Thought On Destiny's Reactors.

[Control_Chair]

Okay then. Maybe Destiny doesn't use antimatter, but then why would it need to refuel itself in a star when it could have just scooped up fuel in a gas giant? Plus I doubt the Ancients used ZPMs to power everything, its more likely they used some sort of fusion or naquada reactors for most technology and ZPMs for power hungry things like city ships, defense stations, super-grids, and war ships. Anyway my main point was that Destiny's power source and its refueling ability makes it very valuable and powerful.

I think DHD are powered by some sort of cold fusion reactor core. I suppose that when harvesting hydrogen fuel from a gas giant the hydrogen then has to be heated and compressed to reach the super hot temperatures needed for fusion to occur, harvesting hydrogen directly from the upper atmosphere of a star negates this problem somewhat. It depends on what type of fusion Destiny uses, (I’ll admit I am no physicist and other people could probably do a better job explaining this but I’ll have a go anyway).

The main type of fusion that goes on in the sun is the Proton-Proton chain, (better explained in the link below better than I could ever do )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%...he_pp_I_branch

Now the most difficult stage in the Proton-Proton chain is the initial reaction to form deuterium, but if Destiny primarily harvests deuterium or even helium 3 from the atmosphere of a star (which are both quite rare and difficult to extract outside of stellar atmospheres) then fusion can take place in the ships rectors at lower temperatures than the core of the sun.

If applied to Earth or Lucien Alliance ships it could boost their power generating abilities. That's my thinking as to why the Lucien Alliance wants the ship so badly.

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

[Quadhelix]

Okay then. Maybe Destiny doesn't use antimatter, but then why would it need to refuel itself in a star when it could have just scooped up fuel in a gas giant?

Well, we don't really know what the Destiny is collecting in the star. For all we know, it collects energy directly from the heat of the star and then stores that energy in capacitors, or something along those lines.

[mirdin1992]

I GOT IT!!!

STELLAR DUST MI..... no I'm wrong their tribbles....SOLAR TRIBBLES!!!

It makes so much sense...we are all made of tribble dust...

[mickhhh]

Well, we don't really know what the Destiny is collecting in the star. For all we know, it collects energy directly from the heat of the star and then stores that energy in capacitors, or something along those lines.

thats just what i thought. maybe those scooping looking things we see pop out when it going ino a star are like super conductors like stargates.

[thekillman]

and how would sticking superconductors into a star collect energy????


they look like scoops, and appear to have holes. i'd say they directly scoop up hot fuel and divert it to their Fusion reactors. no need to heat up the fuel, instead, it probably has to be cooled first.

[mickhhh]

and how would sticking superconductors into a star collect energy????


they look like scoops, and appear to have holes. i'd say they directly scoop up hot fuel and divert it to their Fusion reactors. no need to heat up the fuel, instead, it probably has to be cooled first.

they can take huge amounts of energy from a black hole and an misty atmosphaere so why not a star? i dont pretend to understant it but the writers seem to have something going on about them been super conductors.

it was said the Destiny could once diel earth so how could it do this with fusion. fusion power would not be powerful enough. even if it held 10,000 metric tons of hydrogen this would not be enough. ZPMs cant do it so fusion reactors dont stant a chance

[thekillman]

they can take huge amounts of energy from a black hole and an misty atmosphaere so why not a star? i dont pretend to understant it but the writers seem to have something going on about them been super conductors.

a gate is much more than a superconductor alone.

it was said the Destiny could once diel earth so how could it do this with fusion. fusion power would not be powerful enough. even if it held 10,000 metric tons of hydrogen this would not be enough. ZPMs cant do it so fusion reactors dont stant a chance

fusion is extremely powerful. besides, they're the ancients. some sort of superdense plasma might generate the energy they need. and Capacitors, people, Capacitors

[Quadhelix]

and how would sticking superconductors into a star collect energy????

I would imagine that the process is far more complicated than "sticking superconductors into a star."

they look like scoops, and appear to have holes.

And DHD's look like giant mushrooms, but that does not make them especially tasty.

i'd say they directly scoop up hot fuel and divert it to their Fusion reactors. no need to heat up the fuel, instead, it probably has to be cooled first.

It's possible, but nothing in the show directly supports this.

