How fast is warp speed?

[blssdwlf]

Or we can have you back in half a day (like the travel time for your shuttle flight). Or we can have you back in 5 minutes if the captain told me to step on it and don't spare the antimatter.

The bottom line is that in TMP there is no way to tell how fast the warp shuttle was going in order to derive a distance from Earth to Vulcan and there is no way to tell what speed Scotty meant when he asked Spock about going back to Vulcan after Kirk requested a proper shakedown cruise (which also means we can't derive a distance to Vulcan.)

As to XI - as Kingdaniel recapped, there isn't any way of telling how long the total trip was from Earth to Vulcan.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Or we can have you back in half a day (like the travel time for your shuttle flight). Or we can have you back in 5 minutes if the captain told me to step on it and don't spare the antimatter.

The bottom line is that in TMP there is no way to tell how fast the warp shuttle was going in order to derive a distance from Earth to Vulcan and there is no way to tell what speed Scotty meant when he asked Spock about going back to Vulcan after Kirk requested a proper shakedown cruise (which also means we can't derive a distance to Vulcan.)

As to XI - as Kingdaniel recapped, there isn't any way of telling how long the total trip was from Earth to Vulcan.

OK, I'll give you that. In XI the trip to Vulcan took a week and a half. They just cut out the boring parts.

Watch the movie. It's obvious that it's an hour or two at most.

 

[blssdwlf]

Sure, I can watch XI and think it's obvious that it is an hour or two at most the same way that I can watch TMP and think the Enterprise will be obviously way faster than Spock's warp shuttle making Scotty's 4 day quote useless without further information

 

[kkozoriz1]

We don't know exactly how much time passed between the scene on Vulcan and the departure of the Enterprise. Perhaps Spock left a week earlier.

 

[blssdwlf]

We don't know exactly how much time passed between the scene on Vulcan and the departure of the Enterprise. Perhaps Spock left a week earlier.

Well we'd take the same approach for guessing the amount of time that transpired for XI and assume the shortest period Considering in TMP had a massive intruder on its way to Earth then taking a week to assign the Enterprise to intercept doesn't make too much sense. Starfleet either initiated the emergency immediately (and thus the clock starts ticking right after the Epsilon IX scene) or at most a few hours later given that they got real-time transmission to the Enterprise from Epsilon XI which eliminates any transmission delay excuses.

 

[blssdwlf]

That was weird. I replied to a post that wasn't there

 

[kkozoriz1]

First we see V'Ger in Klingon space.
Then we see Spock on Vulcan.
Spock can then leave for Earth before Kirk arrives at Starfleet.
Epsilon IX would have sent the information it got from it's sensor drone to Starfleet but it didn't have all the information yet. We don't find out how big the cloud is until the briefing on the Enterprise for example. We do know that it's on a heading for Earth and will pass into Federation space close to Epsilon IX. When it does pass, it's actually right on top of the station, not "fairly close". Obviously, V'Ger has changed course at some point before resuming it's heading for Earth. We also don't know how fast it was moving until Kirk says that it's less than three days away. Perhaps it's increased it's speed dramatically in the past week and Enterprise is the only ship that can intercept it since it would be flying straight toward it.

So, getting back to Earth-Vulcan. We know that Vulcan is ~16 light years from Earth, presumably meant to be 40 Eridani. (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Home_(episode)).

Scotty says "we can have you home in four days", presumably at the fastest sustainable cruising speed. We saw Enterprise cruising for days at warp seven in TMP. As it was previously established that warp six was it's previous maximum cruising speed it's not difficult to imagine that with the new engines, the maximum speed has been bumped up a bit. Even if they travel at a slightly slower speed, say warp 5 or 6, there's no reason to imagine it was that much slower.

In the latest movie we have a ship that's at least four years newer that the Enterprise Prime (we know the Enterprise existed as early as 2254 with it's mission to Talos IV and Rigel before that. We don't know how long it had been in service at that time. Spock served with Pike for eleven years, four months, and five days. It's possible that Pike was the Enterprises first captain and Spock had been on board since it's launch.) This NuEnterprise is much faster that what has been shown for even the refit despite being in service 12-15 years before the refit Enterprise.

If the trip to Vulcan in XI took more than a couple of hours, why would Chekov talk about things that occurred "yesterday" during his briefing and why would a mild sedative knock Kirk out for the better part of a day or even multiple days? The evidence is clear that XI takes place over a span of just a few days from the start of Kirk's disciplinary hearing to his promotion to Captain. There just isn't time for the trip to Vulcan and back to Earth to take more than a few hours.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The NX-01 reached Rigel (~750 light years distant!) and then Kronos in only a few days' journey from Earth at warp 5 in "Broken Bow". The TOS Enterprise covered 1,000 light years in a day at warp 8.7. The E-A reached the centre of the galaxy in no time at all. DS9 went from the station to Earth, Romulus and Ferenginar in hours, often by runabout. STXI's depiction of a 16 light year journey fits these really well.

There's far more evidence to refute Scotty's TMP line than there is to support it. Trek's use of warp speed has been massively inconsistant, but most of the evidence given over the years indicates it's very, very fast indeed, and far faster than 16 light years in four days.

Remember also that TMP insisted you can't go to warp in a solar system, something seen repeatedly and safely done in every other Trek series.

 

[kkozoriz1]

They actually said that they were going to risk going to warp while within the solar system. Seeing as it was the first time the engines were run at warp and what happened it sounds like a good thing to me. I would imagine that there's a test range somewhere out past Pluto for this very reason.

I agree that warp speed between different planets has been shown to be faster, however we are comparing two identical journeys, from Earth to Vulcan. Perhaps warp speed does vary with local conditions so a trip from Bajor to Vulcan or Earth would be achieved at a faster speed while still using the same warp factor. Comparing the times in TMP and XI allows us to compare identical trips, something we don't get a lot of.

