Slashdot Mirror
Star Trek Enterprise Tested to Mach 5
Sporkinum writes "University of Queensland Laser Diagnostics Dept
has a page
where they put the Enterprise through the gauntlet in a mach 5 wind tunnel. It did surprisingly well."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
...can be found here.
Fair warning - the linked-to page contains an applet, so be prepared for the usual "computer freezes for 10 seconds" effect if you're running Windows.
The Army reading list
In space there is no friction to stop your inertia. Excellent waste of time research people.!
I have a Cig, but do you have a light?
I was planning to use a scale model of the Enterprise as a hood ornament for my SR-71 Blackbird.
All that wind resistance in space could have meant certain doom for the crew!
We all know how important low wind-resistance is in space-ships. Because otherwise the saucer-section of the Enterprise might not have crashed quite as spectacularly in that one film where it did.
Hank! White!
from the to-much-spare-time dept.
Taco is pushing 30 years old, and apparently still doesn't understand the difference between "to" and "too".
Here it is, complete with pictures. mod it up if the server dies
I mean, hey, the thing can do warp 5, right?
...but can it do warp 5? not too shabby, kudos to Walter Matthew Jefferies for a great design, may he rest in peace.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
Aerodynamics don't matter in space
It is good to know that a fictitious ship designed to operate in a vacuum in a fictitious universe can handle mach 5 winds..... no really it is.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Does this mean that Scotty had more insight than Kirk in pushing the N.C.C 1701 Enterprise to the limits?
Who the hell cares what it can do in a wind tunnel? A wind tunnel means there is an atmosphere, which there isn't in space. This makes no sense and is a waste of time. Morons.
We all know that simply rerouting the EPS conduit to emit a low level anti-tachyon beam will nullify any damage space junk will create.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
How is ending up broken into a dozen pieces considered doing "suprisingly well"???
TOS R0XX0rzs my S0XX0rzs
Where's the foot icon?
They got funding for this?
Then again if I had a mach 5 wind tunnel there would be no end of things that I would try inside.
It appears that the space debris is a gum wrapper. This demonstrates that giant space aliens should be tidy when travelling lest their rubbish destroy our mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before."
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
What a waste of time don't these science geeks have better things to do with there time. Like reading slashdot 15 times a day
<!--This file created 3/29/00 9:54 AM by Claris Home Page version 3.0-->
Nice to see some up-to-date stuff here on Slashdot.
They've gone plaid!
With pocket protectors, to boot!
I really guess "She canna take it anymore!"
But they tested the later Enterprise model, which is capable of much greater speeds.
Not that Enterprise. We are talking about the NCC 1701 (no stinking A, B, C, D, or E)
I want to see them try this with the Borg cube.
If they have that much time on their hands, I have some important stuff they can work on... sheeesh
Like measuring how aerodynamic your self righteous ego is? Flame aside, researchers deserve a bit of fun too. Random thoughts and experiments often bring new insights.
This is like an uber-geek/nerd role call.
5 times the speed of sound is just about 0.0005% of the speed of light. That's not a conslusive test, it's like doing a car crash test at a speed of around 5 millimeters per hour.
I hope they realize they still have a *lot* of work to do.
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
I've learned the most during my research "play" sessions really...
Oh, come on, FK. You know as well as I do that there are innumerable reasons to allow something like this to be done: Training, morale, fostering intellectual curiosity, testing equipment, and probably a few more.
Like, oh, boosting PR for the site, to attract new personnel. (Note the "what else we do" link at the bottom of the page.)
Besides the fact that there is next to nothing massive in space to cause resistence, Warp is closer to surfing where the starship doesn't actually move relative to space/time (at least from what I gather a long time about when I read the "manual"). It's like catching a major wave and riding it.
What a waste of time.
What's this? I smell a contender for the next round of IgNobel prizes.
I read the internet for the articles.
Now the NCC-1701D whoulc have been the one to test, after all, we know it actually made planetfall.
Did they use containment forcefields in the test?
How did the plasma conduits hold up to the stress?
(Questions Geeks REALLY want to know!)
For a second I misread it and thought that the article would be about Star Trek OS, Enterprise Edition running on a Mach 5 Microkernel. Imagine my disappointment.
Badass Resumes
Mach 5 in atmosphere is equal to Warp 5 in a vacuum? And no explanation of this idiocy to be found anywhere. If there was some arguable explanation, no matter how unfathomable, I might give this nonsense some weight. What did we learn? Absolutely nothing!
that blows me away...sorry
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
This story lacks SCO, M$ and USA. Why was it passed?
One wonders how much better the 'new' (old?) Enterprise would have done. It seems more streamlined. Voyager could probably beat them all tho.
*realises what he's talking about*
I'll get my coat...
As long as they're testing non-aerodynamically-designed vehicles they should try the cube. They'll probably get just as useless results. As pointed out in other posts the Enterprise was not designed to enter the atmosphere. Or was it? According to Gene Roddenberry the original ship was designed to land on planets but the budget was too thin for the special effects, that's why the Transporter was added. In fact the Enterprise did in fact enter the atmosphere of Earth in TOS. IT also entered the atmosphere of an alien planet in one of the movies with not-so-great results (boom). So maybe these wind-tunnel tests will show that Gene was once again ahead of his time.
