Thought On Destiny's Reactors.

[escyos]

Destiny actually has a room with hundred of mouse wheels and mice running on them to power Destiny

[bradly08]

Destiny actually has a room with hundred of mouse wheels and mice running on them to power Destiny

I knew it! The Loch Ness Monster's book was right!

[Quadhelix]

Why can't she do both? Maybe Destiny works a bit like a diesel submarine. Diesel subs can't run their diesel engines while underwater, so they surface regularly to run the diesels, charge up their batteries, then go on their merry way.

Perhaps Destiny enters the sun and then and only then initiates a fusion reaction with the plasma as it's collected, storing gobs of energy in something akin to batteries or capacitors.

This was my "interpretation" of theillman's suggestion that the Destiny runs off of fusion power from "sundiving."


Another possibility that I thought up was that the "scoops" don't actually scoop up anything, but instead project out some sort of Ancient "magitek" field that absorbed energy directly from the star (in which case, it could easily match ZPM levels of power output).

One reason that I still believe this, in spite of the 'magitek' aspect is because of "Earth," when they planned to use the Destiny's stardiving to power a 9-chevron dial. Based on the fact that their previous attempt to make a 9-chevron dial tapped into a power source that wound up destroying a planet, a power consumption of ~10^20 Watts seems rather minor. In spite of the fact that such a power output would require fusing 150 million tons of hydrogen every second, just about everyone, from Telford to Rush, felt that Destiny's power intakes could match the need (as long as you discard the fact that it would destroy the Destiny).

[Maxwellxii]

After pouring more thoughts into this, I really don't think Destiny absorbs any energy. It *just* sucks in large amounts of fuel to consume later on. If she was looking for AM she'd stay around flares, not dip into the photosphere, and there are other places to get AM. Plus AM is a risky "fuel", and unless you have found a way to really exploit all possible particles that are generated by matter annihilation, there's an enormous amount of waste with AM.
Fusion, no matter what, can completely shut down since it requires immense energies to be allowed first, and thus there can't be any real risk with fusion fuel (very light gases) and there's certainly no overload to fear (yeah, that point about the terraforming colony's overloading fusion reactor tied to the atmospheric processor in in ALIENS didn't make much sense).
What the ship has to do is pile up lots of energy.

But it doesn't need to be limited to fusion. There is always room for the possibility that the fusion fuel is used itself for an even greater form of power reactor, one that could only work, and provide a net gain, from the moment the ship could at least provide a certain amount of power first.
See this post.

The biggest issue is why go into a star when there are better ways to gather fuel from gas giants. It's not even a question of having proper star charts or not because Destiny has literally chosen to dive into a star instead of sucking up gases from a gas giant, which it skimmed.

The only thing a star has that a gas giant doesn't is that it's producing power, although not that much per square meter if you really think about it.

So while I don't think that the Destiny has a system to absorb radiations as she nears a star, she probably has a soft spot for plasma, but then again I don't see what's so efficient about grabbing some very hot plasma.
So we can safely return to the point of gathering hydrogen, especially since there's never been any better fuel for fusion.
Even Deuterium-Tritium fusion is not as good - check the energy density tables for example (1), assuming 100% efficiencies, D-T fusion is twice less powerful.
The other problem with using gas giants' gases is that if we go by the limits we are experiencing today, the reactor might need to be bigger to start consuming the fuel in question (2). If Destiny picked Helium-3 (3) from a gas giant, at best by mixing it with heavy hydrogen it could obtain 591,600,000 MJ/kilogram. Sounds high, close enough to top H fusion, but notice that you do need heavy hydrogen. You'd either have to find a planet with large quantities of water and logically heavy water (4). Although much less dangerous than tapping stars, it's also terribly time consuming and oxygen would have to be filtered or consumed first.
If it's filtered and stored, this would however be a plus for life support, but Destiny apparently wasn't really meant to work with a permanent crew. The ship could also replenish her water storage doing so.
With roughly 35 mg (3.5 e-5 kg) of deuterium per liter of water (which itself is roughly 1 kg/L), or 0.003,5%/L. Inversely, to obtain 1 kg of deuterium that way, you'd need at least to collect 28,571.43 liters of water. More than 28 tonnes. And then there's the question of the efficiency of power generation.
Harvesting deuterium from rare dusty cloud formations surrounding some stars would also prove not reliable enough (5), in comparison to the abundance of stars.
Quite clearly, if your ship is powerful and tough enough to take a dip into a star, there's no question as to which option is the quickest.