One thing to note is that, in Earth, the could apparently harness energy quickly enough to power a dial back to Earth (even if it would have destroyed the ship).

[thekillman]

maybe it's a combo of directly harnessing power and scooping up fuel? i don't see how the Destiny could harness the power of a star all the time

[mickhhh]

a gate is much more than a superconductor alone.



fusion is extremely powerful. besides, they're the ancients. some sort of superdense plasma might generate the energy they need. and Capacitors, people, Capacitors

but there is still superconductor tech in it.
fusion is powerful but the amount of hydrogen than could have been scooped up would not be aspowerful as as a ZPM.

[apollo22]

the destiny dis not harness anything form the gas giant and here is why. if you had listened to the word in the episode, the destiny used the gas giant as an aero-braking maneuver to slow down and get its trajectory lined up with the sun because when it dropped out of ftl, it wasnt lined up with the sun.

this is further substantiated in the epi "earth" when the purposely drain the power to get it to jump to another sun to refuel in an attempt to dial home. in this episode they never enter a gas giant first.

[Quadhelix]

maybe it's a combo of directly harnessing power and scooping up fuel?

Scooping up fuel for what?

If you mean for the fusion reactor, I got the impression from your previous post that the Destiny would be using the fuel as quickly as it was collected, and then storing the energy in capacitors.

don't see how the Destiny could harness the power of a star all the time

Like you said: the Destiny collects energy while in the star at a rate many times the ship's power needs. All of the energy that the ship doesn't use gets stored in capacitors (or something along those lines) for use when it is needed.

[Mister Oragahn]

Just posting some links.

http://forum.gateworld.net/threads/6...rs-the-destiny.
http://forum.gateworld.net/threads/7...ng-the-Destiny
http://forum.gateworld.net/threads/7...-Destiny/page4
http://forum.gateworld.net/threads/6...-power-problem (about Ancient power technology, not specifically about Destiny)

[thekillman]

i'm aware of those, yes.


i still get pride form being the first to suggest fusion reactors.

anyway,

as i said, to explain it all, the best would simply be a combo: when near the sun, it uses the energy directly (perhaps because the shield generates the energy?) while also draining plasma for superhigh density fusion. so dense, the fusion reactor would happen VERY fast, generating immense energy. in the Gas Giant, it might've sucked up hydrogen and stored it as big spheres or blocks of metallic hydrogen.


what i meant by harnessing the power of a star all the time: IN a star it does that. but outside, it only need so much power. since firing the weapons drained the powersource so fast, it doesn't harness such output outside one.


do capacitors have the capacity to store so much energy?

[AdamTM]

What bothers me about the destinys refueling procedure is the ship dipping into the sun itself.

I mean you need humongous amounts of power to keep the heat out through the shields, the radiation, and parts of the hull are destroyed so the shields need to be stronger there.

So the destiny flies into the star, with some kind of rest-energy in the shields to refuel, it dips in, scoops some of the hydrogen up and leaves, all that time the generator actually needs to produce energy for the shields.

As the destiny leaves and is done refueling it still needs to generate humongous amounts of power to leave the corona (gravitational pull should be imense, tidal forces pulling at the hull, heat, radiation, the shield needs to compensate for all that)

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.

Now given the fact that the Destiny has only a 70% working capacity makes it even worse.

Also a lot of people underestimate the power of AM annihilation compared to Fusion reactors or Fission.

Fusion generates 1000x more energy than Fission per particle. AM generators convert all the energy from matter to energy providing 1000x energy than FUSION/particle, they are the most efficient generator you can have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_...ergy_densities

Im not clear on Naquadah and Naquadriah generators, but lets take a ZPM which doesnt use matter at all but is basically a vacuum-energy pump. Vacuum energy is so potent a spoonful of space would produce more energy than earth can put out in a year by a longshot.

ZPMs should be the non-plus ultra generator you can ever have. The Fusion reactor on the Destiny should be underpowered by a factor of at least 1000x to a ZPM or a single Naquadah generator.

There might be ways to expand the yield of energy (McKay generator drawing power from other universes) but a ZPM or single Naquadah generator should be absolutely sufficient to dial earth.

Of course the writers might come up with some other weird explenation, like the Destiny is changing the physical properties of scooped up gas with a higgs-field resulting in way higher yields in a fusion-reactor. But that just seems very unlikely.