You need to test the old round nacelles along with the newer flat nacelle styles.
Sheesh...
...it's Physics, Jim"
from the lyrics of "Star Trekkin'" by The Firm.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Mrsev was found dead in his mach 5 wind tunnel, pants around his ankles, member in his hand.
We are going to Miss Mrsev. He was truly a Slashdot Icon, being the first person to pleasure himself at Mach 5.
So I guess this is proof that NASA turns into Star Fleet?
...cause you're starting to sound stupid.
/.'ers:
/.'ers who check this website every 15 minutes, every day, for the rest of their lives?
Two comments from
(1) Yeah, but there's no atmosphere in space.
No sh**. They acknowledge that in the second paragraph of their description and then proceed to suggest that mach 5 in an atmosphere may be similar to warp 5 in a vacuum (where you are pushing against the fabric of space). This isn't a scientific journal -- it's just some fun they're having after doing real work.
(2) What a waste of time.
This from the first couple dozen posters -- who really is wasting their time: the kids who did the experiment in an afternoon, or the
Get a life.
Allow me to begin the second phase of stock Slashdot comments. Phase I has already taken place: "what a waste of taxpayer/foundation/whatever dollars!" Phase II begins now:
Lighten up! It is clear from a very quick look at the rest of the site that the "Enterprise" simulation is just a fun application of some very serious science. It's clear that no special apparatuses (apparati?) were constructed to provide a real simulation of the Enterprise -- in fact, it's pretty obvious that the model used came out of a cereal box, or something.
Day in and day out, it looks like these guys are engaged in cutting-edge wind tunnel science, testing object against forces so strong, they can only be simulated for tiny fractions of a second. This means that someone spends hours setting up everything within rigorous parameters, then pushes a button. "Bam!", and it's over. If the object under test was mispositioned by a fraction of a millimeter, the team gets to do it all over again.
Once -- just once -- they'd like to have a chance to do something fun with the equipment. Someone has an old Enterprise model (actually, it may be from a snow globe). After a long day (probably unpaid) of testing the frontiers of science and boredom, they load up the (already warmed up) machine and have a little fun.
Thanks to the 'net, we get to share their fun. And in another few decades, we may get to enjoy the results of their hard work when we book that vacation on Luna.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The test only ran for microsecends. Even if the wind-tunnel costs 1,000,000 per second, that's only a dollar per microsecond.
Lighten up.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
I personally find this great. After all, I know that's exactly what I would do if I had a wind tunnel. I would also be testing the aerodynamic properties of the Millenium Falcon (which was designed for atmospheric travel), and numerous other fictitious "space ships". I would probably also test aluminum cans, coke bottles, penguins (after all I want to know how fast a penguin can go, having played too much tux racer), and numerous other objects.
Of course, this is the exact reason no one wants to give me access to a wind tunnel! I'd probably break it.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Scotty was right after all!
"I canna do that capt'n, she's gonna be ripped apart!"
Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
But the Enterprise isn't designed to enter an atmosphere??
Very true!
Very wrong! The saucer section of the Enterprise was designed for rentry and planetside landing.
Okay, now I've shown my colors...forgive me.
*raises hand*
I have a Cig, but do you have a light?
You damn green-blooded vulcans are always trying to hold us humans back.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
They shoved the Enterprise through a glove at mach 5? What _is_ the mach number of an article of clothing anyway?
Perhaps the Enterprise actually ran the gantlet.
Physicists have truly run out of things useful to do.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
They should be wasting time on my $pet_project!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
And the point of testing a ship designed for travelling through an essentially frictionless vacuum, in high-speed air currents, is ..... what, exactly?
The Enterprise stays in space. It never has to enter the atmosphere of a planet - everyone gets beamed on and off. You might draw some analogies between sound and light waves, but they all break down at some point, usually because sound is a longitudinal wave, whilst light is a transverse wave. Even if you actually could travel faster than light, you would not be setting up a shockwave, because shockwaves travel through matter and there isn't any matter in space.
But then again, Star Trek is science fiction, so maybe I'm being a git.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Every time I feel that I'm being a little too geeky, a story like this comes along and proves that I have nothing to worry about....
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
i guess next time you won't be a touchhole and say obnoxious and rude things like "Much more effective." in your failed karma grabs, right?
The foot icon is in the lower left corner of your screen.
Oh, you mean this foot icon, not this foot icon.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Ya, like posting on slashdot.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
Not to mention the women they'll get...
Given that the solar wind sound speed is on the order of 30,000 km/s, one could argue that would be equivalent to flying at 150,000 km/s (ignoring relativistic effects).
The Federation has a good ensurance that pays in case of robbery, fire, klingon attacks and Geek Tests.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Why didn't this get a Score:5 Funny?
Bullshit. The TOS Klingon cruisers were much more graceful.
NASA actually performed computer modeling tests on several different Star Trek ships to test structural stability during acceleration at sublight speeds.
The end result? Sans one, every single Star Trek ship fell apart.
The winner? The Cardassian warship.
Can't find a link, but oh well.
"Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!"
C'mon. Find something USEFUL to do with your time and grant money.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
All the comments seem to be of the type "Wow, what a waste of research time/money, -EVERYONE- knows there is no air in space."
