I will use a low-end power generation for an Imperial Star Destroyer. The Death Star has a diameter of 160 Kilometers, which is roughly the size of the Moon Puck. The Moon Puck has a mass of 2.9e+18 Kilograms. Since the Death Star has corridors I will divide the mass by half, so the DS's mass is 1.45e+18 Kilograms. An Imperial Star Destroyer is 10 million times smaller than the Death Star, so it would have a mass of 145,000,000,000 Kilograms, or 145 million metric tons. In Attack of the Clones we see Imperial Star destroyers leave Coruscant's gravitational pull. Since Coruscant's population is humans, it's safe to assume that Coruscant has gravity like Earth's. To escape the Graviational pull of the planet you need to be at least mach 33, which is 33 times the speed of sound. The energy requirements just to send one Kilogram to that speed and sent it to space is 63 Megajoules, and to maintain said speeds it will need to continuously expend that much energy. So the Imperial Star Destroyer would have to expend 9.142E+18 joules every second to achieve escape velocity speeds, which means that they're expending 2,185 Megatons worth of energy to achieve those speeds. In comparison the most powerful Nuclear Bomb ever built was only 50 Megatons. They can easily use that energy into their weapons because even the Death Star only uses 1 reactor to generate all their power to all of their systems, even the Superlaser. So the Imperial Star destroyer, which is less advanced would also only use 1 reactor. I also argue that the fuel they must be using is at least converting mass to energy, since the amount of fuel they would have using fusion would have reactors bigger than their ship, while converting roughly 100 Kilograms to fuel generates roughly the amount of energy they need to expend to reach escape velocity speeds.
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
Yes I know, however this is just to give a low-end for the mass of a Death Star. If we're using steel, using the calculator you gave me the Death Star would have a mass of 7.93092e+19 Kilograms. divide that by 10 million and the ISD will have a mass of 7.93092e+12 Kilograms. Using this the Imperial Star destroyer would be expending 5.001E+20 joules to be at mach 33, which is 119,527 Megatons of energy every second. Thanks for that calculator BTW.
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
This is still a low-end seeing as how steel is probably not the material they're using, but something much stronger.
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
True, however the thing is the ships themselves reached orbit in a quick time-frame, roughly a few seconds. Also there are other ways to calculate their speeds, such as the distance the X-wings crossed during the battle of Yavin and the distance between Hoth and the Asteroid belt in Empire Strikes back. Mach 33 is just a huge low-end. I actually calc'd the speed of an X-wing and that's mach 3,752, and that was still a low-end because I applied the less then 5 minutes time-frame Red Leader said on when they'll reach the death star, made it exactly 5 minutes, and then only applied the time-frame that the X-wings JUST reached Yavin. Using real-time the X-wings are 3% the speed of light. Using Hoth and using Real time for that chase sequence and assuming Hoth's distance is the same as the Earth and our Asteroid Belt, you get the ships going at 99% the speed of Light, while the low-end is assuming it took an hour, which is 8% the speed of light.
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
Jul 3rd, 2014 01:04 AM
