warp speed in KPH

tomaschonnie

in series 1 episode 5 of ST:TNG they mention that it would take the Enterprise about 300 years to travel a distance of about 2,700,000 light years. so, sitting here all stoned i thought id have a go at figuring out their maximum warp speed (assuming they would try to travel home at full speed) in terms of KPH.

If traveling a distance of 2,700,000 light years took 350 years would give an average speed of ????km/h

i would love to see some biazare or interesting ways of calculating it from ye!

i got an answer of

6.3 x 10 to the power of 20 K/PH or 630,000,000,000,000,000,000 K/PH

which could be completely wrong but was fun trying to work it out

Cookie_Monster

if above is true how come 70,000 light years would have taken Voyager 70 years. Doesn't exactly scale up well together.

Voyager's top speed was 64 billion Km per second iirc, Paris mentions it at some point (or maybe that was just current cruising speed)

KoolKid

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Voyager's top speed was 64 billion Km per second iirc, Paris mentions it at some point (or maybe that was just current cruising speed)

Not sure if the figure is right. But top speed was mentioned by Tom Paris to Amila Earheart in The 37's.

DrumSteve

koolkid wrote: »

Not sure if the figure is right. But top speed was mentioned by Tom Paris to Amila Earheart in The 37's.

what was the name of the guy from police academy in that?

KoolKid

DrumSteve wrote: »

what was the name of the guy from police academy in that?

David Graf was the actor, Fred Noonan was the character.
Classic line... Now hear this, Commander. There's a gun pointed at the lady's head right now. So you call Washington, and you tell them we're holding your people prisoner, and they're not going anywhere until I personally talk to J. Edgar Hoover!

The speed was a lot less than 64 billion Kilometres per second.

Earhart: How fast?
Paris: Warp 9.9. In your terms that's about four billion miles a second.
Earhart: Think I could take her out for a spin

irishthump

The maximum speed of Federation starships under normal conditions is warp 9.2 which is the equivalent of 1.77 trillion MPH.

KoolKid

irishthump wrote: »

The maximum speed of Federation starships under normal conditions is warp 9.2 which is the equivalent of 1.77 trillion MPH.

Some pilot Tom Paris was. He was way off the mark there.

Cookie_Monster

irishthump wrote: »

The maximum speed of Federation starships under normal conditions is warp 9.2 which is the equivalent of 1.77 trillion MPH.

they all had differing cruise speeds, most higher than 9.2 iirc. Defiant max was 9.2, ent D max was 9.85

voyager wrote:

allowing for a maximum sustainable speed of Warp 9.975

irishthump

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

they all had differing cruise speeds, most higher than 9.2 iirc. Defiant max was 9.2, ent D max was 9.85

Enterprise D can hold warp 9.6 for a maximum of 12 hours, that's not a cruising speed. It's standard cruising speed has been listed as varying between warp 6 and warp 9.6!

Having said that, most Federation vessels are required to adhere to a "speed limit" of warp 5, except in dire circumstances.

Klingon Hamlet

irishthump wrote: »

Enterprise D can hold warp 9.6 for a maximum of 12 hours, that's not a cruising speed. It's standard cruising speed has been listed as varying between warp 6 and warp 9.6!

Having said that, most Federation vessels are required to adhere to a "speed limit" of warp 5, except in dire circumstances.

That was due to the damage caused to the galaxy by the warp engines (can't remember the TNG episode's name.) Anyway that was the reason behind the redesigned warp nacelles on Voyager and Enterprise-E.

norrie rugger

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

That was due to the damage caused to the galaxy by the warp engines (can't remember the TNG episode's name.) Anyway that was the reason behind the redesigned warp nacelles on Voyager and Enterprise-E.