What ever happened to "Because its there."? You've got the capacity of generating Mach 5 winds... So you take your Enterprise model, and bolt it in and give it a go.
OF COURSE the Enterprise isn't designed to enter atmosphere. Its also a fictional vehicle.
People who do things like this, do it Because They Can.
I sure as hell would. Ever build a kaleidoscope, and shine a laser into it? What about with one of those clear crystal isocahedrons inside it as well... I know for a fact that there was no New Science being done. I also know it was fucking cool as shit. Yes, I proved nothing with my shiny thing, except it looked good, and was fun.
The Enterprise test was perhaps just that. Dicking around with shit. It just happened that the experiment returned "Its surprisingly aerodynamic". And they wished to share their results. Its geeky news, and so it made it onto Slashdot.
Relax, science doesn't always have to have a purpose. That's how discoveries are often made. Not by "That proves my theory." but "Hey, That's funny..."
Mach 5? What is that, five times the speed of wind?
Yes, there is no atmosphere in space. But people, stop being nerdy. They were not testing the enteprise for space deployment.
Can't people separate science from fiction?
Is it hard to assume that it was just an aerodynamics test, and the object under test happened to be the enterprise just because it had a pretty, aerodynamic shape? If they test the aerodynamics of a carrot, are people going to whine about the different viscosity of common garden soil?
This was NOT a deep space test!
As long as we're researching non-existent spacecraft. How about a TIE Fighter or X-Wing?
I suppose neither IE or Mozilla "supports applets."
The research team got such useful results from this test that they have received a grant to do a similar experiment with the Borg Cube.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Cubes have been studdied in wind tunnels, and the results can be applied to understanding what happens when strong winds hit a building.
Anyway, Star Trek took into effects what cubes do moving through a fluid. They leave a series of paired eddy currents behind them, which is what they always used to track Borg cubes.
The truly trek geeky apparently arent here.
Plenty of people are asking why they tested the atmospheric effects, when enterprise never goes there.
In fact it did, in multiple episodes, and in multiple movies.
Star Trek 4, multiple TOS episodes, and of course plenty of times in the TNG (granted different design, but still).
The enterprise wasnt designed for it, but its definitely a valid question and test - it's occured more than a few times.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Good going, mates, for showing that Queensland really does live up to its rep!
P.S. Sounds like an interesting place to visit.
That is all.
You really know how to put the FU in fun. Give em a break.
This is pretty sweet, but there are few other things I would like to see simulated in that tunnel such as...
-70's muscle car with JATO pack installed on roof..
-obligatory X-Wing test
-obligatory test
-I-mac
-GW Bush's head
-Star Destoyer
-a small animal
This list needs help, I know...so do add...
dictionary.com:
The spelling gauntlet is acceptable for both gauntlet meaning "glove" or "challenge" and gauntlet meaning "a form of punishment in which lines of men beat a person forced to run between them" but this has not always been the case.
It's acceptable to use Gauntlet, and many notable authors have and continue to do so.
Please, if you are going to be a grammar nazi, get your facts straight.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Meanwhile in a related story... A model of Speed Racer's Mach 5 was tested for Enterprise usage. It turns out that the jumping pads are helpful for parking but that the car needed to many repairs for typical use.
Seuss - I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends. My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends
Even though this is all fantasy, I think a model of Voyager would make for a more "realistic" (such as it is) test, since it's the only ship from the shows that regularly entered atmospheres, landed and took off again.
In Mozilla, you need to download the newest CVS build. Then, apply the patch described in attachment #15 to bug #1378805. Then recompile with the APPLET_EXP_SUPPORT flag turned on. Run the moztest_applet_enable program to fix the resultant binary, and you're all set!
Isn't open source grand?
From the page:
...yes, and one could also argue that simulating speeds of, say, 5 miles per hour would also be "analogous" to the craft's speed. Pick any number between 1 and 10, a unit of distance, and your favorite time interval, and poof! Instant, completely specious analogy!
But the Enterprise isn't designed to enter an atmosphere??
Very true! However one could argue that this test was a simulation of the flight of the Enterprise where the Mach number of the flow is analogous to the Warp speed of the vehicle.
"So you're five years old, son? Well, I'm five foot five! Isn't that, um, coincidental and irrelevant?"
Everyone bitching about what a waste of time this is, but really, does it look like they spent alot of time on this? It looks like something they threw together in a few minutes, most likely while working on another project in the wind tunnel. People need to lighten up.
Slashdot has a page where they put the University of Queensland Laser Diagnostics Dept Webserver through the gauntlet in a mach 5 slashdotting. It held up as expected."
You mean if you're running Windows with Mozilla or Opera and Sun's JVM instead of Microsoft's speedy IE.
Everyone knows chicks dig pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It looks like a used condom. What other kinds of "tests" were they doing in that wind tunnel?
Skiing? Check out The Independant Skiers Portal
A transporter is at max warp 1 or 'c'. We can assume that a transporter is sent on some kind of limited range transmission beam (this negates subspace), therefore light or radio would be the most common, and both of those can only travel at most 'c'. Also, warp speed is attained through creation of a warp field (which bends space/time to allow cutting distance) which the ship then travels through using warp engines.
