[Loser]

New Technology for 2407.9

Inferno Fueled Capital Ship Missile

Solid chemical rocket fuel has been used for centuries. In the early days of spaceflight it proved more reliable than liquid fuel and required less overhead on the launchpad to utilize. For this reason, the nations involved in our early spaceflight that used solid fuel rockets out performed those few nations that founded their program on liquid flue rockets.

Of course, the hardware invoved in the use of solid rocket fuel is far less reusable than that used with liquid rocket fuel, and as cost became a more important factor, and technology was developed that allowed more reuseability, solid rocket fuel fell out of favor in the area of spaceflight.

The relative stability of solid rocket fuel, and its lengthy 'shelf life', however, kept in it use in the military. Small weaponized rockets, no matter what their payloads, were almost universally built around solid rocket fuel, and this continues today.

Our gigantic Capital Ship Missiles are two-stage chemical rockets with a nuclear fusion payload and a guidance system that has never failed to hit a target that remained in range, not in tests and not in true combat. While it lacks the incredible speed of the Anti-Matter Torpedo, the relatively slow speed allows the guidance system to make course corrections to ensure contact with the enemy, something that the Anti-Matter Torpedo cannot guarantee.

The rocket fuel we currently use is made with a formula that has been in sue for centuries. Small changes have been made to provide a better purity of materials, but no major changes have been proposed until recently.

In the deep geothermal rifts of highly vulcanic Avalon VI B, a form of life similar to the archaea branch of microbiology was discovered that possesses a remakable tolarance for substances toxic to nearly any other form of life. The high temeratures and acidity of its natural environment were duplicated, with some difficulty, in a laboratory setting, and cultures were grown, genetically manipulated to produce a variety of substances.

One of the most remarkable substances the archaea were modified to produce is a rocket fuel dubbed 'Inferno' by the lead project team. The fuel is 'grown' by placing a special coating inside the rocket caseing and, after installing an insert to accomodate space for additional hardware, filling the interior with a highly acidic solution containing the archaea. This solution must maintain a temperature higher than the 'normal' boiling point of water, and so extrodinary pressure is also necessary to the manufacturing process.

Over the course of a scant few weeks, the archaea build the rocket fuel from the outside of the casing in, starting with the 'activator' coating on the interior. The fuel is assembled in a perfect crystiliine form, molecule by molecule.

This ideal arrangement of chemistry results in a dramatic improvement in the performance of the resulting rocket. The Inferno Fueled Captial Ship Missile is able to carry a heavier warhead to greater range at an increased speed. The demanding manufacturing process results in an increase in cost in both generals minerals and general radioactives and the launch tubes require a compelte redesign to facilitate the new missile's dimensions.

However, according to our simulations, the combat benefits far outweight the additional cost, and it is the recomendation of the Ministry of Science that ships using current or older Capital Ship Missiles be retrofitted to incorporate this new design.

Tight Reactor Plasma Missile

Both the Plasma Missile and the Anti-Matter Torpedo are driven by a T/CT reactor. In the Plasma Missile this reaction mass is comsumed at a relatively slow pace, converting the released energy to heat which then vaporizes elemental zinc, converting a significant portion of it to a plasma state. This mass of expanding gas and plasma provide propulsion for the weapon, and the reaction mass that remains when the weapon reaches its target serves as the destructive payload.

By contrast, in the Anti-Matter Torpedo the T/CT reaction directly results in propulsion in much the same manner that it would in a T/CT engine. This allows the missile to carry less reaction mass, decreasing the damage it deals. However, this method of propulsion allows the torpedo to travel at much greater speeds, to fast for Point-Defense Systems to intercept it.

In both cases, the T/CT reaction mass and the reaction itself are contained within powerfull magnetic bottles, powered themselves by the T/CT reaction. The magnetic fields that comprise these bottles operate with some degree of variance, and the volume occupied by the reaction mass fluctuates significantly. This means that volume in excess of that taken by the reaction mass, and thus additional hardware, must be provided on the missile itself.

Obviously storing the reaction mass in the missile or torpedo, while on the ship, would provide require a constant drain on that same mass, so the Contra-Terrene mass is drawn from the ship's reactor jsut prior to the firing of the missile. This complicated procedure is one of the reasons for the lengthy reload time on both weapons, but it is necessary so that the fuel is not wasted.

An improvement to the magnetic bottle technology, implemented specifically for the temporary demands of the Plasma Missile, has been developed by building on the inovative work of a young prodigy on Palaquin Aurora Ruathia. This young man has demonstrated a understanding of electro-magnetic fields that far surpasses that of even the leading theorists in the field, and has constructed test systems with minimal grant funding and a precarious lack of experience that have outperformed industry-standard technolgy.

Like any intuitive inventor, many of his designs are without worth and many of his experiements have failed, but the equipment he assembled in one test resulted in a magnetic field with remarkably little fluctuation. By addapting this technology to the Plasma Missile we are able to increase the reaction mass that can be transfered to the missile and there stored during its operation.

This results in a twenty-five percent increase in the range of the weapon and something near to a twenty-percent increase in point-blank damage output. The speed of the weapon has not been increased, and you may note that our Capital Ship Missiles now match it. There is also a very significant increase in the cost of the design, both in general minerals and general radioatives.