Selezen wrote:drew wrote:... the sequence with the 'water cooler' was just silly - water cooling on an anti-matter starship..yeah right.
Were they water cooling systems? I thought it was a generic water supply!
Anyway, there may be a need for water cooling. Currently water/liquid cooling systems are still the most efficient method of heat exchange. Enterprise probably has loads of systems that generate heat (like the network of iMacs on the bridge). One main consideration would be that the impulse engines are powered by a nuclear reactor (according to the original series Enterprise blueprints) and they need liquid cooling. Not good for Scotty though, since he is probably going to be quite ill with radiation poisoning for a while...
![Wink ;-)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
I'm sure I saw a sign saying 'coolant' somewhere - might be mistaken! And then there were all the tubes - I kept thinking "This is Charlie and the Chocolate factory..."
If it was a water supply, why the huge impeller to suck stuff around? The ship can't need
that much water given the replicator style food dispensors and sonic showers.
Why were the tubes conveniently 'man sized'?
Today spacecraft like the shuttle use liquidfied freon gas and big radiators to get rid of excess heat. Surely by the 23rd century technology would have evolved to a point where that excess heat could actually be used?
It's all very well having the impulse drive powered by fusion reactors, but how exactly? Today any kind of nuclear power is used to generate heat, turn water into steam and turn a generator and thus electricity... I'm assuming that 23rd century tech has a way to extract heat from the reaction and turn it more directly into motive 'impulse' power - whatever that is. If you can convert heat directly into power - why do you need cooling?
Unless the Enterprise
is steam powered...
"Ahead full impulse!"
"Aye Captain, stokin' the boilers!"
Geek mode terminated.
Still think it was just done for laughs - which is a bit 'weak' for Trek.
Cheers,
Drew.