I think... I just watch the show (mostly TNG and DS9) and a few movies (First Contact being my personal favorite).
"It's the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed" --William S. Bourroughs
"Say what you want about Star Trek in general, but the design of the "movie" Entreprise is one of the prettiest, most graceful vehicles ever built."
Which "movie" Enterprise? And what about all the other Starfleet ships? Are they any good?
Now more than ever I regret sleeping in this afternoon and missing all my classes.
Read Errant Story.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
In this case, it looks like some of the membrane didn't disintegrate fully and managed to collide with the test model with what I can only imagine as being a pretty awesome force. Junk like this is just a side effect of shock tubes, but usually it just coats the insides of the tube and doesn't interfere with the model being tested.
I am surprised so far at the total lack of aerospace engineers chiming in on Slashdot, I would've thought there'd be at least a couple. I guess it's just you code monkeys with time to kill between tech support calls.
What did Spock find in Jim's mouth?
Number one I order you to take a number two!
When I read this was a videotape of the show Star Trek: Enterprise being throuwn into a windtunnel.
Now that would be entertaining, well more entertaining than that dull derivative crap called Enterprise on UPN.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
"I know quite a few test engineers that enjoy making things break, explode, collapse, etc."
The guys at Underwriter's Laboratory I bet have some tales to tell about our favourite products.
Im using Opera, works reasonably fast. Only took 1 or 2 seconds to load.
Then again, I have only my own results to compare with.
"..Nae model A, B, C o' bludy D, tha original Enterprise."
--
Scotty.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
The bridge survives!!
Too bad about the crew quarters where all the red-shirts had been having tea.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do you even know what a shock tube is?
The costs of the test being run here are more or less the costs of the acetate membranes. These sorts of tests don't even take much time to run, just drop the model in the (very small) shock tube, allow pressure to build until it breaks the membrane(s), acquire your data for the sub-millisecond times that the shock wave runs over your model, and you're done.
But of course, don't let the facts stop you from blathering about something you clearly know nothing about. Have you considered a career in politics?
When we actualy do have warp drive, someone is going to build a 1:1 working model of the Enterprise, and then get a story on /. for it. (and of course sombody will scream repeat and link back to this story.)
Did Glenn Beck rape and kill a girl in 1990? gb1990.com
oh yeah? The Millennium Falcon does Mach 6 so NYAH!
It keeps the space junk from hitting the Enterprise.
I'd prefer to use a reverse positron beam directed through the sub-space transmitter.
Of course it blew up. They didn't have the deflector dish or the shields activated. Any idiot would know without them that it would blow up as soon as it started moving at any significant speed.
I'd like to see them retest with shields and deflector - then let's see how well it performs!
But where's the math? What's the coefficient of drag on the Enterprise? What's the viscosity of spacetime? How compressible is it? Where are the tables so I can calculate the warp drag on *my* spacecraft? How can I reproduce their results!?
Stupid ivory tower academics. Us *real* engineers have starship design to do while they're messing around.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
This is funny and so true for a lot of open source software!
...And you're telling me you wouldn't enjoy dicking around with something like this while on the company dime? It doesn't look like they spend more than an hour or two doing this, so I don't see a problem with it. Hell, they probably even got the OK to do it from management first, seeing as it made it to their webpage...
It's been a long time.
Making good money as a professional researcher, you'd be really suprised how many of these guys have wives. It's kind of a sad thing to see(choose your own reasons why), but it's true.
It's been a long time.
come on people, check your spelling words for the week.
I thought that Wind Tunnels were no longer used, in favour of the cheaper alternative: computer simulation.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
> I'll believe its real space the moment I see someone drifting backwards.
This was touched upon in the second movie, where Spock commented on Khan's two-dimensional thinking in the cat-and-mouse hunt in that gas cloud, and the battle was won by piloting the Enterprise downward (relative to its orientation) and then back up behind the Reliant. Still, it's fairly easy to explain banking in spacecraft using relative inertia. When a spacecraft turns, the body of its pilot tries to continue in a straight line. Banking the craft causes the pilot to feel the change in direction as being pressed downward into the seat, which is both familiar and less likely to cause a g-force related blackout. On larger ships, it could be seen the same way, allowing the inertial dampers to work less to keep the crew vertical while the ship turns, and there were a number of occasions where large craft turned by spinning on center, as one would expect from spacecraft. Think of the opening credits on later versions of the above-mentioned DS9, where the Defiant backs off from the docking port and spins around its center to get to its exit heading, while drifting directly away from the station.
There are lots of failings in Star Trek, but they do make at least some effort, and one must remember that it's a TV show/movie, so entertainment value sometimes trumps reality (like when one hears the explosions ripping apart yet another version of the Enterprise, or when a shock wave moving faster than warp 3 strikes a ship and swats it along instead of pulverizing it or crushing it like a soda can). Play along.
Virg
On the NCC-1701 the Standard Warp but the Max warp was only Warp 7. Furthermore Warp 10 was only a theoretical warp. Warp 9 was the most they ever used in the shows (unless there was a quantum space wormhole plasma fluctioation in the primary dilithium warp nacel matrix) Technical Specs on the NCC-1701 http://www.ssfinternational.com/~enterprisetrib/en terprise/ent/enttech.htm
It's actually the speed of his joke flying over your head.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Everybody knows you have to read /. with stupidity filters at full power.
