Kovel jump drive
The Kovel jump drive, Kovel drive, Kovel stardrive, or slingshot drive was invented by Edward M. Kovel in 3159, though it was only used experimentally until its first commercial use in 3162. It was based on the Halfen stardrive, but with a number of improvements added. Kovel was able to successfully use the same technique used by Starkind to establish an anchor at the far end of the wormhole, then use that anchor to pull the starship through. This reduced the effective time of wormhole transit from several seconds to near-instantaneous.
How it works
The biggest improvement over the Halfen stardrive (which directly affected all the other improvements) was the slingshot anchor (the discovery of which is discussed in "Slingshot"). From the departure wormhole sphere, the slingshot anchor uses a quantum tunneling gravitic grappling effect to reach through the departure wormhole and anchor to dense "chunks" of gravitic forces on the surface of the destination wormhole sphere. The quantum tunneling allows the grapples to accurately target and attach to those "chunks", at which point a Wheeler–Feynman handshake is used to perform a Cramer transactional interpretation on a quantum mechanical level, thereby avoiding paradoxes that might occur otherwise. The slingshot maneuver occurs almost instantaneously once that handshake is completed.
The steps performed by the Kovel drive are as follows:
| Process | Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Stop motion relative to wormhole at 500 meters from the surface | This needs to be done to allow the other processes to be completed accurately. | |
| Initiate quantum tunnels for gravitic grapples | 10 seconds | – |
| Select stable gravitic "chunks" for anchors | 1 minute | This allows for observation so newly-phased gravitic "chunks" can be selected, allowing for the most stable jump. |
| Initiate gravitic grapples | 20 seconds | Must have at least three for stability |
| Initiate Wheeler–Feynman handshake | 10 seconds | Verifies stable connection |
| Perform Cramer transactional interpretation | 10-30 seconds | This prevents potential paradoxes from occurring. |
| Initiate quantum grapple slingshot | <1 second | |
| Total time | about 2-3 minutes | |
This reduced the time of the transit, thereby reducing the disorienting after-effects of wormhole jumps on humans so that they generally passed within a few seconds or were non-existent. Prior to Kovel's improvements, the effects could last up to several minutes. This also significantly reduced the stresses placed on the ship and the drive itself to near zero, practically eliminating the chances of catastrophic hull breach or drive failure during jumps.
Application
The drive was first commercially introduced in 3162 at the Piram Shipyards in the Naya Piram system. Since introduction, it has become the de facto standard within the Ohlakhira Shufteim, and even the Halfen have used it exclusively since 3165. The continued improvement of the drive is supported heavily by the Interstellar Cataloguing and Exploration Service. It is smaller than the Halfen Stardrive, which made it feasible for much smaller ships to make use of wormholes without being carried by larger ships. The smallest ship known to have a Kovel jump drive is 40 meters in diameter.