Force of Nature

Cookie_Monster

irishthump wrote: »

Having said that, most Federation vessels are required to adhere to a "speed limit" of warp 5, except in dire circumstances.

as above, that is now redundant, for newer ships at least, due to the re-design of nacelles and whatever other bits and bobs. I would also assume the fleet could have been retro fitted to solve this problem. The Nova definitely also had the new nacelles, along with Sovereign and Intrepid and presumably defiant as they regularly went around at 6+

seamus

irishthump wrote: »

The maximum speed of Federation starships under normal conditions is warp 9.2 which is the equivalent of 1.77 trillion MPH.

koolkid wrote: »

Some pilot Tom Paris was. He was way off the mark there.

Warp 9.9 = 4bn miles/sec =~ 14.4 trillion MPH. According to wiki, warp speeds between 9 and 10 are exponential (whereas between 0 and 9 are sort of logarithmic) which is why warp 9.9 is about 8 times faster than warp 9.2

/nerd

CSaber

Ok, found my ST: Encyclopedia. Of course the book is not canon so don't know how accurate it is.

Full Impulse - 270 million kph
Warp 1 - 1 billion
Warp 2 - 11 billion
Warp 3 - 42 billion
Warp 4 - 109 billion
Warp 5 - 229 billion
Warp 6 - 421 billion
Warp 7 - 703 billion
Warp 8 - 1.1 trillion
Warp 9 - 1.62 trillion
Warp 9.2 - 1.77 trillion
Warp 9.6 - 2.05 trillion
Warp 9.9 - 3.27 trillion

Cookie_Monster

width of galaxy in lightyear 100,000.00
width of galaxy in Km 9*10^17
warp 9.9 km per hour 3.27*10^12
hours per year 8,760.00
dist per year 28645*10^12
years to cross galaxy 31.42

Voyager states 70 years to do 70,000 light years at max warp so can't be right then. If my cals are ok, its confusing

KoolKid

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

width of galaxy in lightyear 100,000.00
width of galaxy in Km 9*10^17
warp 9.9 km per hour 3.27*10^12
hours per year 8,760.00
dist per year 28645*10^12
years to cross galaxy 31.42

Voyager states 70 years to do 70,000 light years at max warp so can't be right then. If my cals are ok, its confusing

Here is Janeways speech...

We're alone - in an uncharted part of the galaxy. We've already made some friends here... and some enemies. We have no idea of the dangers we're going to face. But one thing is clear: both crews are going to have to work together if we're to survive. That's why Commander Chakotay and I have agreed that this should be one crew - a Starfleet crew. And as the only Starfleet vessel assigned to the Delta Quadrant, we'll continue to follow our directive: to seek out new worlds and explore space. But our primary goal is clear. Even at maximum speeds, it would take 75 years to reach the Federation. But I'm not willing to settle for that. There's another entity like the Caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster. We'll be looking for her. And we'll be looking for wormholes, spatial rifts, or new technologies to help us. Somewhere, along this journey, we'll find a way back.

Klingon Hamlet

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

width of galaxy in lightyear 100,000.00
width of galaxy in Km 9*10^17
warp 9.9 km per hour 3.27*10^12
hours per year 8,760.00
dist per year 28645*10^12
years to cross galaxy 31.42

Voyager states 70 years to do 70,000 light years at max warp so can't be right then. If my cals are ok, its confusing

Don't think Voyager can sustain factor 9.9 for too long. Its standard cruising speed is 9.2 from what I recall. Of course, you also have to take into account their determination to stop at every little phenomenon. How there wasn't a giant mutiny, involving Janeway being dumped out an airlock and Chakotay vowing to get everyone home ASAP, is beyond me:D

Cookie_Monster

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

Don't think Voyager can sustain factor 9.9 for too long. Its standard cruising speed is 9.2 from what I recall. Of course, you also have to take into account their determination to stop at every little phenomenon. How there wasn't a giant mutiny, involving Janeway being dumped out an airlock and Chakotay vowing to get everyone home ASAP, is beyond me:D

voyagers max sustainable cruising speed is 9.975

Wikipedia wrote:

Voyager was the first ship to be equipped with a class-9 warp drive, which they were intended to test in deep space, allowing for a maximum sustainable speed of Warp 9.975.