Hey, doesn't anyone remember the episode where the Enterprise went back in time and entered the atmosphere and a pilot saw it, the pilots plane broke up and the crew beamed him onboard. Isn't it great that there was some realism that the Enterprise could survive mach 5 speeds.
And you never know what works until you do the experiment.
WhatMeWorry
On the other hand, this has interesting implications for the physics of star trek weapons technology. No phasers at warp drive, and firing, never mind aiming, photon torpedoes could be a royal pain.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
> I want to see them try this with the Borg cube.
Fool. Borg cubes travel in transwarp conduits. They don't have to deal with this sort of problem. Fool. Federation fool.
Virg
Never mind this waste of time - show us what a White Star will do on full burn.
Who the hell cares what it can do in a wind tunnel? A wind tunnel means there is an atmosphere, which there isn't in space. This makes no sense and is a waste of time. Morons.
Because it is a good way to test the equipment without putting in jeopardy any test model you care about. And having some geeky fun while you do it.
Would it be any better if they were testing the performance at Mach 5 of a model of the Batmobile?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
This isn't the first time and most certainly won't be the last time this is posted to Slashdot...
I saw this 'story' last year and the same kind of comments were again repeated... Then again, perhaps the Matrix has been reset...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There is the matter though that one person's fun activity is another person's expense. Someone had to pay the cost for this and I have a suspicion it wasn't the experimenters.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"The ramjet or ram scoop is a device that uses a powerful magnetic field to collect interstellar hydrogen during flight. The greater the speed, the more efficient the collection will be."
"The Bussard ramjet was proposed by R.W. Bussard in 1960. The original vehicle collects charged particles from interstellar space using a large magnetic scoop, and funnels them to the onboard H-He fusion reactor, where they are converted to fuel. According to Bussard's calculations, a 1000 ton starship with a 100% reactor efficiency, which collects fuel from a medium with 1 charged nucleon/cubic centimetre would accelerate almost indefinitely at 1g. In a year the craft would reach the speed of light and in the subjective lifetime of the crew it would also reach the end of the Universe. The diameter of the scoop would need to be 100 km for this 1000 ton vehicle, if it is to move through a space medium with a density of 1000 atoms/cm3."
"The top speed of a Bussard ramjet is theoretically very close to the speed of light, but practically it may be hindered by the density of interstellar matter, the drag of the magnetic field and the braking of the incoming protons. The advantage of Bussard ramjets is that they do not need to bring fuel along with them. The downside is that the ramjet will not work from a standstill, but needs a velocity of 4-6% of the speed of light to get the right flux of charged particles to work."
I'm not an engineer, just a hard SF fan who likes to read up future technologies. I can't argue the fine points of the possibility of actually constructing operating a ship like this ...
how noisy is that tube
I guess this is usefull if your going to crash the ship into a planet or something.
Jeoin
Jeoin
I bet that these guys thought this experiment up after a long Bundaberg Rum binge. All the Alcohol and sugar needed to make yourself stupid and energetic.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Originally, the shows/movies took this into account. You could not hit a warp speed ship with a phaser. This is why you had to drop out of warp to do all the fighting. Ever wonder why Wrath of Khan was all sublight speed? They were thinking at one point, honest. Sadly, I think like everything else, the violated this in Voyager...
-Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
LOL You mean Microsoft's broken outdated IE combined with its equally broken and outdated VM.
You don't actually surf the web with the piece of garbage do you?
Let's not get out of hand. Firstly, the Falcon and X-wing were atmosphere rated, and second, the TIE fighter was sublight. Not fair at all. The X-wing models stand up very well to regular wind tunnel tests (we did some on hand-built models, although we couldn't get a stable flight airframe) and I'd figure the Falcon would just fall apart in this test because of its rough surface.
Virg
as i'm reading this, the bottom of the page says, "I am NOMAD."
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Dude, I dunno. I downloaded mozilla, and applets work.
And unlike IE, it's smart enough to only download binary encoded stuff for plugins (ie, your applet, your PDF) once, unlike IE which will download it 2 or 3 times. Great if you're on a dialup.
OK, completely ignoring the fact that the Enterprise is completely fictional, etc., etc., they still didn't get the test right.
The shape of the warp bubble is what's important, not the shape of the ship. While the bubble follows the general shape of the ship, it does not conform to the outer hull in the way that the test represents.
OK, enough of that. Back to arguing about how a transporter works.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Go Star Trek!
"A crucial design point is the avoidance of 'shock-shock' interactions where one shock wave hits another directly in front of the body. If this were to occur there would be catastrophic consequences for space-time in these regions." ...please.
Still No Cure for Cancer...
I've seen some nerdy shit in my days, but this takes the cake.
If you *had* a holodeck, you would feasibly use it to simulate sitting at a computer posting to slashdot? That's pretty lame, there are far more interesting things that could be done with a holodeck.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The Enterprise travels at Warp speed, not Mach. Let's see what happens to this plastic model at Warp 5 ;)
ayottesoftware.com
Microsoft's JVM always gave me problems back before I dumped *doze on the whole... Opera and Mozilla worked fine for me, as did Safari on my Mac.... I think I waited a whole two seconds... =)
----- Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious. - Paul Valery
I wish that I can get a job testing my sci-fi toys out in a wind tunnel.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
T'Pol is hot!
