Is it possible to eject escape pods at warp and survive?

[Silversmok3]

Let us remember that photon torpedos make rotten reference points for escape pod designs,as they don't need to keep someone alive during their flight.
As such,a torpedo doesn't need inertial dampeners or life support to fulfill its designed purpose.

 

[SonicRanger]

Let us remember that photon torpedos make rotten reference points for escape pod designs,as they don't need to keep someone alive during their flight.
As such,a torpedo doesn't need inertial dampeners or life support to fulfill its designed purpose.

Yes, but it does need to keep a bottle of antimatter intact while in close proximity to the ship (e.g., in "Q Who?" Data states that the Borg cube has closed to a distance where a photorp explosion would destroy the E-D), so the tidal forces and any sort of subspace distortion can't be too severe.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

I would think "dropping out of warp" would be the same whether the escape is inside the ship or not.

I think of warp travel as just passing through another layer of subspace, so ejecting an escape pod at warp would be like a submarine ejecting an escape pod -- it just floats upwards slowly until it reaches the surface, since it is no longer being kept at that depth by the submarine's engines and weight.

Likewise, an escape pod ejected in subspace will float "upward" until it reaches the "surface" of space. There's no reason why leaving the warp field has to be violent -- as long as the escape pod has inertial dampers, like the rest of the ship.

It's not like starships traveling at warp are going "fast," and certainly not "faster than light" (if that were true, then Data would not be able to see Picard, since he's traveling faster than the light reflecting off Picard). They are just shifted into another layer of subspace as a shortcut through normal space.

When we see starships "drop out of warp," they usually pop into space at a fairly modest cruising velocity -- they are not moving at fast Relativistic speeds and applying braking thrusters to "slow down."

"Warp" is more of a place than it is a measure of physical velocity. Therefore, leaving that place should not cause much trouble for an escape pod.

 

[bryce]

I would think "dropping out of warp" would be the same whether the escape is inside the ship or not.

I think of warp travel as just passing through another layer of subspace, so ejecting an escape pod at warp would be like a submarine ejecting an escape pod -- it just floats upwards slowly until it reaches the surface, since it is no longer being kept at that depth by the submarine's engines and weight.

Likewise, an escape pod ejected in subspace will float "upward" until it reaches the "surface" of space. There's no reason why leaving the warp field has to be violent -- as long as the escape pod has inertial dampers, like the rest of the ship.

It's not like starships traveling at warp are going "fast," and certainly not "faster than light" (if that were true, then Data would not be able to see Picard, since he's traveling faster than the light reflecting off Picard). They are just shifted into another layer of subspace as a shortcut through normal space.

When we see starships "drop out of warp," they usually pop into space at a fairly modest cruising velocity -- they are not moving at fast Relativistic speeds and applying braking thrusters to "slow down."

"Warp" is more of a place than it is a measure of physical velocity. Therefore, leaving that place should not cause much trouble for an escape pod.

That's a good theory. It would also explain why they could seperate the saucer section in "Encounter at Farpoint" while they were at still warp, and it didn't kill everyone on board and crush the saucer like a tin can.

And if Trek warp is anything like the warp speculated may be possible by some real-world physicists like Alcubierre, the ship isn't really moving at all, but just distorting the space around it. So when a Trek ship drops out of warp, the fairly slow speed it is traveling at was the real speed it was always really traveling at - and likely the same speed it entered warp at.)

Though one other theory I heard (and maybe read about in one of the tech manuals) is that the saucer section and the photon torpedoes had )and thus you would expect the escape pods would also have) some kind of "warp sustainers" that kept them at warp for a while and likely the cushioned the transistion.

Photon torpedoes probably would have to have some sort of sustainer so that when it's fired at warp, it stays at warp for a while at least. Then again phasers fired at warp also stay at warp...so maybe if you are at warp and can see another ship and fire at it, you are likely sharing a merged warp bubble, or something...

I dunno, this is giving me a headache.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Keep in mind the following...

The separation sequence of the Enterprise-D's saucer from the secondary hull is not realistic at all. The only way that would work would be if it had it's own warp-engine.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

The separation sequence of the Enterprise-D's saucer from the secondary hull is not realistic at all. The only way that would work would be if it had it's own warp-engine.

I'm sorry, but to employ the adjective "realistic" in any discussion concerning Trek's warp drive is just.... tragic.

TGT

 

[Deks]

Keep in mind the following...

The separation sequence of the Enterprise-D's saucer from the secondary hull is not realistic at all. The only way that would work would be if it had it's own warp-engine.

I don't agree.
The saucer would likely have the ability to sustain a warp field around itself if it's detached from the secondary hull.
You don't need warp engines in order to achieve that effect ... only subspace field generators, which are usually an integral part of it's systems.
The saucer does have hull grids which are used to project a shield around a vessel.
In the same manner, these grids can likely project other types of fields around a vessel on top of the existing fields.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

The God Thing,

Touche, You got me


Deks,

If it could project and sustain a warp field it would be a warp-engine. Andrew Probert specifically said there were no warp-engine nacelles in the saucer.

The hull grids to my knowledge are to project either the tactical-deflectors* or the forcefields.


Footnotes
* I listed the deflector as a tactical deflector to differentiate it from the nav-deflector. Tactical deflector does make sense though as it is used in battle and to stop weaponry predominantly though.

 

[SonicRanger]

CuttingEdge100, photon torpedos and probes travel at warp. Do they have warp engines? How about the probe traveling at Warp 9 in "The Emissary"? No room for warp drive there.

That's why they "invented" the idea of "warp sustainers" -- a passive system that can't create a warp field from scratch but acts as a sort of capacitor that "holds" the field for a while. It's in the TNG Tech Manual.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

In at least one episode, we have seen starships firing phasers at each other while at warp, which leads me to believe "Warp factor" is just a layer of Subspace, and things within Subspace operate normally relative to each other.

In my earlier analogy, two submarines at the same level below the surface can fire lasers or torpedoes at each other. So, two starships at the same warp factor are merely cruising at a modest velocity (say, 1,000 kilometers per hour) through the same layer of Subspace, so they can shoot phasers, lasers, or just dirty looks at each other while in Subspace together.

(People on starships moving at Warp can look out the rear windows and see another starship following them, so obviously the starships are not moving faster than light, since they can see light coming from behind them.)