Marauders

Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: Enterprise: Season Two: Marauders


By RIchie Vest on Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 10:44 am:

Since I did not see "A Night in Sickbay" I only discovered this morning that episode will not air until two weeks from Yesterday. In case you are wondering why...Game 4 of the World's Series. (Yes I am saying the old-fashioned way)


By Sparrow47 on Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 6:28 pm:

Well, it gives me a chance to catch up, then! Well, that and a little week-long fiesta we here call Fall Break...


By Maquis Lawyer on Friday, October 25, 2002 - 11:20 am:

The episode synopsis on TrekNation mentions that the Enterprise goes to a mining colony in search of “deuterium” for fuel and they run into the titular “Marauders”. startrek.com doesn’t specifically mention deuterium, but does say they are looking for fuel, and it is established that Enterprise’s warp reactor uses deuterium (and the seldom mentioned “anti-deuterium").
Sigh…..
If TPTB haven’t learned this lesson yet, I don’t know what hope there is for Enterprise.
As pointed out by both David Sluss and Jamahl Epsicokhan, in their reviews of various Voyager episodes, you don’t mine deuterium. Deuterium consists of three atoms of hydrogen bonded to one atom of oxygen. Hence, it is sometimes referred to as “heavy water”. The Voyager writers finally realized their mistake in the episode The Void by having Tom Paris say “Why would anyone steal deuterium? You can find it anywhere.”
So please, please Berman and Braga, at least pretend that you learned something over the course of Voyager.


By Rene on Friday, October 25, 2002 - 11:45 am:

Since, by your own admission, it's not stated that they're looking for deuterium, then aren't you jumping the gun a bit?


By Charles Cabe (Ccabe) on Friday, October 25, 2002 - 11:50 am:

What ever you do, DO NOT send the Maquis Lawyer to the store to get deuterium.

Deuderium contains no Oxygen. Pure deuterium is a hydrogen atom with a proton AND a neutron. It reacts with oxygen like normal hydrogen to form H2O, 2 deutronium atoms and 1 oxyben atom.


By ScottN on Friday, October 25, 2002 - 11:56 am:

And yes, you *could* mine deuterium. It just needs to be frozen!


By TomM (Tom_M) on Friday, October 25, 2002 - 4:21 pm:

Pure deuterium is a hydrogen atom with a proton AND a neutron. Charles Cabe

It is impossible to find atomic deuterium (or "light" hydrogen, or tritium), because hydrogen is so reactive. It is almost always found in covalent bonds: hydrogen gas (H2), water (H2O), ammonia (NH3), acids (-H), hydroxides(-OH), or organic molecules. "Heavy hydrogen" is a sample of hydrogen with a higher than normal ratio of deuterium and tritium (hydrogen with two protons). There are still more "light" hydrogen atoms than "heavy" ones. Similarly, "heavy water" is water with a higher than normal proportion of "heavy" atoms


By Maquis Lawyer on Friday, October 25, 2002 - 4:22 pm:

Scene: Al’s Starship Supply
ML: Excuse me. I came in here a little while ago to buy deuterium, and you sold me deuterium oxide
Al: Look at the label, it’s got deuterium in it.
ML: But our chief engineer says he needs deuterium for our warp engines.
Al: Where do you think most deuterium comes from? Natural hydrogen consists of only 0.015% deuterium. It’s just easier to separate deuterium from hydrogen by starting with water rather than hydrogen gas. All the large-scale processes involve concentration of deuterium oxide, or heavy water. When water is electrolyzed, the hydrogen gas that is liberated contains a smaller fraction of deuterium than the remaining water. You get almost pure deuterium oxide when the volume of water has been reduced by continued electrolysis to about 1/100,000 of its original volume. You can also enrich deuterium through an exchange between hydrogen sulfide and water.
ML: But why didn’t you tell me that when I came in here earlier.
Al: Look, I figured that if you were coming in here to buy deuterium, you understood the difference between deuterium and heavy water. Anyway, do you really expect me to keep pure deuterium on the shelf? It’s got a melting point of -254.43 deg C at 128.5 mm pressure, and a boiling point of -249.49 deg C.
ML: Still, Commander Tucker said he wanted deuterium. He’s not going to be happy if I come back with this.
Al: He’ll make do. By the way, if you see Captain Archer when you get back to Enterprise, tell him that I told you to say hi to Sam – Don’t worry, he’ll know what I mean.

Okay Okay, I got it wrong. I confused deuterium (a non-radioactive isotpe of hydrogen having an atomic weight of 2.014) with deuterium oxide (heavy water or D3O) Note: Thanks to Grolier’s Multimedia Encyclopedia for the above information. I can also admit when I’m wrong and have a sense of humor about it. :)
Still, I am left with several questions. Does pure deuterium naturally occur in quanity, or would it normally be necessary to process hydrogen or heavy water to produce it? (In other words, is Al just trying to blow me off by telling me liberate the deuterium from the heavy water?)
And considering the very narrow range between the melting and boiling points of pure deuterium, it probably would need to be stored in a frozen state. But wouldn’t pure deuterium usually exist as a gas? If you tried to “mine” it in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, wouldn’t it immediately sublimate?
Anyone out there have any ideas?


By ScottN on Friday, October 25, 2002 - 5:07 pm:

Deuterium Oxide is D20, not D30. It's simply plain water with the Deuterium isotope of hydrogen instead of light hydrogen.

You separate the deuterium from the oxygen the same way you separate out hydrogen. Electrolyze the d@mn stuff. O2 bubbles out of one side, and an H2/D2 mix bubbles out of the other. Use any of the well known methods for separating isotopes (centrifuging comes to mind) and Bob's Your UncleOMT.