No, no, son, red-shirts drink *Scotch*! (see also: Montgomery Scott, the 9-fingered UberEngineer!)
How does the Mach 5 handle at Mach 5?
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
hey, could anybody told me who was the designer? Great job.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
The SR71 has a very low radar profile. The hood ordiment would make you that much more visible. Not like any missle could hit you, but if you are trying to be discreet You'll blow your cover. Now mod me up +2 UltraGeek. Don't ya think there should be an UltraGeek option when moderating? Especially, for these threads. It could be like funny, but Geekier. Much Geekier. UltraGeekier!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
http://www.rz.rwth-aachen.de/vr/ more interesting site than posted on /.
regarding THIS article:
1. Their tiny model would not predict how "life-size" Enterprise would behave, as far as dynamics are concerned. Since no one can afford to build an actual 1:1 model (or wind tunnel big enough), everything should have been done in mCAD, Autocad w/ plugins or something else. Figure out how dense and thick the hull is and you are all set. Guesstimate tensile strength and properties of the "alloy" or use something that we already have on earth.
2. Warp engines work by warping space around them and not by pushing or propelling ship's body. So, no, warp5 and mach5 are totally different.
That is what the deflector array does, but admiting we know that would make us seem like nerds hehe :)
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Comeon, theres no air in space!!
Whats the point of testing it in a windtunnel????
Let's suspend our disbelief for a second and forget that the limitation at the speed of light is due to energetic constraints and not simply to the appearance of shockwaves, as occurs at the speed of sound.
e =UTF-8&safe=off&q=cerenkov+radiation&btnG=Google+S earch).
They say that Mach Number is analogous to Warp Factor. Mach 5 being like Warp 5 and therefore half of the Enterprise's rated limit of Warp 10.
Presumably they're studying the standing shockwave pattern around the vessel, looking at where the crests and valleys attach to the hull, nacelles, etc., to see if that causes improper loads (supersonic aircraft designers have to "tune" the positions of edges and control surfaces so that the standing shockwaves don't amplify drag, eliminate lift, induce vibrational feedback, etc). Which is a reasonable thing to do; they're checking whether the fictional vessel could be said to have been properly designed to handle the shockwaves encountered if light produces shockwaves (which it does when particles enter media with lower speed of light than the medium they came from; see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o
The only problem is, the Mach number is a simple multiple of the local speed of sound, while the Warp Factor is the square root of a multiple of the speed of light. So to find out what happens at Warp 5 they would have to study the analogous Mach 25 to get the correct results.
(removes pointy latex ears)
So your post would go something like this...
"piss off mate. That is not what it was about. Without Slashdot, I cry all day long. How was saying more effective rude & obnoxious, I really don't know because I'm simply THIS STUPID! It was merely stupid. It would be more difficult to /. google than it would be to take out his host. That was my point. The fact remains that I did not take into consideration the fact that I don't know anything before making a stupid post. I acknowledge now that I am dumb and don't realize how Google caches anything. I would like to apologize to everyone who has ever had to read any post I have made and promise never to post to Slashdot ever again. Plain and simple. I am a raging sissy with dirty brit leanings"
Check out NOVA tonight and next Tuesday night. Explains how one would take ship up to such high speeds (among other things). Warning, serious geek stuff inside:
Elegant Universe
You are so right. I can't imagine anything else these guys have done that would have given them the amount of publicity they received today!
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
I took the Mach 5 up to Warp 6.
Interstellar vacuum holds about 1 atom of hydrogen per cubic centimeter.
According to the Star Trek encyclopedia, a ship's speed = (warp factor)^3 x c.
So, warp 10 is 1000c.
This translates to 3x10^11 meters per second or 3 x 10 ^13 cm/s
This means, each second, 3x10^13 atoms of hydrogen are impacting each square centimeter of the ship.
This gives us a total kinetic energy of 22.95 kJ/s for each square meter of the ship.
Let's see what that would do to Ten forward's windows, which are made from Transparent Aluminum:
Let's assume the windows are ten centimeters thick. A one meter square slab would then have the following properties:
Mass: 270 Kg
Specific Heat: 243 kJ/K
Melting point: 933.52 K
Heat of Fusion: 1.08E+05 kJ
If you run the numbers you'll find that, at warp 10, the windows of Ten Forward will rise from a space normal temperature of 4K to the melting point of 933.52 K in 2.73 hours.
Assuming the soft metal didn't blow out at this point, the windows would gradually melt away over the next 1.31 days.
Mind you, this is in the deepest interstellar space where hydrogen molecules are at their thinnest.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Well, that's a little more trouble than it's worth. The page killed Moz 1.5 dead on my win2k box
Space isn't a vacuum... there is a small amount of gas, mostly hydrogen, floating around even in the most desolate regions.. Its small, something on the order of one molecule per liter or something like that. So there is a TEENY TINY bit of pressure in space, that will come into play at high speeds. I would think that under extremely high speeds, even sub-light speeds, the drag created would actually be surprisingly large.
