Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really ?

[JirinPanthosa]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

The PD is something that's usually referenced as something starfleet officers pledge to uphold. But other than False Profits we don't see Starfleet going around attacking Ferengi vessels who trade with prewarp civilizations.

The one time we get an idea how hard it is to privately own your own warp capable vessel is a few DS9 Quark episodes. In Little Green Men, Quark feels like it's a major luxury he could have never been able to afford. In Magnificent Ferengi, none of them feel it's even possible they will be able to get a ship, so much so that Quark is willing to invite the man who destroyed him out of spite.

You have to be independently wealthy to even get a small transport ship. One that can travel high warp speeds and defend itself from anyone looking to rob, kill or assimilate them, you'd have to be extremely wealthy. All the Ferengi we saw with big ships in TNG were probably employees of large companies.

In terms of Federation citizens, you'd pretty much have to leave the Federation to be able to attain that level of wealth in the first place. And those that do, and who want to make a lot of money, would probably do a risk/reward analysis and find it's just not worth it. So the only people left would be the few who are both insanely wealthy and have God fantasies.

 

[Timo]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

own your own warp capable vessel is a few DS9 Quark episodes. In Little Green Men, Quark feels like it's a major luxury he could have never been able to afford.

Yet his cousin owns a personal moon, setting some real standards.

Quark's Treasure is a superfast craft, able to "outrun a Romulan interceptor", whatever that means. Owning her may be a privilege, but it doesn't follow that owning a tub like the one the Grand Nagus uses for flying about in "Prophet Motive" would be a privilege.

In Magnificent Ferengi, none of them feel it's even possible they will be able to get a ship

...In time. They are a posse. Quark as an entrepreneur has owners of interstellar freighters wrapped around his lobes. Quark as a posse member has hard time with everything: securing hand weapons and reliable partners, devising a plan, keeping order. But that's just because he isn't a professional posse member.

So the only people left would be the few who are both insanely wealthy and have God fantasies.

You really think Harry Mudd, Leo Walsh and Cyrano Jones fall in that category? Even Carter Winston sounded like a modestly nice guy who just happened to fly his own spacecraft - yes, he's wealthy, but he's Richard Branson wealthy, and Branson owning and flying a private plane is no measure of his true wealth and influence.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

But the kind of planes most people own are just internal combustion engines like we have in other vehicles. Pretty commonplace tech for our age. We don't assume just anyone can own & operate their own fusion reactor, which is the tech most comparable to a warp field, imho. Even many people aboard the Ent-D wouldn't be capable of managing one of their own, unless specifically trained to do so. Right?

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

Even many people aboard the Ent-D wouldn't be capable of managing one of their own, unless specifically trained to do so. Right?

I would imagine that a private civilian warp drive would be more self contained and automated, than the engines we see in large Starfleet vessels.

It would be like the difference between the engines of a large luxury yacht, and the jet turbine engines of a naval destroyer. They could achieve the same top speeds.

But the destroyer would have more acceleration, maneuverability and be battle-harden. Because it's more dynamic it requires more maintenance and more people. The yacht does need maintenance, but far less, and not need a dedicated engine crew.

It might take a star-yacht an hour to build up to top speed and any turns would be wide sweeping ones. A civilian explorer could have similar performance. A civilian merchant starship the size of the Enterprise could take multiple hours to reach cruising speed, turns nearly as long.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

and the governing body of the Federation.

If the governing body cannot govern its own directives, what use is it? The Council must be able to vote down the PD, in part or in whole

I didn't mean to suggest that the Council couldn't administer and alter the PD, but rather that the PD would be a restriction upon the Federation's politicians, officials, bureaucracy and various janitorial personnel.

Starfleet too.

 

[wulfio]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

Out of curiosity, how many people here know how to fix their car? If you blew something in the engine would you just fix it, or call a service?

There's starbases all over the federation, much like mechanic shops, or small airfields around the western world.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

But the kind of planes most people own are just internal combustion engines like we have in other vehicles. Pretty commonplace tech for our age. We don't assume just anyone can own & operate their own fusion reactor, which is the tech most comparable to a warp field, imho. Even many people aboard the Ent-D wouldn't be capable of managing one of their own, unless specifically trained to do so. Right?

Actually, there is a thriving hobbyist community for people who build and operate their own fusion reactors. If you're not using fission in the process, there generally aren't any regulated substances involved - hydrogen is everywhere.

