How Close Are We To A Real TIE Fighter?

so when are we ever getting TIE fighters if you think the answer is never well I find your lack of faith disturbing there have actually been a lot of advancements in the real technology that makes up TIE fighter propulsion systems namely solar and ion power now the idea that the TIE fighters wings are solar panels is something I've seen a lot of men a nerds complain about in defensive whoever decided this for the old cross-section books it was never solely powered by solar panels but always had a tank of radioactive gas into the cockpit which could be ionized for its twin ion engines that engine system is where you get the acronym tide from but people that know a little bit about physics are even more disappointed in that answer ion engine technology is real and has been used to propel spacecraft for decades in fact the space electric rocket test or cert 1 was the first ion thruster ever used in space this was launched back in 1964 but it was the Deep Space 1 mission of 1998 that finally demonstrated the efficacy of ion propulsion tech for use in large satellite missions so what's the problem this seems like a perfectly fine tech for a TIE fighter if it is being used in real-world spacecraft well the problem is that it's way too damn slow the force generated by these ion engines is comparable to the downward force you would feel if I put a single sheet of paper on your hand now if you run that force over a long time and in the vacuum of space you can build up great momentum ds1 reach speeds of 16,000 206 kilometers per hour or ten thousand and seventy miles per hour but that took longer than a decade not exactly the kind of thing you can scramble during a rebel attack the other problem is the force of drag gravity and friction a ship would experience in atmosphere is much greater than any lift generated by the ions in fact it was always thought that ion planes would be impossible that is until a recent breakthrough at MIT the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has done the impossible and created the first ever flying plane that uses ion tech for power in space the craft has to bring its own supply of gas to be ionized and propelled out so this makes the tie having a tank onboard make a lot of sense the MIT ion plane isn't in a vacuum so it can just in the air these long strips contain a series of ion drives which are simply a positive charge at the emitter diode and a negatively charged electrode behind it by positively charging nitrogen atoms in the air this turns them into ions which then attracts them to and past the negative electrode this movement of air once it becomes ionized is called ionized wind instead of generating wind via propeller or jet turbine like a regular plane this propulsion method has no moving parts no moving parts mean is a reduced risk of failing parts and most interesting for Emperor Palpatine is that it would make an ion craft a whole lot cheaper this breakthrough is already being looked at for military applications which makes the whole military spacecraft route even more believable and it actually could justify those solar panels - as the MIT plane does need batteries on board back in 2016 the Solar Impulse - made history being the first solar-powered plane to circumnavigate the world the TIE fighter solar panels were always intended to just be auxiliary power so I can see a way in which one spread over the millions of tie fighters purchased by the Empire these savings go a long way in reducing the cost of charging up those power packs which is essential for ionizing that stored gas or the air in the atmosphere of course some changes might be needed like elongated that eyeball to be more aerodynamic and installing those MIT style ion arrays on the wings themselves they could still have solar panels in the sides but along the front edge you would have positive electrodes and along the rear edge you would have the negative this way ion wind can be used to move the fighter when in viable atmospheres in the normal twin ion engine systems in the aft could be used for space flights that being said there are some major problems we need to consider mainly and most important to me is that there would be no sound that TIE fighter screech is one of the most iconic parts of this and the thing about ion drives is that they are solid-state no moving parts in the silent this is actually why militaries around the world want to develop ion plane technology the most obvious route right now would be to make silent drones that would be like terrifying owls that could silently glide up to their prey and eliminate it without a sound as practical as that is it just isn't as cool but we can always insert some hand-wavy solution here and say that the sound comes from other onboard systems let's go with that the other problem is that in order to move the ion plane in the Solar Impulse to the crafts have to be enormous even the pilot lists payload lists MIT plane is five meters wide and the solar plane has a 72 meter wingspan greater than a Boeing 747 for reference a TIE fighter that is also carrying gas for its laser cannons pilot and is made of Duras steel is only seven point to four meters wide in 8.8 two meters tall but to me that's not that big an issue when you consider how technology becomes more efficient and smaller over time a calculator can do more than the early computers that took up whole rooms and just imagine how impossible the idea of a phone was with computational power better than the best pcs even just a couple decades ago so the fact that so many elements of the TIE fighter are real technologies that continue to improve makes me believe that one day there will be something very much like the TIE fighter even the seemingly uh narrow dynamic design of the wings seems more realistic when considering the flat ion drive arrays of the MIT ion plane but let me know what you guys think about it in the comments down below if you want to learn more and check out some of the sources I used be sure to check out the description down below where you can find links to awesome stuff like our free audible trial that will give you one book that you can keep forever even if you cancel you can also see the links to our social media if you want to connect with us and our patreon if you want to help support the channel like subscribe and hit that Bell icon if you want to see more but most important of all remember always check the volatility of alien atmospheres before you hit it with a high-powered electro and the force will be with you always

Channel: MetaNerdz Lore

Views: 21,959

Keywords: tie fighter, star wars explained, star wars, star wars ships, tie interceptor, tie defender, tie bomber, tie advanced, star wars tie fighter, all tie fighter types, tie fighter variations, tie fighters, all tie fighters, all types of tie fighters, first order tie fighter, every tie fighter, real engineering, real engineering plane, ion plane real engineering, ion plane engine, solar plane, metanerdz, kyle hill, star wars science, star wars ships size comparison

Id: OECvsP9f8rs

Length: 6min 14sec (374 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 01 2019