Let's say in comparison to the speed of light. I thought originally "warp 1" was the equivelant to 186,000 miles per second, so warp 5 would be five times the speed of light. Am I correct in assuming a light year is the distance one would travel, if they were going the speed of light for 365 days?
Click and help me get an iPod?
Phasers and Photon torpedoes were used at Warp Speeds in "Best of Both Worlds", when the Enterprise was running from the Borg cube, right before they latched on with their tractor beam, knocked them out of warp, beamed over and stole Picard.
You've got to modify the deflector dish to emit an inverse tachyon pulse. Geez, its like I'm the only one here who graduated from the Daystrom Institute...
...What?! Okay so it was UC Berkeley with a minor in watching too much SpikeTV.
I think Niomi Watts needs to test me
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
frankly, I'm wondering how they'd stop a hydrogen buildup similar to a sonic boom from forming and causing some real damage to the systems they're travelling to or past
What episode of TNG was it where it was discovered that high warp speeds *did* cause permanent damage to interstellar "ecosystems"? As I recall, it was an interesting allegory of "freedom fighter" vs. "terrorist", with the planet's scientists (all two of them, as usual) split on how to convince Federation starships to slow the hell down.
In the end, one of the scientists demonstrated the problem the hard way, blowing himself up in the process, and the Federation imposed a speed limit (warp 5, wasn't it?) unless there were a lights-and-sirens emergency. I always wondered how the Federation would enforce such a limit, especially on folks like the Klingons and Borg who never showed much use for the Federation's benign dictatorship.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Star Trek Movies
Kind of like paying to go to a Trekkie convention and laughing at the guy who has a slide rule in his pocket.
You need permissions, man, or else you'll be here a long time. . .
Works fine on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6a) Gecko/20031019 Firebird/0.7+. ;)
Daniel
Considering that Warp mechanics is nothing more than a phrase in the Star Trek writer's guide, it was rather disappointing to see the total lack of science relating their gas velocity and density to theorectical warp speeds. (a misnomer actually since there IS NO theory, but let it pass). So essentially while an entertaining exercise it's on the level of innumerable twinkie experiments. Amusing and clever use of lab equipment, but no real science at all.
There actually was a rather good sf novel by Forward I think some years back which illustrates what kind of damage one could do merely by slamming a small ship sized mass into a planet at fairly reasonable sublight speeds. The results aren't pretty.
Model of the Enterprise tested up to Mach 5 ... no word on how long the television show will last before it is cancelled.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As we all know, Seven of Nine had the finest turd-cutter on series television. Let's see what kind of shock wave pattern THAT would generate!
Does it really matter whether or not an intergalactic space ship is aerodynamic? I mean, honestly, if they have enough resources to waste to even consider launching the thing from a plannet, I dont think they need to worry too much about aerodynamics. Look at the borg cube, now theres efficiency. They dont give a damn about aerodynamics cause they are in space. he he he.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I am all for stackable spaceships!
Although the density of interstellar matter is very low, as the spaceship accelerates, the apparent density increases drastically. Compare this to a descending orbital craft that encounters immense atmospheric resistance, while an airplane easily survives sea-level flight at much lower speed. Thus, it really does make sense to build aerodynamic spaceships.
Wow. The astroturfers have successfully infiltrated the community of score +5 AC trolls. Is nothing sacred?
according to the Tech Manual. Essentially they maintain a small warp bubble around the torpedo for a short time after firing.
No you dont.
You dont have to do shit. I am ruuning mozilla-1.5 and it renders the applet just fine. So stop trolling
While I am surprised how many of you know Star Trek ship mechanics, I have to just announce: THE ENTERPRISE DOESN'T EXIST!! IT'S JUST A MADE UP VEHICLE, SO ALL THE PARTS YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT DONT EXIST AS WELL. THIS MEANS THAT WHEN WE DO HAVE A STARSHIP IT WILL BEHAVE COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY. By the way, only guy I give props to is the guy who calculated out the stress capabilities of the transparent aluminum against the cosmic hydrogen atoms, good work man.
Hiding my inner nerd.
Estes made an Enterprise model rocket (do a google image search and you'll see it). It looked pretty cool. I didn't think it would fly very well, and I was right. It didn't make it to Mach 5... it didn't make it off the launch pad. Well, the hull did, but the disc and both nacells broke off just after launch.
Was anyone else dumb enough to launch it?
They made a KBC as well... I think that one actually flew pretty well.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Ok genius.... in my best convention voice .
If you'd read the bloody encyclopedia, you'd know that there is no impact on ten forward's windows.
THAT'S WHAT THE FRIGGIN _DEFLECTOR_ DISH IS FOR!!
Or did you think it was a superfluous addition like the wings on a caddilac, specifically installed to allow clever plot twists such as.... 'borg, call home'.
wasn't there a debate about navel fluff a few weeks ago? ;)
... Slashdot is too geeky even for me.
- DRFSR
I hate to say it, but NX class Enterprise/NX-01 (ST: Enterprise) would probably give them all a run for their money in the wind tunnel.
I suppose Galaxy class/NCC-1701-D would give it a run for its money, anyway. Maybe Sovereign class/NCC-1701-E, too... (The movies after Generations)
Excelsior class (-B) (From Generations beginning) and Ambassador class (TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise) (-c) seem a bit blockier.
