The Island States
26-11-2004, 00:10
It had been three years since Project Hummingbird had become something more than a bunch of concept sketches. The first Gravity Manipulation Drive, or GMD, was installed into the ISASF "Hummingbird", a Wasp-class ICF.
Acceleration and agility tests proved it could function as well, if not a little better, than fusion drives. With heat not being drawn into space by thrust, the fusion core of the ship stayed warmer longer, cutting down the amount of fuel and antimatter starter material needed to maintain a sustained reaction (and allowed more heat to flow into Traveling Wave Thermoacoustic Generators).
Drive sections of built frigates were modified to look like the Hummingbird, 'Emergency Plasma Discharge Vents' the only way for fusion plasma to leave the ship. The new ships, which would carry a GD at the end of their usual designations, were now being deployed, with larger and larger GMDs for larger and larger ship classes.
Acceleration and agility tests proved it could function as well, if not a little better, than fusion drives. With heat not being drawn into space by thrust, the fusion core of the ship stayed warmer longer, cutting down the amount of fuel and antimatter starter material needed to maintain a sustained reaction (and allowed more heat to flow into Traveling Wave Thermoacoustic Generators).
Drive sections of built frigates were modified to look like the Hummingbird, 'Emergency Plasma Discharge Vents' the only way for fusion plasma to leave the ship. The new ships, which would carry a GD at the end of their usual designations, were now being deployed, with larger and larger GMDs for larger and larger ship classes.