Impulse Speed

knucklehead6 · 12-08-2019 4:48pm #1

Stupid question that came to me last night while trying to get to sleep.

Is there a quantifiable range of impulse speed?

I get that Warp 1 is Warp 1 whether you are in a Galaxy Class, Intrepid Class, Defiant Class, Sovereign Class, Excelsior Class etc.

Is Impulse the same?
A modern navy vessel has a top speed, but the top speed of a Ford Class carrier and the top speed of a San Antonio Class Amphibious Transport are vastly different. Is full Impulse the same speed for all ships in the trek Universe, or could full impulse in a Defiant be faster than full impulse in a Nova class for example?

Spear · 12-08-2019 6:24pm

Impulse is just an engineering/physics term, meaning force over time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_(physics)

So full impulse would be specific to any given ship in the short term, due to it's mass and engine capacity, but in the longer term it'll hit the diminishing returns of special relativity.

AMKC · 12-08-2019 6:45pm

Spear wrote: »

Impulse is just an engineering/physics term, meaning force over time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_(physics)

So full impulse would be specific to any given ship in the short term, due to it's mass and engine capacity, but in the longer term it'll hit the diminishing returns of special relativity.

My God Man:cool:. Could you say that now in English for the rest of us.

knucklehead6 · 12-08-2019 7:22pm

AMKC wrote: »

My God Man:cool:. Could you say that now in English for the rest of us.

He’s a moderator, not an engineer.

ðŸ¥³

starvin · 13-08-2019 7:04pm

knucklehead6 wrote: »

He’s a moderator, not an engineer.

ðŸ¥³

Shouldn’t that be ‘DAMMIT JIM, I’M A MODERATOR, NOT AN ENGINEER’

Samuel T. Cogley · 13-08-2019 9:07pm

Star Trek: The Motion Picture has full Impluse as 0.5C if I recall correctly.

Spear · 13-08-2019 11:14pm

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Star Trek: The Motion Picture has full Impluse as 0.5C if I recall correctly.

Because that's where relativistic effects start to become significant:

rel-newton-kinetic.svg#fixme

from:

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-physics/chapter/relativistic-quantities/

Cookie_Monster · 16-08-2019 3:35am

I thought it was mentioned as .25c in TNG at one point

edit: nope, voyager tech manual:

The 'Star Trek Voyager Technical Manual' page 13 has full impulse listed as ¼ of the speed of light, which is 167,000,000 mph or 74,770 km/s. ¼ impulse for Voyager would be 18,665 km/s. Voyager's ¼ impulse is 10 times faster than the shuttle's. Therefore, the term "¼ impulse" isn't a fixed speed as much as it's ¼ of the full speed of the impulse engines' maximum.

but lets just believe TMP instead of VOY for multiple reasons.

Evade · 16-08-2019 12:17pm

Impulse is probably a little different for every ship. It's like on a navy ship hearing the order ahead full/half/flank/etc. Ahead full on a battleship is a lot slower than ahead full on a destroyer.

The Bajoran transports from DS9 to Bajor take 3 hours (I think) to make the trip at impulse speed so if it was half the speed of light that puts the wormhole about 23 AU from Bajor. A little more than the distance from the Sun to Uranus which doesn't seem right if the wormhole was visible to ancient Bajorans on Bajor.

knucklehead6 · 16-08-2019 12:30pm

Evade wrote: »

Impulse is probably a little different for every ship. It's like on a navy ship hearing the order ahead full/half/flank/etc. Ahead full on a battleship is a lot slower than ahead full on a destroyer.

Ya see, that's what i would've thought initially, but Spear's explanation makes sense.

I suppose there COULD be an argument for the Full Impulse command to mean apply full Thrust, which might be different for different ships IE Different acceleration rates.

As an aside the last USN Battleships (Iowa Class) flank speed was around 33knots, they were designed to be able to keep up with the carrier groups.