Also, Broken Bow made it clear that Rigel wasn't the very distant star by that name since it's name was originally in Klingon and was translated into something that sounded very similar to Rigel.

 

[blssdwlf]

Comparing the times in TMP and XI allows us to compare identical trips, something we don't get a lot of.

The only catch of course is that in TMP's case, Scotty doesn't say we'll be going Warp 5 or 6 or anything. He just says 4 days after agreeing to a shakedown cruise. In XI's case we have no exact duration and no clear idea of what Warp speed they were at. Again, this makes it impossible to compare.

It's like saying Scotty will drive Spock back to his hometown from the city and Scotty says it'll take 4 hours. We don't know how far that is and we don't know fast Scotty intends to drive. (Thus we don't know how fast his car can really go.)

AFAIK, there are only a few points that are really comparable:

Easy:
"That Which Survives" - we have the Warp speed, the distance and the time.
"By Any Other Name" - we have the Warp speed, the distance and the time.

Guessable:
"Tomorrow is Yesterday" - we have the Warp speed, the distance and we can derive some of the time
"The Voyage Home" - we have some of the Warp speed, the distance and we can derive some of the time

Missing variables:
"Where No One Has Gone Before" (TNG) - we have the distance and the time. Missing is the warp speed.
"The Caretaker" ? (VOY) - we have the distance and the time. Missing is the warp speed.

Lotsa missing variables:
ST:XI - missing duration, missing warp speed and missing distance
TMP - (returning Spock home) we have duration, but missing Warp speed and missing distance
TMP - (Spock's shuttle flight) we can guess duration, but missing Warp speed and missing distance

 

[Timo]

Well put!

We don't know how far that is and we don't know fast Scotty intends to drive. (Thus we don't know how fast his car can really go.)

We can guess that Scotty's going to go to the extremes here, though. But we don't know if he'll go extremely fast, in order to impress Spock or indulge himself - or extremely slow, because the ship is untested and has already failed him once.

Easy:
"That Which Survives" - we have the Warp speed, the distance and the time.
"By Any Other Name" - we have the Warp speed, the distance and the time.

Downsides are that in the former, we don't really have the exact time, due to cuts in action - and in the latter, distance and time have such high values that we lose some resolution.

Guessable:
"Tomorrow is Yesterday" - we have the Warp speed, the distance and we can derive some of the time
"The Voyage Home" - we have some of the Warp speed, the distance and we can derive some of the time

The downside here being that we're now dealing with such low values of distance and time that we may again lose resolution, now to random fluctuation (such as "which side of the Sun or the Sol system did they start, and which side did they finish?").

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

The TOS Enterprise always left for the next mission at warp 2 or thereabouts. If the TMP ship followed on in this manner after V'ger, it would explain the journey time to Vulcan, compared to the couple of hours at maximum warp in STXI (which would appear to be warp 8, based on the speedometer at the top of the viewscreen being half-full at warp 4 on that bridge tour website thing)

 

[Timo]

When the ship first accelerates towards Vulcan, the innermost three segments of that speedometer thing brighten up before she hits warp one, leaving only the outermost three on each side dark before the camera finds more interesting angles to show. We never see the top of the viewscreen again when the ship is at warp, alas.

Perhaps the top thing changes modes after the ship hits warp one, starting anew at the center? In that case, if center represents warp 1, then there are just six segments to go on each side, suggesting a top speed of warp seven. OTOH, there are twelve little white notches at the very top of that graphic, possibly suggesting a top speed of warp 12 or warp 13.

As for Scotty's remark at the end of ST:TMP, it could be that the ship would be capable of traveling to Vulcan in two hours and twenty-two minutes - but only after completing the four-day shakedown cruise.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

I thought that there was no hurry to get to Vulcan, so they would be travelling closer to warp 4 than 7. Scotty is usually conservative.

 

[Mytran]

I reckon that while Scotty would naturally boast about his new bairns' speed capabilities given the chance, this was not one of those times - he knew they had a 4 day shakedown cruise to perform first.

 

[Wingsley]

At the tail-end of TMP, Kirk asks Scott if the newly refit Enterprise is due for "a proper shakedown". Shortly thereafter, Scott suggests to Spock that "we could have ya back on Vulcan in four days".

If you take these remarks consecutively, and infer an obvious link, there is the suggestion that the newly refit Enterprise is about to start a "shakedown" cruise, presumably with a mixture of low- and high-speed maneuvers, as well as M-5 war games-style mock battle/evasive maneuvers, interspersed with dead-stops and/or sublight coasts during downtimes for analysis of flight data and ship's engine/equipment recalibration to bring her up to her "ideal" condition. Such maneuvers would certainly include K-19-style combat and disaster drills to tests the abilities of both the ship and her crew.

Assuming all of this, it is logical to expect that during a "shakedown" cruise, Enterprise would not be traveling at strictly one given speed or in a straight line.

So "four days" could mean anything in terms of velocity. It should not be taken as an ironclad indication of how fast a newly refit starship can sprint from Earth to Vulcan.

 

[kkozoriz1]

I can drive you home. You live about 30 miles away. It'll take about an hour in city traffic but I'm going to go on vacation for a week first.

 

[Wingsley]

^ Right! Something like that!

 

[blssdwlf]

I can drive you home. You live about 30 miles away. It'll take about an hour in city traffic but I'm going to go on vacation for a week first.

Right, but I'm taking you on my vacation too!

 

[SicOne]

...how fast is the Vesta-class slipstream drive, then, in terms of Warp 9.999??? equivalent?

I asked this on the first page but no one ever answered; then again, I don't know how many of you are familiar with that class from the "Destiny" trilogy and recent Voyager books.