Those only work in low atmosphere conditions not in space.

[JDS]

Haha sorry I don't keep up with the theoretical spacecraft engine journal.I'll have to buy you a subscription for Christmas.

"Would ramscoops work in space?"
I beleive you were thinking of ramjets or scramjets. Those only work in low atmosphere conditions not in space.Yeah ramscoops (also known as Bussard ramjets) are a theoretical spacecraft engine, not to be confused in any way with the quite real ramjets and scramjets used in atmospheric aircraft (mostly experimental at this point).

[ShadowEnigma]

How do ramscoops work in space? I'd be curious to find out.

[JDS]

Basically they use magnetic fields to suck in the little particles floating around in space, and then they fuse 'em and spit 'em out the back.

[buerger23]

I see how that could work but we're not talking about ramscoops on Galactica are we? Because if we are they would need to be big and there can't be that many free floating particles in free space.

How much propulsion is able to be thrown out of a ramscoop?

[OrionFour]

More specifically, they collect hydrogen from the interstellar medium (about 0.75-0.9 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter), fuse it, and direct the resulting energy produced as rocket exhaust out the back. The faster the vehicle goes, the more efficiently it collects hydrogen, and the faster it goes still. In theory a ram scoop should be able to accelerate a vehicle near the speed of light.

[Sparrow]

Maybe there is some short of reactor wich fuses tylium and creates a safer reaction with tylium than with uranium or plutonium ..
in the mini i renember a line of tyrol about the mk2 Vipers "The reactor is still hot" .. it seems odd they using reactor to refer to jets, maybe the Viper and other craft have some short of reactor and they speel the fused tylium out of the back or something..
Tylium still is ficticious and we dont have much about it apart from it being mined from minerals and it being extremely unstable and volatile once refined..

[JDS]

Maybe there is some short of reactor wich fuses tylium and creates a safer reaction with tylium than with uranium or plutonium ..Uranium is a hell of a lot safer than tylium. There's really no evidence one way or another on whether they are fusing tylium, but if they had mastered fusion technology, then as I said they could be using ramscoops and never have to worry about fuel again.

in the mini i renember a line of tyrol about the mk2 Vipers "The reactor is still hot" .. it seems odd they using reactor to refer to jets, maybe the Viper and other craft have some short of reactor and they speel the fused tylium out of the back or something..That doesn't fit with fusion at all. Fusion reactors do not stay hot on their own, they naturally cool off as soon as the reaction stops. Fission reactors, however, naturally want to be hot, so they may stay hot a long time after the control rods are inserted or whatever other method is used to slow the reaction.

[buerger23]

What if vipers use ramscoops but Galactica uses this tillium reaction because we really don't know what tillium is... wait we do it's a type of liquid fuel remember from that episode where Galactica is refuelling and at the beginning of season when vipers are on a training exercise and they need to refuel it has to be liquid fuel or at the least bulk fuel.

[JDS]

The Vipers are fueled with tylium.

We can see that tylium is refined into a reddish liquid fuel, but that doesn't actually tell us anything about tylium itself, that might be purified tylium or a liquid tylium compound or simply a suspension of tylium particles in a liquid.

[buerger23]

Right, so lets say the Vipers use ramscoops to fly (still doesn't explain them needing to be fueled up?) and that Galactica uses some sort of tillium reactor to power the FTL and who knows mabye Galactica just floats there after a jump till new jump coordinates can be figured out.

Sorry about reposting my computer didn't load the page fast enough so I thought we were still farther back in this thread.

[JDS]

Right, so lets say the Vipers use ramscoops to fly (still doesn't explain them needing to be fueled up?)What? Why?

and that Galactica uses some sort of tillium reactor to power the FTL and who knows mabye Galactica just floats there after a jump till new jump coordinates can be figured out.Nah, we've seen her maneuvering about, that's what the giant engine pods on the back are for.

[Sparrow]

How do you know Tylium fusion is not safer than plutonium fision when Tylium is a fictional mineral? :p

[JDS]

How do you know Tylium fusion is not safer than plutonium fision when Tylium is a fictional mineral? :pBecause regardless of how you actually extract energy from tylium...you've still got to have a big tank of it! And we know that having a bunch of tylium sitting around is very dangerous. Uranium or plutonium, on the other hand, are safer by comparison...you've got to deal with some radiation, and some types of reactors can blow up under just the right circumstances, but most in use today actually cannot...penetrate the tylium fuel cell or whatever it is with an explosive shell and your entire craft could instantly go up in a fireball. Even a fission reactor fueled by plutonium won't do that.

