From: daellis94@gmail.com   
      
   So, I have a bit of a dilemma regarding how, exactly, I would want a space   
   warship of mine to harvest general system power.     
      
   My fusion drive rockets would, for fairly obvious reasons, have a considerable   
   total power for use as an effective torch drive (though, as far as torches go,   
   this one is probably fairly modest).  Now, for reasons that I think are only   
   mostly rational,    
   and which I will explain in a moment, I am currently leaning toward using a   
   pair of fusion spheromaks to provide the ship's general electrical power.    
   Instead of simply tapping off some of the energy produced by the drive   
   reactors.     
      
   My main reason for this is probably linked, on some level, with the   
   space-opera-esque assumption that a ship's main reactor(s) isn't also its   
   propulsion system, but I do have some reason for clinging to this assumption.    
   First off, I feel like I don't    
   want to have to rely on my rockets for power in a combat situation or other   
   scenario in which my power demands are not synonymous with my need to   
   accelerate.  Note that I'm not assuming that the need to accelerate would   
   imply the need to accelerate at    
   the maximum rate.  Rather, I am thinking that I would very likely need to   
   provide power at a time when I don't want to be accelerating AT ALL.     
      
   This fits into my second reason which is that I would not want to come to a   
   situation in which I would not want to accelerate needlessly while generating   
   electrical power, and as far as I can tell, running my fusion drive, even on a   
   much lower power    
   setting, would generate thrust, albeit small, from exhaust gases being vented   
   out of the rear nozzles.     
      
   My fusion rockets produce a total thrust power of 4.12 terawatts, which would   
   come from the charged particle energy of the fusion plasma and as much   
   Bremsstrahlung X-ray radiation as can be harvested by seeded propellant, with   
   the power needed to sustain    
   the reaction being harvested from the fusion, itself, primarily using   
   onion-like layers of X-ray-absorbent material surrounding each reactor   
   compartment using X-rays not successfully captured by incoming c   
   olant/propellant.     
      
   The normal reactors I envision are similar, in that they burn the same   
   helium-3/hydrogen-2 fuel, and produce, I am thinking, a total of 6 gigawatts   
   of electricity with a total efficiency of around 50% (mostly just to make my   
   life easier; 6 GW is still    
   plenty of waste heat to shed, so it's hardly like I'm going easy on myself in   
   terms of design), which as far as I can tell so far is plenty to supply the   
   demand of the ship's sensors, life support, thermal control, radar/infrared,   
   and weapon systems.  In    
   the case of these reactors, helium-4 plasma (the exhaust from H-3/D fusion) is   
   gradually vented off and stored in tanks on-board the warship, obviously   
   vigorously cooled so what is stored is simply gaseous helium and not angry,   
   helium plasma.  The    
   alternative to this, I imagine, would be to simply vent it into space, but I   
   feel as though I would want to avoid venting high-velocity jets of plasma into   
   space, mostly because it would help me avoid giving my ship giant, glowing   
   whiskers (from the    
   point of view of whoever is looking at me on infrared).  Obviously, the same   
   energy needs to get shed using radiators, but in this instance, I am at least   
   allowed the option to close up my radiators and rely on internal heat-sinks   
   instead (only for a    
   short time, I know).  Venting helium into space in all multiple    
   irections--giving a net zero thrust--doesn't really allow me this   
   pseudo-stealthy option.     
      
   Anyway, to get back on topic, what does everyone else think?  Am I insane for   
   clinging to dedicated fusion reactors that are not the rocket engines?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)