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For the Trekkies - Star Trek Engines Being Researched

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Renegade:
Beam this one up! :)

http://txchnologist.com/post/32463368168/channeling-star-trek-researchers-to-begin-fusion

Star Trek fans take note: Have a seat before you read the next sentence or prepare to swoon.

University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH) aerospace engineers working with NASA, Boeing and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are investigating how to build fusion impulse rocket engines for extremely high-speed space travel.

“Star Trek fans love it, especially when we call the concept an impulse drive, which is what it is,” says team member Ross Cortez, an aerospace engineering Ph.D. candidate at UAH’s Aerophysics Research Center.

Stay seated Trekkies, because there’s more.

“The fusion fuel we’re focusing on is deuterium [a stable isotope of hydrogen] and Li6 [a stable isotope of the metal lithium] in a crystal structure. That’s basically dilithium crystals we’re using,” Cortez says, referring to the real-world equivalent of the fictional element used to power Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise.

While this engine, if produced, wouldn’t generate a fraction of the velocity as the faster-than-light warp drives envisioned in the TV shows, books and movies, it could produce speeds that exceed other not-science-fiction-based systems that rocket scientists are investigating.
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Can I get one on my car?

wraith808:
Trekkers, please :)

40hz:
Hope whatever they come up with is more reliable than the ones on the show. About the only thing that broke more often than the engines were "The Shields" - which seemed to have about two hits worth of damage in them before someone would say the classic line: "All shields down, Captain!".
 ;)

Trekkers, please :)
-wraith808 (October 04, 2012, 09:45 AM)
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Does that apply even to the trekkers who are trekkies? (There is a difference, as you probably know.) ;D

wraith808:
Well, no.  But, yes.  ;D

Renegade:
Trekker. Trekkie. Can't we all just get along before some brute Klingon disruptorators our butts? :P Yeah, bastardizing words is just a phase I'm going through. Anyone else got any more Q's? I'm going to get back to drinking (water) before I start tribbling on my shirt...

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