Shuttle engines

[Distracted]

I've got some questions for you technophiles out there. What's the power source of the Enterprise NX-01 era shuttlecraft? What type of engine does it have and what is the fuel source? Would Romulan shuttles have a different power source than Earth or Vulcan shuttles? What sort of distances would a shuttle be capable of traveling without refueling?

[Rigil Kent]

Have no idea if this is correct, but I'll give it a go.

What's the power source of the Enterprise NX-01 era shuttlecraft?

An engine.

What type of engine does it have

A shuttlepod engine.

what is the fuel source?

Shuttlepod fuel.

Would Romulan shuttles have a different power source than Earth or Vulcan shuttles?

Sure. They use Romulan go-juice, not Human go-juice.

What sort of distances would a shuttle be capable of traveling without refueling?

Far.

Sorry. I just couldn't resist.

Beyond stating that they're not warp capable, I really don't know the answer to any of these. I'd assume that the engine was some sort of fusion drive, but we all know what happens when someone assumes. As to fuel, it would make sense that they go on the same thing that drives the NX-01 (dueterium?)

[blacknblue]

I always got the impression that shuttles were powered by a smaller version of the impulse engines that Enterprise carried. IMO, just from the special effects shown on screen, I had visulaized them as acting somewhat like the ion drives that NASA is experimenting with nowadays. Today's ion drives can only produce thrust equivalent to about the weight of a piece of paper, but still manage to eventually attain speeds far in excess of anything possible to a rocket because they can maintain steady acceleration.

By the 22nd century, if they have managed to develop an ion drive that can produce something close to one gravity of acelleration, it should be able to achieve something close to speed fo light velocity in short order.

Just my 2 cents.

[Distracted]

What fuel does an ion drive engine run on?

[Rigil Kent]

Ion drive engine fuel.



*ducks and hides from Distracted's inevitable wrath...

[Mitchell]

Ion drive engine fuel.



*ducks and hides from Distracted's inevitable wrath...

Some one's in a good mood today. What happened Rigil, did ya get a funny bone finaly transplanted into yer body.



Uh any ways D, Id say their small, all be it very small Impulse engines. Ever hear of the Orion type of Engines that some folks have proposed for future space craft? they basicaly detonate small lil nuclear blasts an ride ths shoke waves. Their another engine that works in a simaler way but instead of like Uranium, it would use antimatter, combined with matter to cause the blast. To possibly creat an even more powerful, fater thrusted engine. But since were just really begining to play around with anti matter. An we havent played around with it a lot yet, who knows.


But any whos Id beleave it be the Anti matter type of engine. Runnin on dueterium. Probably dosnt even have to be fueled up that often. Since if yal remember in the expance when the Pirates attacked Trip told Archer they could run off the Antimatter that was in the Warp reactor for a Month before they were in dead in the water. So Id imagine those lil shuttle pods are efficent lil buggers.

[dark_rain]

What fuel does an ion drive engine run on?

Ions?

Really though, probably electricity, so the shuttle pod would have a fuel cell (runs on hydrogen) or batteries. So the fuel would be hydrogen or good ole' leccy (electricity for those who don't live in england)

[Rigil Kent]

Some one's in a good mood today. What happened Rigil, did ya get a funny bone finaly transplanted into yer body.

Dude, she walked right into that one!

[blacknblue]

It might be deuterium, or possibly it scoops up interstellar hydrogen ala a bussard ramjet by using a magnetic ramscoop to sweep up hydrogen atoms as it goes along.

It might run off anti-matter, or perhaps a plain old fashioned fusion reactor.

[CX]

I've got some questions for you technophiles out there. What's the power source of the Enterprise NX-01 era shuttlecraft?

The impulse ractor(s). As discussed in the TNG Technical Manual, this is the secondary method of power production on a starship, but on a shuttle that wouldn't have a warp core anyway, the impulse reactor would provide more than enough energy to run its systems as well as providing the plasma exhaust used to propel it.

