How long does it take to traverse the UFP?

[throwback]

It's the same map seen in "The Emissary"; however, the map has been modified with those amber lined geometric shapes.

[publiusr]

In the same way we hear of hyperspace lanes, it may be that traffic lanes have a means of helping warp ships in them achieve a higher speed than in free flight away from lanes.

[Karnbeln]

throwback wrote:

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* Starting in "The Emissary", we see a map of the galaxy showing territory explored. (The map is seen to the right of Worf in this image - http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...missary098.jpg) The area covered seems more than the 19,000 light years (19% of the MWG) that Wesley said that the Federation had explored by then.

It is worth noting that the map is showing a two dimensional space, whereas (despite Star Trek's insistance that space is an ocean) the galaxy is three dimensional, and many star systems thick. So just because some area of space on that map was explored doesn't mean all of the represented volume was. There would be space above or below the explored portion that was unexplored, making explored space less than it appears on that map.

[Timo]

It is also somewhat unlikely that exploration would be conducted so that each new survey project would add a beautifully symmetric "curved cube" to the volume known. Those cubes probably represent volumes where some exploration has been conducted, while space outside the cubes represents volume where no exploration has ever been conducted.

When we see a cube on the edge of the explored space, that particular cube may be only 0.00002% explored, while a cube close to the center may be 57% explored already. It's unlikely that any of the cubes would be 100% explored: see e.g. "Who Mourns for Adonais" where Pollux, a system quite proximal to Earth, harbors secrets so big that it cannot be considered explored in any practical sense. Not by the UFP, that is.

Timo Saloniemi

[throwback]

This is substantiated by what is revealed in "The Measure of a Man". In that episode, the Federation starships Saratoga and Apollo are on deep space exploration missions in Sector 002.

[Jose Tyler]

Logically, it would have to take less than a year or so. In the DS9 episode Valiant, the ship of the same name was on this mission before the war broke out:


The Valiant's a state of the art
warship. Our mission was to
circumnavigate the entire
Federation before returning home.

So it couldn't take much longer than that if Alpha Squad cadets were expected to graduate on time and take required classes in four years (or five if the comment about Merik being dropped in his fifth year from "Bread and Circuses" can be take seriously...

[throwback]

For that trip, did the Valiant travel north to south, and back, or did the ship travel west to east, or east to west, and back?

[MacLeod]

It is possible explored also means areas visited by probes only, rather than manned exploration.

[Pavonis]

throwback wrote:

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For that trip, did the Valiant travel north to south, and back, or did the ship travel west to east, or east to west, and back?

What do cardinal directions mean in space? And what difference would it make if the Valiant were traveling in any of those particular directions?

[Timo]

Well, "circumnavigating Italy" in three dimensions would be a much shorter endeavor if conducted "around the waist" along the east-up-west-down route rather than along the north-up-south-down route or the north-east-south-west one... (Assuming you had a ship that could navigate through solid rock, that is.)

If the UFP is an amoeba shape with tentacles thousands of lightyears long but a nucleus only about 300 ly across, then "circumnavigating the entire Federation" might only involve going around that nucleus.

However, I rather suspect that "circumnavigating" in this case has little to do with "going around"; it's just a fancy and inaccurate expression for "visiting all the traditional ports of importance" - a voyage that may be significantly shorter or perhaps significantly longer than simply hugging the border and never visiting any important sights.

Timo Saloniemi

[Pavonis]

Still, references to "north" or "east", etc, with regard to directions in the galaxy don't make sense to me. Shouldn't directions be referred to as "spinward" or "antispinward", and towards or away from the galactic core? Then there's out-of-the-plane of the galaxy for the third dimension.

[C.E. Evans]

If starships use a galactic navigation system, "north" could always be towards the galactic core no matter where you are in the Galaxy.

[throwback]

My question was based on what was stated in the franchise. For instance, Captain Kirk described Cheron as being in the southernmost portion of the Milky Way Galaxy. ("Let That Be Your Last Battlefield") Later, the location of Beta Lyrae was given as 142 degrees northeast of the galactic plane. ("The Slaver Weapon")

This system is based on the galactic coordinate system. In this system, locations left of Sol are to the west and right of Sol are to the east.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system

I realized something I hadn't noticed before about the two charts - the Explored Galaxy seen in "Conspiracy" and the galaxy map seen in "The Emissary".

The first chart shows the region of space from 342 degrees to 354 degrees. This would imply that this is the region of space inhabited by the Federation and other peoples. The sun is located between 348 and 349 degrees.

However, the second chart, which shows a larger view of the galaxy, has the Federation in between 120 degrees and 240 degrees. The region seen in the first chart, according to the second chart, has yet to be explored in 2365. And, according to a real world view of the galaxy, the Sun is located at 180 degrees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:23...-annotated.jpg

The galaxy is divided into four quadrants in the real world.
* 1st galactic quadrant – 0° ≤ longitude (ℓ) ≤ 90
* 2nd galactic quadrant – 90° ≤ ℓ ≤ 180
* 3rd galactic quadrant – 180° ≤ ℓ ≤ 270
* 4th galactic quadrant – 270° ≤ ℓ ≤ 360° (0°)

Under this scheme, the Federation is located in and has explored space of the 1st and 2nd galactic quadrants.

Using the warp speed calculator (http://www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm), the Enterprise would have taken 58 years to reach the galactic edge. For the ship to reach the barrier in less than than a year, it would have needed to be traveling at faster than warp factor 30. It is possible for the Valiant to circumnavigate the Federation if the ship was traveling at warp factor 9.9 for its entire voyage - could a Defiant-class starship do this?

[blssdwlf]

The times we are given some good distance / time information in TOS was "Obsession" and "That Which Survives" and that pretty much tells us that going between star systems the Enterprise can easily do 1,000 LY in a day. TOS speeds were generally faster when it came to interstellar travel so going to the galactic edge wouldn't have taken too long.

TNG slowed things down a bit and the dialogue puts the E-D at 833c @Warp 9 in "Bloodlines". Voyager sped things up a bit and was often cruising above Warp 9. According to "The 37's", Warp 9.9 was 21,457c.

[T'Girl]

throwback wrote:

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Using the warp speed calculator (http://www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm), the Enterprise would have taken 58 years to reach the galactic edge.

Not if the Enterprise were traveling generally either "up"' or "down." The distance to the upper edge of the galactic disc is much less than the distance to the outer most rim.