T-Drive

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Reactionless Motion Thrusters or "T-Drives" are an advanced type of Reactionless Drive which convert rotary motion into uni-directional motion through a series of mechanical linkages.

  • This type of drive is a variant on drive types known variously as:


Description (Specifications)[edit]

The T-Drive utilizes a motor to produce conventional rotational motion and convert that rotational motion (i.e. angular momentum) to uni-directional thrust (i.e. linear momentum) via a set of mechanical linkages. Outwardly, the mechanism appears to be essentially a large motor driving a flywheel connected to a set of pistons oriented in the three spatial dimensions, but the physics behind them is somewhat more complex than that, as is demonstrated by their Standard technological level. Practically speaking, power from an external power plant is directed to some or all of the pistons, creating unidirectional motion (i.e. linear momentum, or thrust). Thrusters do not utilize reaction mass and operate independent of the gravitational interaction; thus, they are not constrained by gravity-gradient based range limitations. Thrusters can hover within an externally applied force field, but they do not include integral inertial compensation, which must be supplied independently, such as by the installation of CG-Lifters.

Most observers of "reactionless" T-Drives fail to account for nearby gas or plasma pushed away by the drive mechanism, however. Thus, they are not properly reactionless drives.

History & Background (Dossier)[edit]

T-Drives are loosely based on the hypothetical Dean Drive of pre-spaceflight Terra. It is possible that Norman Dean may have accidentally stumbled upon the operating principle of the drive system without really understanding it or that he misidentified or misunderstood the operational principle. In some cases, Dean (or perhaps some of those trying to reproduce or follow his work) may have just accidentally reproduced the Thruster effect in certain configurations of his device without really having the science to understand the true principles behind the effect; hence, nobody in his day was able to successfully or consistently replicate the effect, and thus they were unable to reproduce its function with any consistency at the technological level and physics knowledge that was possessed at the time.



Library Data Referral Tree[edit]

Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:


Starships:

Speed-of-Travel
  • NAFAL (STL) - (Not As Fast As Light) / (Slower Than Light)
  • Light Speed (c)
  • FTL - (Faster Than Light) - "Superluminal"
» Imperial Standard Astronomical Unit
» Solomani Parsec
» Vilani Parsec ("Deshi")
» Imperial Standard Parsec
Impulse-Drives
(Field Propulsion Drives / Propellantless Drives)
Interstellar-Drives (Advanced)
» Hieronymous Nexus Linkage
  • Conjectural Drives
» Hieronymous Device
  • "Inertialess Drives":
» Inertialess Drive ("IM -Drive")
» Triplanetary Drive ("IT -Drive")


References & Contributors (Sources)[edit]

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