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    • As a general note: All snippets in this thread can be considered up for adoption, with a couple of basic conditions:
    1. If you use my actual text, in whole or in part, please credit me.
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    • verycoolname said:
    My point is that steam was the first commercially successful engine. The first steam engine, the Aeolipile, was invented thousands of years ago. So the idea that steam could still be the best option for an interstellar civilization is kinda hilarious, you gotta admit.
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    if it's stayed the best option for thousands of years, while so much else has changed, then it'd might actually be reasonable to assume it's going to stay that way. Heavily modified, of course, but still.
     
    Monitor said:
    Only question: what's more worrying, the steam or the turbine? :)
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    Steam. The turbine will merely slice and dice the victim of the accident too quickly for the deceased to feel pain, I read descriptions of the horrors of dying from exposure to too hot steam (not even chemical, merely water-made steam) can do before DEATH decides to put the unfortunate one out of their misery.
     
    True - it doesn't have to be water that has that happen, although I suspect it's certainly the easiest.
     
    You may laugh but I've worked for energy companies for nearly my entire working life. You will never find the guys in generation more alive looking than when someone mentions a new or innovative way to make water spin a wheel.
     
    Kinsfire said:
    True - it doesn't have to be water that has that happen, although I suspect it's certainly the easiest.
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    "What do you mean you have some incredibly volatile and toxic liquid tons of the stuff as a vital part of your reactors?"
    "Well all the water is being used for hydroponics and those baths everyone loves so much, plus it's actually ten times safer than using water and shockingly cheaper because, again, we use the water for the life support"
     
    Dr. Thunder said:
    "What do you mean you have some incredibly volatile and toxic liquid tons of the stuff as a vital part of your reactors?"
    "Well all the water is being used for hydroponics and those baths everyone loves so much, plus it's actually ten times safer than using water and shockingly cheaper because, again, we use the water for the life support"
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    Nah, using water is still probably the best option. Incompressible, useful for other things, very simple molecularly, easy to synthesize, can be split into fuel and atmosphere easily. Literally half the ship would just be massive tanks of water.
     
    Xon said:
    Most "boilers" in electrical systems use witchery that is super-critical steam, you can get a surprising amount of efficiency bonuses by just ramping up the pressure
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    And you want to be nowhere near a leak, even a pinhole. It will cut you in half. It's one reason I never went down into the Engineering areas aboard a ship until I had the safety briefing for that particular ship.
     
    Kryslin said:
    And you want to be nowhere near a leak, even a pinhole. It will cut you in half. It's one reason I never went down into the Engineering areas aboard a ship until I had the safety briefing for that particular ship.
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    This reminds me of when I was playing Stationeers multiplayer with @Baughn (before the getto fusion reactor nerf), there were a more than a few incidents involving 60 megapascal "steam" at +5000C would cause a total party wipe and prompt spontaneous disassembly of the base we had been building.
     
    Plus, if the prevalent detection method in the galaxy is thermal emmison? Move all the heat that would emit from the hull (like the Normandy in MassEffect) to a steam turbine, you get a bit of power and thermal stealth. Just keep in mind to counter the vibrations and centrifugal force.
     
    Kryslin said:
    And you want to be nowhere near a leak, even a pinhole. It will cut you in half. It's one reason I never went down into the Engineering areas aboard a ship until I had the safety briefing for that particular ship.
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    I recall something about mops or brooms being used to check the space ahead for potential leaks... If suddenly broom is two or more pieces, leak is found!
     
    Alkiera said:
    I recall something about mops or brooms being used to check the space ahead for potential leaks... If suddenly broom is two or more pieces, leak is found!
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    Yep, from what I remember from the old navy guys I heard it from, it was the broom test. If there was a pressure drop or other sign of a leak, you'd grab a broom, stick it out in front of you, and walk very slowly. When the broom started suddenly getting shorter, you'd carefully wave it around to find specifically where the leak was.
     
    "If their pressure systems are so good, why is it that almost 50% of peacetime serious workplace injuries on their ships are caused by high pressure leaks?"

    Tortex said:
    Plus, if the prevalent detection method in the galaxy is thermal emmison? Move all the heat that would emit from the hull (like the Normandy in MassEffect) to a steam turbine, you get a bit of power and thermal stealth. Just keep in mind to counter the vibrations and centrifugal force.
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    I mean you've still got to deal with the heat. The turbine extracts energy from the pressure, not the heat directly - the exhaust is still just as hot. And if they vent it they have to keep taking on new water, and means you still have a stealth problem.
     
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    The fact that in a super-efficient steam system, the regenerators at the very end of the line are working off of residual steam that is BELOW ambient pressure and that any leaks in the system would leak into the engine is nuts. I mean, this is in effect going from supercritical steam to a partial vacuum in a closed system.

    The efficiency in terms of thermal power for 1910-1950 ships is NUTS.
     
    verycoolname said:
    Kinda hilarious how useful steam is when you scale up power generation. Also kinda terrifying how dangerous steam is when scaled up like that.
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    Oh yeah. Steam power is proper nightmare fuel when you understand what it can do without proper safety measures in place. Just look up myth busters episode on hot water tank explosions or historical steam works explosions before modern safety standards were put into place. To see examples of just what steam power going wrong can look like.

    Perfectly safe when everything is operating correctly, all the safety equipment is in place and procedures are being followed properly. The absolute last thing you want to be around when they are not.
     
    It's funny that the galaxy at large doesn't question why humanity is so damn good at making pressure vessels. Or why humanity decided not to use the 'standard best in class' power source for space travel, yet also uses power intensive tools which "require the output of a space station".
     
    Alkiera said:
    I recall something about mops or brooms being used to check the space ahead for potential leaks... If suddenly broom is two or more pieces, leak is found!
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    More true than you know. Even on relatively "low" pressure plants like the one aboard Wisconsin, that was one part of the engineering briefing.

    I shudder to think what pressures were like aboard Le Fantasque; the ship was the fastest thing afloat for a long time, exceeding 45 knots (2,648 kPa, 384 psi actually)...
     
    Both the 'searching for a steam leak with a broom handle' story and the 'cleaning crusted cooking pans with reactor live steam' story were mentioned in Tom Clancy's first book, The Hunt For Red October.

    The punchline to the crusted pans story was they got very clean, but would only be safe to use after 50 years or so. 😬
     
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