Now, using Helium-3 is much more interesting. Fusing Helium-3 would provide, at a 100% efficiency, 206 e6 MJ/kg. It's not so far from perfect hydrogen fusion. Density of helium may be low, but time is not a constraint much in such conditions, for the gain at hand, and there's no question about flying right into a giant fusion oven.
I find it odd to consider that the Destiny's reactor, if it were fusion based, couldn't handle some variety in its mileage, really.
Heck, a planet like Uranus has an atmosphere which "is composed of about 83 percent hydrogen, 15 percent helium, 2 percent methane, and tiny amounts of ethane and other gases. The atmospheric pressure beneath the methane cloud layer is about 19 pounds per square inch (130 kilopascals), or about 1.3 times the atmospheric pressure at the surface of Earth. Atmospheric pressure is the pressure exerted by the gases of a planet's atmosphere due to their weight," (6).

So we fall back to the point that there could be an advantage in tapping a star because of its ongoing fusion reactions. It's very puzzling and I don't think it makes much sense.

On an interesting note, the escape velocity from the surface of a star like ours is 617.7 km/s.
If Destiny massed 1 million tonnes, she'd have -at the very least- to generate 1.908 e20 J.
That only being for the pure kinetic energy; it doesn't take into consideration the question of Newtonian thrusters.
Destiny has a wide arc-thruster, and thus momentum and fuel mass would obviously require an even greater total energy production.
Without anti-gravity that would cheat physics or some mass lightening tech, the fuel requirements would simply be silly.

EDIT: typos.

unless it is aiming for the plasma and not just normal hydrogen... a hydrogen plasma reactor.

[thekillman]

hydrogen is in a plasma state inside the star. the hydrogen you suck up is plasma.


what if the scoopers project a massive energy draining field? not just forward or in a direction, but kinda like how atlantis projected a massive shield to protect the planet from a solar flare.

[morrismike]

It is collecting stellar matter (proton/electron soup). For all we know the sun could contain rivers or lakes of subatomic matter that can to condensed. Perhaps Destiny has a engine that runs off of Latent heat of quark condensation or something else just as ridiculous.

The suns we see destiny immersed in are mostly hydrogen and helium. The splittling of a 1 Mev photon into a electron/positron pair requires a gamma photon and a heavy nucleus. protons and alpha particles in a plasma soup aren't "heavy nucleus". There would be very little antimatter in a normal sun (short lived or not).

[morrismike]

unless it is aiming for the plasma and not just normal hydrogen... a hydrogen plasma reactor.

You can't actually find an intact hydrogen atom in the sun unless you collect the plasma and allow it to cool.

[morrismike]

This was my "interpretation" of theillman's suggestion that the Destiny runs off of fusion power from "sundiving."


Another possibility that I thought up was that the "scoops" don't actually scoop up anything, but instead project out some sort of Ancient "magitek" field that absorbed energy directly from the star (in which case, it could easily match ZPM levels of power output).

One reason that I still believe this, in spite of the 'magitek' aspect is because of "Earth," when they planned to use the Destiny's stardiving to power a 9-chevron dial. Based on the fact that their previous attempt to make a 9-chevron dial tapped into a power source that wound up destroying a planet, a power consumption of ~10^20 Watts seems rather minor. In spite of the fact that such a power output would require fusing 150 million tons of hydrogen every second, just about everyone, from Telford to Rush, felt that Destiny's power intakes could match the need (as long as you discard the fact that it would destroy the Destiny).

I like that idea. Those scoops simply "tap" the energy contained in the massive flux inside the sun.

