[horatio]

Three words, Infinite Improbability Drive.

[DNA-1842]

Originally Posted by horatio

Three words, Infinite Improbability Drive.

That works too.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by DNA-1842

If you wanted to generate a field the best ship shape would be a sphere. Not a Dædalus class ship, but an actual spere, nothing sticking out. No streamlining, no nothing. Best volume to surface ratio too. Anything else is just æsthetics, and the opportunity and technological sufficiency to allow structures that are first of all ungainly, and then later more streamlined.

Assuming of course that you need a field generated in the same fashion that an EM field would take after.

Most true but...I wonder if the coils could be aligned within a sphere. I wonder what separation if any is needed for them.

[omegaman]

Originally Posted by Saquist

Most true but...I wonder if the coils could be aligned within a sphere. I wonder what separation if any is needed for them.

RE the sphere…

Ah… the "Skylark of Space" approach, also used in the "First Men in the Moon" starring Lionel Jefferies; great actor, very funny. They don't make em like that anymore.

Found a trailer: http://trailersfromhell.com/trailers/490

[Saquist]

I'm not sure what that means Omegaman. I have no common frame of reference or anything you've said.

[omegaman]

Originally Posted by Saquist

I'm not sure what that means Omegaman. I have no common frame of reference or anything you've said.

Saquist. You said the best spacecraft design is a sphere. A spherical spacecraft is used in both the novel; The Skylark of Space by: E.E Doc Smith and the movie "First Men in the Moon" circa 1964.

[Saquist]

...waaay before my time.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Three words, Infinite Improbability Drive.

That about sums it up. Click your heels together and say there's no place like space.

[DNA-1842]

Originally Posted by Saquist

Most true but...I wonder if the coils could be aligned within a sphere. I wonder what separation if any is needed for them.

The ship (living quarters cargo areas etc etc) would form a torus shape. The engine would be in the centre, and the field coils would be aligned in vertical rings through the centre of the sphere. Sort of imitating loosely the structure of a planet with a magnetic field.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I must be missing something here though, because what we are talking about is a real world space craft that happens to look like the Enterprise, no?

I mean, things like warp coils and what not don't exist, they probably never will. I have suspicion that if man ever does invent some form of FTL travel, and I'm not convinced that we will, it will probably look nothing like Star Trek.

So, what does fictional warp field dynamics have to do with a real world ship?