I think, though, that the reason what you're saying still works is that that is where your analogy breaks down - dilithium probably IS a regulated substance, and so is anti-matter, I'd imagine. It's just that your analogy might have worked better had you said fission reactor.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

Out of curiosity, how many people here know how to fix their car? If you blew something in the engine would you just fix it, or call a service?

There's starbases all over the federation, much like mechanic shops, or small airfields around the western world.

Out of curiousity, how many people live in places where having to wait five minutes for a tow truck could result in you freezing, suffocating or decombusting to death? Starship travel is lot more dangerous than driving a car (just in terms of the travel itself - obviously sharing the road with reckless drivers causes a huge spike in traffic deaths in pretty much all significantly inhabited areas). Even if you can afford a ship, you'd have to be a very 'special' kind of person to actually want to fly around in it all the time without either at least a solid understanding of basic warp mechanics/starship design, or a decent engineer.

 

[Timo]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

I'm not sure those nightmare scenarios would apply. If a warp drive blows, there probably isn't time to worry about it. If it just quits, life support can still be assumed to be robust - we're always seeing these millennia-old derelicts with perfectly well working life support, after all. It might take more than five minutes to wait for help to arrive, but probably no more than a couple of days.

Except if you ventured to really distant space. But that holds true for automobile, boat or aircraft excursions today as well. 99% of the users wouldn't have to worry about such things.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

I suppose it does depend what series you're looking at. But I would conjecture that if Harry Mudd can afford to produce an personal robot harem army he's probably fairly well off.

The guy in Final Mission had his own ship but it was a clunker kept together with the 24th century equivalent of duck tape. So maybe, if you're a fairly successful merchant, you can get an old crappy ship on the verge of falling apart.

 

[Timo]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

Poor Harry got the androids by accident; his businesses in "Women" (before) and "Passion" (after) were rather clearly in the peanut gallery.

And the very existence of "clunker" starcraft already tells volumes about how common private interstellar travel might be!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[wulfio]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

Out of curiosity, how many people here know how to fix their car? If you blew something in the engine would you just fix it, or call a service?

There's starbases all over the federation, much like mechanic shops, or small airfields around the western world.

Out of curiousity, how many people live in places where having to wait five minutes for a tow truck could result in you freezing, suffocating or decombusting to death? Starship travel is lot more dangerous than driving a car (just in terms of the travel itself - obviously sharing the road with reckless drivers causes a huge spike in traffic deaths in pretty much all significantly inhabited areas). Even if you can afford a ship, you'd have to be a very 'special' kind of person to actually want to fly around in it all the time without either at least a solid understanding of basic warp mechanics/starship design, or a decent engineer.

Easy there, wrangle in the teenage attitude. I was asking a question because people were scrutinizing owning and operating a ship. Stating that since people can't fix it, they wouldn't have one. Yet most people can't fix a car or airplane but still operate one.

If your plane breaks down in flight, you're likely dead, there's no sky tows you can call in the couple minutes or so during the free fall... At least in space they could drift with minimal life support and send out distress calls. And in federation space, there will be responders readily available, that would get there in time based on established cannon. Warp ships seem safer than airplanes. And then based on all the idiots on the roads, they are way safer than cars.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

I'm not sure those nightmare scenarios would apply. If a warp drive blows, there probably isn't time to worry about it. If it just quits, life support can still be assumed to be robust - we're always seeing these millennia-old derelicts with perfectly well working life support, after all. It might take more than five minutes to wait for help to arrive, but probably no more than a couple of days.

Except if you ventured to really distant space. But that holds true for automobile, boat or aircraft excursions today as well. 99% of the users wouldn't have to worry about such things.

Timo Saloniemi

Assuming you can even send out a distress signal. How many times did we see people lose communications?

Also, Life support without a working engine has to run on some kind of battery. Maybe it can last a few days. Maybe not. Probably depends on the ship.

Out of curiousity, how many times did we actually see anyone operating their own ship who clearly didn't know anything about engineering? I can't think of all the different characters off the top of my head, and not all of them were even put into a situation where we could actually know one way or the other, but I seem to recall many different civilians making actual adjustments and repairs to their ships themselves.

Out of curiosity, how many people here know how to fix their car? If you blew something in the engine would you just fix it, or call a service?

There's starbases all over the federation, much like mechanic shops, or small airfields around the western world.

Out of curiousity, how many people live in places where having to wait five minutes for a tow truck could result in you freezing, suffocating or decombusting to death? Starship travel is lot more dangerous than driving a car (just in terms of the travel itself - obviously sharing the road with reckless drivers causes a huge spike in traffic deaths in pretty much all significantly inhabited areas). Even if you can afford a ship, you'd have to be a very 'special' kind of person to actually want to fly around in it all the time without either at least a solid understanding of basic warp mechanics/starship design, or a decent engineer.