Since nobody else seemed to mention it, the one used in the test was the refit Constitution class. Either NCC-1701 or NCC-1701-A from movies 1 through 6
I had a sucky sig.
> In Mozilla, you need to download the newest CVS
:)
> build. Then, apply the patch described in
> attachment #15 to bug #1378805. Then recompile
> with the APPLET_EXP_SUPPORT flag turned on. Run
> the moztest_applet_enable program to fix the
> resultant binary, and you're all set!
Or... you could just download Mozilla 1.5 and then click on one of these XPIs that install java from one click.
But maybe you're a masochist
Java support on Mozilla COULD be better. It really isn't Mozilla's problem... mostly SUNs.
That said a lot of us are trying to push for better Java support within Mozilla. This is why we created the java.mozdev.org project.
How about this one....
How would KITT do on "Who wants to be a Millionaire"?
Study A:
Scientific studies show that KITT had a larger vocabulary than most computerized cars of his era -- so we think he could get at least to $250K without using any of his lifelines.
Study B:
Our team of scientists got sidetracked in discussing who would win between batman or aquaman...so we were never sble to finish the study.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
OF COURSE the Enterprise isn't designed to enter atmosphere. Its also a fictional vehicle.
Voyager would have been a better test.
Pretty desktop wallpaper! Me want higher resolution piccie!
Get that cock out of your mouth...filthy bastard.
NEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I'm running a vanilla mozilla 1.5 build from SuSE on my old SuSE 8.1 box and the applet worked fine for me. I didn't have to change a thing.
I'm running Mozilla 1.5 on NT4. There is no way short of recompiling (maybe) to make applets work.
uhhhh... joke
my understanding was:
Mach 1 = Warp 1
Mach 2 = Warp 2
Mach 4 = Warp 3
Mach 8 = Warp 4
Mach 16 = Warp 5
Or something like that, but that there wasn't a 1:1 ratio between Warp and Mach
http://www.hawknest.com/
After seeing that last picture of the destroyed Enterprise hit by space junk. I am reminded of the prelude to the fight scene in the classic Trek episode Trouble With Tribbles:
Korax: We like the Enterprise - we really do.....that sagging old rust bucket is designed like a garbage scow! Half the quadrant knows it - that's why they're learning to speak Klingonese!
Scotty: Laddy, don't you think you should rephrase that?
Korax: You're right - I should....I didn't mean that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage.....I meant it should be hauled away AS garbage.
SMASH! BOOM! CRASH!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Thin steel sheet for valves: Around a dollar.
Wear and tear on the shock tunnel: Insignificant.
Graduate Students Time: Almost nothing.
Web Page: Priceless
Were the shields up or down on the model? That would affect wind resistance. Did it have a warp bubble?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
The "Original" USS Enterprise (NCC-1701 after refit) did enter the atmosphere of the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III.
Of course, this was after having its saucer section and various other parts blown up by the auto-destruct sequence. (which leads me to wonder why the auto-destruct wasn't a little more thorough in the first place, leaving that much ship behind)
It would be interesting to see how the partially destroyed USS Enterprise would have survived in the wind tunnel.
I've read Grocklaw. BoycottNovell, you're no Grocklaw
Whew! You almost gave away the secret of advanced science.
I'm not going to tell you non-scientists our there the secret.
Nope. I won't.
Alright, here's the secret. All scientists are really little boys who play with really awesome toys that do really cool things. Next time you visit a lab, ask them to show you around. They might try to pull the serious tone, "Oh yes, this device is used to calibrate the thermometers at extreme temperatures", but that's just scientist talks for "Dude, this thing gets so cold you wouldn't freaking believe it! It makes this great sucking sound too, and all this steam comes off of it and ice forms and there's this doohicky that beeps!" It's exactly like a true motorhead or computer geek saying "0-60 in 2.4 seconds, no lie!" or "3.4 GHz max!"
That's the secret. All scientists are little boys playing with toys that are so incredibly awesome you would drool to see what they can do.
This scientist was playing with a toy that makes wind speed of MACH 5!!!! IS THAT FREAKING COOL OR WHAT!!! Oh, I'm sorry. The speeds are used to measure the aerodynamic properties of object at excessive velocities. DUDE, MACH 5 IS FASTER THAN THE SR-71! BULLETS DON'T EVEN GO THAT FAST! IT IS SO FREAKING FAST WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT YET! I wonder what it would do to the starship Enterprise... hum...
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Am I laughing with you or at you?
For reference, it was a die cast model made after the first film by a company called Majorette, perhaps three inches long. No plastic model would stand up to mach 5.
Now, does anyone have an old Dinky Toys die cast model of Thunderbird 2 that can be sent for wind tunnel testing? I've always wondered what releasing the pod would do for the aerodynamics...
Wow. When you post outside of the JEs you take a lot of shit. Get back in here where it's safe! ;)
LMAO. Nwahhh... I was just in a pissy mood that day and talked some shit. Seeing as people are safe from physical harm on the internet, they talk all kinda shit.
;-)
But I kinda deserved it for bein an ass.
It was bad days like this that made me popular
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!