[buerger23]

Right so Vipers need the fuel for manoeuvring but use ramscoops to fly.
I don't think I'am quite understanding ramscoops.

[JDS]

Right so Vipers need the fuel for manoeuvring but use ramscoops to fly.Remember when the Vipers were flying in the atmosphere all over that red planet where Starbuck crashed? Ramscoops don't work in atmospheres.

I don't think I'am quite understanding ramscoops.It's actually a fairly simple idea, just not easy to implement.

1: Extremely wide magnetic field sucks up the hydrogen particles floating around space.

2: Hydrogen particles are fused into extremely hot helium particles

3: Extremely hot helium particles go shooting out the back of the spacecraft, providing a crapload of thrust.

[buerger23]

Oh that makes sense. But why don't they work in the atmosphere

[JDS]

Oh that makes sense. But why don't they work in the atmosphereBiggest reason...they're designed to work in space where the only thing in front of them is a few hydrogen particles, which they are sucking in and fusing. In an atmosphere, they'd be catching all those other particles...imagine trying to fly around in an atmosphere with a ten mile wide parachute in front of you, you'd have far more wind resistance than thrust.

Other problems include the magnetic fields of planets interfering with the magnetic field of the ramscoop.

[buerger23]

Right I understand now how a ramscoop works. But a viper or Galactica does't use one.

I was watching episode 13 from season 3 over the algae planet and I noticed that galactica was using the four outer engine pods but not the two centre ones. Why is that? Wouldn't they always do that unless they were being pursued.

[JDS]

Right I understand now how a ramscoop works. But a viper or Galactica does't use one.Yes...that's exactly what I've been saying.

I was watching episode 13 from season 3 over the algae planet and I noticed that galactica was using the four outer engine pods but not the two centre ones. Why is that? Wouldn't they always do that unless they were being pursued.I guess they didn't want to go fast, so they only ran four of the six. I'm pretty sure they run like that fairly regularly.

[buerger23]

After watching more and more of the episodes I do realize they run the four out of six engines a lot.

[britboyj]

Well, it's not like they haven't invented nuclear technology, they use nukes. They have radiological alarms. They're aware of and have implemented that stuff and to produce nukes like they do, they probably figured out the benefits of fissionable material at some point in their past.

That said, nuclear fusion isn't particularly efficient for propulsion, it's only a means of generating energy, not providing thrust itself so while there may BE nuclear reactors on Galactica, they're probably only providing power for the sub-light engines, if there are any at all.

Also, Tyrol talks about the planet Starbuck crashes on having an atmosphere that "gums up the engines." There's clearly an intake of some kind of the Vipers, so what does it do in space?

[Catrope]

Well, it's not like they haven't invented nuclear technology, they use nukes. They have radiological alarms. They're aware of and have implemented that stuff and to produce nukes like they do, they probably figured out the benefits of fissionable material at some point in their past.
It's quite a big step from uncontrolled nuclear energy (bombs) to the controlled form. Currently, we have the knowledge to build both fission bombs and fission reactors, but that isn't true for fusion: we know how to use it in an uncontrolled form (think H-bombs), but we can't control it (yet).

[britboyj]

It's quite a big step from uncontrolled nuclear energy (bombs) to the controlled form. Currently, we have the knowledge to build both fission bombs and fission reactors, but that isn't true for fusion: we know how to use it in an uncontrolled form (think H-bombs), but we can't control it (yet).

We went from Oppenheimer to 3 Mile Island in the blink of an eye, from a historical standpoint.

You can't tell me a civilization that created AI couldn't figure out fusion/fission engines.

[buerger23]

Totally agree with you. And to add something else if the Colonials or Cylons have figured out a way to build FTL drives and then your saying they have never thought of nuclear fission/fusion engines. They have probably figured out some other type of never ending or close to never ending fuel supply. And one more question when the Viper are fuelled up is that with Tillium? Because if it is they don't have FTL capable fighters.

[britboyj]

It's entirely possible that tillium is a fissionable/fusionable material in some form or another...

[buerger23]

So your saying that Tillium could be used as a nuclear sort of fuel? Or are you saying that it could be used as a conventional fuel as opposed to an FTL fuel?

[jp2542as]

When I first saw the back end of a battlestar I knew what it's sublight drive where. They have the configuration of an ion drive. I once was part of a team to build the controller for one. And I was the lucky guy who got to plug up our controller to one in a vacuum chamber. Of course, ours had an 8 cm aperture. Not the scale of the several decks tall thrusters of a battlestar. All you need to do is make ions and nothing has to blow up/burn...