CSaber

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

width of galaxy in lightyear 100,000.00
width of galaxy in Km 9*10^17
warp 9.9 km per hour 3.27*10^12
hours per year 8,760.00
dist per year 28645*10^12
years to cross galaxy 31.42

Voyager states 70 years to do 70,000 light years at max warp so can't be right then. If my cals are ok, its confusing

Indeed. The problem with the Encyclopedia is that it says at 9.2 it would take 6 years to do 10,000 light years, so 70,000 light years would be 42 years. Voyager had a top speed of 9.975. At 9.9 10,000 light years could be covered in 3 years, and 100,000 light years in 33 years, so Voyager at top speed should do it in around 21 years.

And then of course in 'Q Who?' the Ent D was thrown 7,000 light years and can't remember the exact figures, but Data did not say it would take 7 years to get back. In 'Where No One Has Gone Before' the ship was thrown more than 2.7 million light years and that would only take 300 years to get back.

Basically, warp speed is as fast as the writers need it to be.

seamus

CSaber wrote: »

Basically, warp speed is as fast as the writers need it to be.

Actually, I would say that until the late 90's and the internet hit the mainstream, writers were less concerned with the concept of "canon" and would happily introduce plotholes contradicting older storylines if it suited the story. Sure who was going to notice except for a few hardcore nerds hanging around on USENET?

CSaber

seamus wrote: »

Actually, I would say that until the late 90's and the internet hit the mainstream, writers were less concerned with the concept of "canon" and would happily introduce plotholes contradicting older storylines if it suited the story. Sure who was going to notice except for a few hardcore nerds hanging around on USENET?

True. When TNG came along Roddenberry himself ignored whole swathes of canon from TOS to suit the needs of the new series.

Lantus

CSaber wrote: »

Ok, found my ST: Encyclopedia. Of course the book is not canon so don't know how accurate it is.

Full Impulse - 270 million kph
Warp 1 - 1 billion
Warp 2 - 11 billion
Warp 3 - 42 billion
Warp 4 - 109 billion
Warp 5 - 229 billion
Warp 6 - 421 billion
Warp 7 - 703 billion
Warp 8 - 1.1 trillion
Warp 9 - 1.62 trillion
Warp 9.2 - 1.77 trillion
Warp 9.6 - 2.05 trillion
Warp 9.9 - 3.27 trillion

Warp 1 is the speed of light and is slightly over the 1 bil value by 80 mil.

I always thought that full impulse was very close to the speed of light as consistent travel at this speed was meant to cause a time differencial to normal space (acording to the official enterpise D manual from memory.)

Cookie_Monster

Lantus wrote: »

Warp 1 is the speed of light and is slightly over the 1 bil value by 80 mil.

I always thought that full impulse was very close to the speed of light as consistent travel at this speed was meant to cause a time differencial to normal space (acording to the official enterpise D manual from memory.)

full impulse is one quarter light speed. much higher than half light speed and you start getting involved with time dilation and such forth iirc.

tomaschonnie

tomaschonnie wrote: »

in series 1 episode 5 of ST:TNG they mention that it would take the Enterprise about 300 years to travel a distance of about 2,700,000 light years. so, sitting here all stoned i thought id have a go at figuring out their maximum warp speed (assuming they would try to travel home at full speed) in terms of KPH.

If traveling a distance of 2,700,000 light years took 350 years would give an average speed of ????km/h

i would love to see some biazare or interesting ways of calculating it from ye!

i got an answer of

6.3 x 10 to the power of 20 K/PH or 630,000,000,000,000,000,000 K/PH

which could be completely wrong but was fun trying to work it out

any takers on working out the above?

IvySlayer

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

Don't think Voyager can sustain factor 9.9 for too long. Its standard cruising speed is 9.2 from what I recall. Of course, you also have to take into account their determination to stop at every little phenomenon. How there wasn't a giant mutiny, involving Janeway being dumped out an airlock and Chakotay vowing to get everyone home ASAP, is beyond me:D

And looking for coffee in a nebula