The previous Class (South Dakota, 1939) maxed out at 27.5 knots. Before the Dakota's was the North Carolina Class(1937) , at 28 knots, but the ones before that were the colorado class, (1920) and 21 knots.

endacl · 16-08-2019 12:32pm

Any speed where the stars don’t go stripey is impulse speed.

Stark · 17-08-2019 12:50pm

Evade wrote: »

The Bajoran transports from DS9 to Bajor take 3 hours (I think) to make the trip at impulse speed so if it was half the speed of light that puts the wormhole about 23 AU from Bajor. A little more than the distance from the Sun to Uranus which doesn't seem right if the wormhole was visible to ancient Bajorans on Bajor.

That's an interesting one. I haven't paid too much attention throughout the series to tell if the travel time was consistent or not but I imagine Bajor is orbiting its star and the wormhole is in a relatively fixed position relative to the star. So quite possible the ancient Bajorans were able to see it when Bajor was at a point in its orbit close to the wormhole.

Evade · 17-08-2019 3:29pm

Stark wrote: »

That's an interesting one. I haven't paid too much attention throughout the series to tell if the travel time was consistent or not but I imagine Bajor is orbiting its star and the wormhole is in a relatively fixed position relative to the star. So quite possible the ancient Bajorans were able to see it when Bajor was at a point in its orbit close to the wormhole.

Even if 20AU was the closest it gets to Bajor the wormhole is pretty small compared to a gas giant so how would they have known it as the celestial temple and not just another star or planet?

AtomicHorror · 18-08-2019 10:49pm

I think can recall instances where the order was given to leave stardock or drydock at 1/4 impulse. My understanding was that full impulse was somewhere around 0.5c, but no more than 1.0c, but clearly it's not used at all consistently.

TheValeyard · 19-08-2019 12:20pm

Like Warp speed, I think the value and speed of impulse has changed with technology advancements.

Woden · 22-08-2019 8:22am

Back in the family home currently and doing a bit of a clear out. Here is what is in Star Trek Encyclopedia!

muckwarrior · 22-08-2019 11:48am

knucklehead6 wrote: »

As an aside the last USN Battleships (Iowa Class) flank speed was around 33knots, they were designed to be able to keep up with the carrier groups.

The previous Class (South Dakota, 1939) maxed out at 27.5 knots. Before the Dakota's was the North Carolina Class(1937) , at 28 knots, but the ones before that were the colorado class, (1920) and 21 knots.

Did you start this thread just to show off your knowledge of ships?

Spear · 23-08-2019 2:33pm

muckwarrior wrote: »

Did you start this thread just to show off your knowledge of ships?

Or he could just play World of Warships and learn the painful way how slow some of the USN BBs were.

knucklehead6 · 23-08-2019 9:02pm

muckwarrior wrote: »

Did you start this thread just to show off your knowledge of ships?

That’s all readily available from wiki, not too sure what your point is here. If you even have one

AMKC · 30-08-2019 6:24pm

Evade wrote: »

Even if 20AU was the closest it gets to Bajor the wormhole is pretty small compared to a gas giant so how would they have known it as the celestial temple and not just another star or planet?

Maybe it was just very bright in the Sky and they were viewing it through telescopes.

TheValeyard wrote: »

Like Warp speed, I think the value and speed of impulse has changed with technology advancements.

Agreed. I always thought it was a pity that we did not have an impulse room on ''Enterprise'' and a chief impulse engineer. I understand from the original series on it was probably automatic but would think that impulse engines in ''Enterprise'' would have been relatively new and not that sophisticated.

Evade · 30-08-2019 10:23pm

AMKC wrote: »

Maybe it was just very bright in the Sky and they were viewing it through telescopes.

The Bajoran religion seems to predate stuff like telescopes.

Stark · 31-08-2019 12:08am

They did have the orbs though so probably one of those assisted in seeing it.

Impulse Speed

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