I bought Tomy’s Enterprise replica a year ago or so (as featured on Adam Savage’s YouTube channel…and yes, I am a super nerd, happy to embrace it).
They recently put out an update video just before they start shipping. I showed it to a friend who questioned my decision making ability when realizing I paid money for this (for my part I have no apologies).
As the discussion wandered I was asked why they do not use nukes? I supposed a photon torpedo was better than a nuke. But, is it? I am not sure.
So, how powerful is a photon torpedo in Star Trek lore? Why not shoot nuclear bombs?
Fan calculations range from 64 megatons to 690 gigatons. Given that they aren’t accidentally irradiating nearby planets every time they fire some off, I expect the lower estimate to be closer.
As for why not nukes, given that an antimatter reaction produces a much different output than a nuclear one it might not just be a matter of energy why they don’t use nukes.
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual a figure of 1.5 kg of antimatter is given as the amount of warhead material carried by a standard photon torpedo. (p. 129) Using standard physics calculations a direct 1:1 detonation would generate a energy equivalent of 64.4 megatons TNT. Warhead materials are however premixed to achieves the level of destructive force of an antimatter pod rupture containing 100 cubic meters of antideuterium. (p. 69) Antimatter is stored as liquid or slush on starships. (p. 68) Density of mere liquid antideuterium is around 160 kg per cubic meter. According to this comparison the destructive effect in the high annihilation rate energy release would be comparable to the effects of a 690 gigaton blast.
It should be noted that an Enterprise with its shields down survived the nearby detonation of a nuclear device in Balance of Terror with only moderate damage.
I thought of that episode when writing this (although I thought their shields we up).
I’ve seen the tests of nuclear explosions in space and, IIRC, they don’t amount to much. A big part of a nuke’s damage on earth is the pressure wave it creates. In space, there is none so, unless you are very close to the bomb (less than a mile) then you will not get a lot of damage. And less than a mile in space is nose-to-nose.
Still, if one detonated right next to you I’d think it’d be plenty dangerous.
ETA: A nuke is an area of effect weapon (even if a smallish area given the size of space). A photon torpedo needs to hit to do anything. Avoid it and zero damage.
‘Nukes’, or at least atomic ones have been a proposed method of propulsion. So seems survivable even fairly close to a craft with some sort of physical or fictional shielding.
Exactly. It’s pretty depressing, from a dramatic POV, that a nuke in space will give you radiation and bomb shrapnel and that’s it.
In Rendezvous With Rama, the Russians(?) sent a 100Mt bomb to Rama. I think it might have scorched the paint if it went off. (now if they could have got it inside…)
After finding & learning of it at a thrift, I’ve been reading this book on and off all summer. It’s quite entertaining with the most hysterically well-crafted technobabble woven into real physics overlaid with canon backsplaining I’ve seen. The writers clearly enjoyed themselves. I’m not really a SF fan and at best a tepid Trekkie but I’m reading it cover to cover.
I haven’t yet reached the photon torp chapter/section yet, though I did just get too tactical systems: phasers. I’m just plugging the book.
It’s written as sort of a textbook but every few pages are some comments from the writers, breaking the fourth wall, to clarify inconsistencies, point out Easter eggs, explain SFX, etc.
To whet your whistle, as a latenite rerun viewer of Picard, Janeway, Cisco & the gang, I was never aware of:
The differences but also similarities among replicators & transporters. Basically, molecular vs quantum & from memory vs (lossy after a few mins) buffering.
The need for shields & phasers in peacetime for path clearing at impulse & warp.
The need for a second shield-like system for hull integrity.
The need for warp microenvironments in comupter for FTL processing. It’s critical to maintaining the quadrabyte per milliCochrane/antiboron aspect factor. Or some crazy shit, lol.
If the antimatter was stored in a central location, and only transferred to the photon torpedo as needed, it would be pretty easy to implement a dial-a-bomb system. Need to take out a small ship? Low yield. Need to take out a planet? High yield. The limit on its maximum power would depend on what is the most antimatter you can fit in it. There would be effectively no lower limit, as any amount of antimatter will produce a violent reaction. Antimatter hand grenade, anyone?
Project Orion was based on that type of propulsion. I just learned yesterday that the original design of the Discovery ship in the movie 2001: A Space Odessey was to use nuclear pulse propulsion. An early script says that our first view of the Discovery shows it ejecting a nuclear bomb out of the aft end which then explodes. There are photographs that show that at least one model was actually built with that design, having a huge pusher plate at the aft end.
A photon torpedo, at least in the ST:TOS era, must have had an explosive force of less than 97.835 megatons, or else Kirk would have had the Enterprise fire a photon torpedo down the maw of the planet-killer in “The Doomsday Machine” rather than have to use the Constellation’s impulse engines to do to trick.
In Star Trek V, Kirk called for a photon torpedo strike on “God” entity, and then he, Spock, and McCoy started running. I think if the detonation was even as little as one ton of TNT, they couldn’t have run fast enough to escape the blast.