[Nth Chevron]

So basically, i think we've narrowed it down to 2 probabilities;

1) Destiny absorbs energy straight from the star and stores it in huge capacitors.

2) Destiny uses stars as motorway services.

N.C

[garhkal]

Now that I think about it, it makes sense that the Lucien Alliance would want to figure out how Destiny's refueling systems and reactors work. A more modern ship with that type of anti-matter fueled power source might give a Z.P.M. enhanced ship a run for it's money + it would be re-fuelable, something that's impossible for a Z.P.M. to do.

Interesting point. Though since right now, they would know (if they have more spies) that dialing back is impossible at the mo, how would they get use of that info back home?

How many? "Many" ("Progeny") and "More than enough to suit our needs" (Ibid).

Woul have been nice if Narim at least told Mccay what they called them.

Probably, but that begs the question how do they know about Destiny and its power systems???

Telford. he was stoning in and out, during the Light/darkness/earth area, and durin that time was still their mole.

I just dont see how this is any fuel-efficient. I could imagine that up to 1/5th of the fuel absorbed would be used to just keep the Destiny from blowing up.

Even if that is the case, it is still an efficient (IMO) way of refuling..

i dont get why the military people who went to the destiny didnt grab one or 2 naq generaters when they went runnin through the gate... they grabbed other tech liek the comm stones....

Perhaps A) there were none, and B) if there were, they were not near the gate..

[Nth Chevron]

Have to admit, given what happened when the Atlantis expedition arrived for the first time, you would think there would be a Mk.2 Naquadah generator "just in case" sort of thing.

N.C

[danielhartley91]

While watching "Light" I noticed that Destiny passes through the upper atmosphere of a gas giant right before entering the sun to refuel itself. Given that the upper atmospheres of gas giants hold a significant amount of helium and hydrogen, could it be possible that the Destiny purposely traveled through the planet to scoop up helium-3 for backup power and hydrogen for engine propellant? As for the ship dipping into the sun, my best guess is that Destiny's form of F.T.L. propulsion requires an enormous amount of power, hence the need for anti-matter fuel. Any thoughts on this?

the production designer wrote "BAD ASS FTL Fusion drives" next to the picture would be my best guess

[Nth Chevron]

Destiny passed through the amosphere of the Gas giant as an aero braking maneuver to slow her down as she was almost out of power, necessitating the crews desperation in the lottery.

This had nothing to do with the refuel

N.C

[Cadklz]

the sun itself reinforces the shield. a weapon would reinforce the shield after the hit, thus making the re-inforcement useless.

That might not be the case, for example if the shield were to absorb 100% of the energy being fired at it, lets say 50 petajoules, and the shield absorbed all of it then the next blast would take away the newly acquired energy leaving the shield with the same energy as it came into battle with. the the next hit would do the same. and therefore making the shield impenetrable.

[Hal_S]

As for the ship dipping into the sun, my best guess is that Destiny's form of F.T.L. propulsion requires an enormous amount of power, hence the need for anti-matter fuel. Any thoughts on this?

Another late thought to add to the discussion.

Here's my take - Destiny is a bussard ram jet-
Power would be a fusion drive which relies on scooping up the hydrogen floating in interstellar space.
In that case, the real drain on power is caused by dropping out of FTL.

Why sun dive? The best scientific reason to get near a star is the flux of neutrinos.
Neutrinos and neutrons catalyze fission.

Perhaps a fusion ramjet would have some sort of "red giant fusion battery" powered by hydrogen-helium-carbon-neon-oxygen-silicon process. Run that battery too long and you build up unfusable iron ash.
Could be that a star dive is a way to bath the ship in neutrinos to break up that ash via fission
Sort of like a deep discharge when your phone battery won't hold a charge.

Neutrinos also interact only via the weak nuclear force. They change "flavor" within a few minutes of being formed in fusion reactions (solar neutrino paradox) so perhaps there's something to be said for running Destiny through a nice bath of "hot neutrinos" for techno-babble reasons - restore the charmed/strange quark balance on the negative energy meson generators for the Alcubierre drive.