Long Distance Travel in Star Trek

[Tarek71]

Even in our world, most long range flights are big, fairly fast planes, but these may only ply between the main hubs. With a wide range of craft of varying sizes, seating capacity, speeds, etc that connect a number of smaller, regional destinations to one of the hubs.

If you're in NYC and want to go to London, you have the pleasure and convenience of a single direct flight on a big roomy jet. But if you want to from Owensboro KY to a small town in the North of England, you are looking at multiple stops.

A smaller, regional, shorter range plane, possibly with propellers, takes you from KY to a larger hub. At the hub, you can get a big trans Atlantic roomy jet that takes you most of the way. Then you board another much smaller craft to take you to your final destination.

We can imagine something similar with interstellar travel within the vast Federation. Something like a runabout sized ship, or a large passenger shuttle might be what takes people to and from the big hubs to the surrounding regional destinations.

I really like this idea. Like, a warp 7-9 passenger liner takes you to a star system, and then an airliner-sized warp 4 transport takes you to your final destination world. After that, there is the possibility of either a hypersonic transport or teleportation to take you to the city you want to visit.

For example, you want to visit a family on Bajor that a family member in Starfleet has made friends with. So you get in your hovercar, and make your way to a transport network, and get teleported to the station or berth that your passenger liner is docked with (previous generations might use shuttles). Once the passenger liner makes it to the Bajor system, a warp 4-6 Boeing liner docks with the transport, and takes you directly to Bajor, or docks with a station, which beams you down to the surface. After that, you're just a hovercar ride or transport away from from the specific town or city.

Right. Just like now, trips would be in stages. From your front door to the front door of the research facility on Arcturus IV. Hovercar to airspace port. Small transport, large shuttles, runabouts, impulse ship, etc to large orbital spaceport. Large, high warp liner to Trill spaceport. Medium range ship to Arcturus IV. Shuttle, runabouts, impulse ships down to research facility.

 

[MantaBase]

We really seem to be speaking past each other here.

Timo Saloniemi

I agree. You are explaining a Bus/Shuttle/Trade route (shuttle in the "today" sense). A continuous loop that connects several smaller locations with one or two hubs or even no hubs. A shuttle bus might connect (in a loop) several hotels with a single conference (hub). A trade loop (Sail era) might not even have a "hub" other than a home port. A bus route is a loop in a city that connects locations of no special significance.

Ironically, in my city a bus is capable of almost 130 passengers just a bit shy of a 737 I think.

 

[MantaBase]

Even in our world, most long range flights are big, fairly fast planes, but these may only ply between the main hubs. With a wide range of craft of varying sizes, seating capacity, speeds, etc that connect a number of smaller, regional destinations to one of the hubs.

If you're in NYC and want to go to London, you have the pleasure and convenience of a single direct flight on a big roomy jet. But if you want to from Owensboro KY to a small town in the North of England, you are looking at multiple stops.

A smaller, regional, shorter range plane, possibly with propellers, takes you from KY to a larger hub. At the hub, you can get a big trans Atlantic roomy jet that takes you most of the way. Then you board another much smaller craft to take you to your final destination.

We can imagine something similar with interstellar travel within the vast Federation. Something like a runabout sized ship, or a large passenger shuttle might be what takes people to and from the big hubs to the surrounding regional destinations.

I really like this idea. Like, a warp 7-9 passenger liner takes you to a star system, and then an airliner-sized warp 4 transport takes you to your final destination world. After that, there is the possibility of either a hypersonic transport or teleportation to take you to the city you want to visit.

For example, you want to visit a family on Bajor that a family member in Starfleet has made friends with. So you get in your hovercar, and make your way to a transport network, and get teleported to the station or berth that your passenger liner is docked with (previous generations might use shuttles). Once the passenger liner makes it to the Bajor system, a warp 4-6 Boeing liner docks with the transport, and takes you directly to Bajor, or docks with a station, which beams you down to the surface. After that, you're just a hovercar ride or transport away from from the specific town or city.

Right. Just like now, trips would be in stages. From your front door to the front door of the research facility on Arcturus IV. Hovercar to airspace port. Small transport, large shuttles, runabouts, impulse ship, etc to large orbital spaceport. Large, high warp liner to Trill spaceport. Medium range ship to Arcturus IV. Shuttle, runabouts, impulse ships down to research facility.

I think you are trying to apply a model that is popular and works in many situations - to all situations. It's kinda the "express elevator" model. There are high capacity elevators that take many folks to a certain region of floors very quickly. Then they embark on lower capacity elevators that only serve the floors in the floor region. Then they walk to the final destination. It makes sense when you need to:

• Move large amounts of people
• over a large distance
• to a final destination
• quickly
• And the reasons justify the resources.

Many types of traffic fit that model, but not all.