What type of engine does it have and what is the fuel source?

A scaled down version of the impulse engines used on board starships. The fuel used is the same deuterium used as the matter source in the warp reaction.

Would Romulan shuttles have a different power source than Earth or Vulcan shuttles?

Possibly but unknown. It is only established that in later eras all starships in that area have essentially the same type of impulse drives, which use superheated plasma created in the impulse reactors to propel the ship at sublight speed.

What sort of distances would a shuttle be capable of traveling without refueling?

Also unknown. Shuttlepod One established that eventually the shuttle would have reached the distant beacon they were trying for, several weeks later, just that their life support, which at the time was just fine, would've only lasted around 10 days. Starships carry quite a bit of deuterium, as their tanks according to the canon cutaway diagrams all seem to be consistantly at least 3 decks tall and maybe 100 meters or so long at the very least, depending on the size of the ship at least. I don't think their feul consumption is very high though, as Voyager went something like 3 years before it was forced to refuel, but as contrived as the episode was that actually showed them doing that was, well, I don't put much stock in it. I'd guess that it would take a good 5 years for most starships to run bone dry, but since they usually put in at bases more frequently than that they simply top off at those times.

What fuel does an ion drive engine run on?

Elecricity. Ion drives are basically like the tube from an old TV set, but without the screen. Ion drives are pretty great for sending probes off to distant locations in our day in age, especially because eventually they can propel said probes to nearly the speed of light because it is essentially always accellerating. The drawback is that payload has to be extremely limited because they aren't all that strong, and that it takes them a very, very long time to accelerate. At least that's my understanding of them, but keep in mind that I'm only an engineering student with a fascination in aerospace, and not the real thing.

[Distracted]

And deuterium is basically hydrogen with an extra proton, right? Can you make deuterium on the fly from regular hydrogen, or does it have to be produced by a massive particle accellerator that won't fit on a starship?

[Bether6074]

It might be deuterium, or possibly it scoops up interstellar hydrogen ala a bussard ramjet by using a magnetic ramscoop to sweep up hydrogen atoms as it goes along.

*runs quickly from thread*

[Mitchell]

And deuterium is basically hydrogen with an extra proton, right? Can you make deuterium on the fly from regular hydrogen, or does it have to be produced by a massive particle accellerator that won't fit on a starship?

Considering they did a whole episode in Season 2 about shoppin for fuel at a Deuterium drillin colony, Id imagine that in the 22nd century it isnt to easy to make their own.

An that ship filled with idiots in the Delta Quad seemed to need to stop a t a fuel station once an awhile to. So Id guess it goes to show they couldnt make their own on the ships in the 24th century yet either.

[Rigil Kent]

Considering they did a whole episode in Season 2 about shoppin for fuel at a Deuterium drillin colony, Id imagine that in the 22nd century it isnt to easy to make their own.

Dude, ignore that episode. Deuterium is a not oil. You cannot extract it from the ground. That episode should be immediately thrown out of canon (along with far too much of season 2) because of the level of stupidity involved in it.

[blacknblue]

Considering they did a whole episode in Season 2 about shoppin for fuel at a Deuterium drillin colony, Id imagine that in the 22nd century it isnt to easy to make their own.

Dude, ignore that episode. Deuterium is a not oil. You cannot extract it from the ground. That episode should be immediately thrown out of canon (along with far too much of season 2) because of the level of stupidity involved in it.

This is truth. I was wincing about that while watching it. Dueterium is the ingredient that makes "heavy water" heavy. It was the primary stuff used during the Manhattan project experiments that led to the atom bomb. It is basically a heavier than usual isotope of the element hydrogen, and is a gas at normal earth temperatures. To make it stable you either have to bond it to something like oxygen (e.g. turn it into heavy water) or cool it down to something incredible and make it a liquid like NASA does for rocket fuel. It is not found in nature in any appreciable quantities because it it highly unstable.