Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Popular Culture, this is Plasma. Plasma, meet Popular Culture.

OK, maybe not so popular of culture, but I digress.

I was watching my favorite TV show, Star Trek the Next Generation, when I saw Doctor Crusher and Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge trapped in a cargo bay with a plasma fire and unstable thruster fuel. They were able to escape by venting the atmosphere into space, then restoring oxygen before they passed out. I was gladdened to see that the plasma fire was green, so that's right.

Further investigation led me to discover that the Enterprise is powered entirely by plasma, which is routed through the ship using magnetic conduits. Sounds like a tragic accident waiting to happen.

On a positive note, this means that the ICP will be so easy to use in the future! No more igniting plasma and waiting an hour for it to warm up, all we'll need to do is plug the torch into the wall and position the cones. Nice!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

still. imagine the blanks.