Easy there, wrangle in the teenage attitude. I was asking a question because people were scrutinizing owning and operating a ship. Stating that since people can't fix it, they wouldn't have one. Yet most people can't fix a car or airplane but still operate one.

If your plane breaks down in flight, you're likely dead, there's no sky tows you can call in the couple minutes or so during the free fall... At least in space they could drift with minimal life support and send out distress calls. And in federation space, there will be responders readily available, that would get there in time based on established cannon. Warp ships seem safer than airplanes. And then based on all the idiots on the roads, they are way safer than cars.

If your plane breaks down, then you either land it or you don't. Due to the necessity of lift, there's not much opportunity for trying to fix it yourself midair, so it makes sense that not everyone will necessarily learn how. I think most private planes, however, do carry parachutes, lifejackets and/or emergency provisions for emergencies.

If your starship breaks down, an engineer (or engineering knowledge) of some kind is the most basic emergency provision. You can wait for Starfleet, and judging by the series, they may have a very good chance of making it on time. Assuming they ever hear you at all. Assuming whatever happened to your ship is reasonably stable and not getting worse.

People can accept the risk of an airplane fairly easily because there's just not really any way around it. What goes up must come down. With a starship, anything that doesn't instantly blow you up will give you some time to fix it, but it is imperative that it be fixed asap. Waiting for help should pretty much always be the last option.

 

[Mojochi]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

But the kind of planes most people own are just internal combustion engines like we have in other vehicles. Pretty commonplace tech for our age. We don't assume just anyone can own & operate their own fusion reactor, which is the tech most comparable to a warp field, imho. Even many people aboard the Ent-D wouldn't be capable of managing one of their own, unless specifically trained to do so. Right?

Actually, there is a thriving hobbyist community for people who build and operate their own fusion reactors. If you're not using fission in the process, there generally aren't any regulated substances involved - hydrogen is everywhere.

I think, though, that the reason what you're saying still works is that that is where your analogy breaks down - dilithium probably IS a regulated substance, and so is anti-matter, I'd imagine. It's just that your analogy might have worked better had you said fission reactor.

Crap... that's what I meant.

Anyway, yeah, considering people went to great lengths to steal the waste byproduct from the 1701-D because it can be weaponized, I'd imagine they'd regulate

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

If a warp drive blows, there probably isn't time to worry about it.

Starfleet vessels, certainly the ones we see, routinely push their systems beyond their safety limits.

A civilian vessel might not be capable of having their safeties over ridden. Your safe cruising speed is all you're going to get.

 

[MacLeod]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

The thing about safety limits is that you factor in an additonal safety factor. The manual might say the safe operating range for something is X, but it will actually be X+Y. To allow for engineering tolerances and people pushing the limit.

As with a reapir estimate you would know how long the job should take and add a bit more to allow for unforseen factors.

 

[Misfit Toy]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

Easy there, wrangle in the teenage attitude.

Leave the personal shots OUT of your responses, please.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a licensing exam for civilian ships just like for cars or airplanes in the real world. This licensing exam would include basic safety procedures, like how to eject the warp core in an emergency, how to properly activate the escape pod and its distress beacon.

 

[wulfio]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

If your plane breaks down, then you either land it or you don't. Due to the necessity of lift, there's not much opportunity for trying to fix it yourself midair, so it makes sense that not everyone will necessarily learn how. I think most private planes, however, do carry parachutes, lifejackets and/or emergency provisions for emergencies.

People can accept the risk of an airplane fairly easily because there's just not really any way around it. What goes up must come down. With a starship, anything that doesn't instantly blow you up will give you some time to fix it, but it is imperative that it be fixed asap. Waiting for help should pretty much always be the last option.

It's not ideal to wait of course you're right. But at least there's the option, and like a parachute, you have escape pods. Unlike in a Connie, if your engine dies at max altitude you're not coming in for a soft landing. I can't tell if you're just elaborating, disagreeing or both though.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Re: Just how common is interstellar travel in the 24th century, really

Also if you have just 10-15 seconds of warning before the explosion, I'd bet all ships have to be equipped with escape pods with distress beacons to be allowed to leave port. Also merchant ships and passenger ships probably register their flight path and their expected arrival time, so anybody who makes it to the escape pod and is on their expected flight path is probably going to be rescued.

It's only the people venturing out on their own in uncharted space who really need to be able to fix the engine on their own.