Warp field question

[jaspertjie]

I don't need many words to explain this, so I'll just throw it out in the open.
I was asking myself, is it possible to accelerate something to Warp speed while on a planet's surface? And if so, wouldn't you just blow everything around you to shreds, maybe even atoms... we're talking about bending space here. And even then, the vibrations of the ship accelerating... if you even accelerate to Warp one, meaning 1 times the speed of light (300.000 km/sec.)... Wow, you would break the sound barrier by about 3600 times (if my calculations are correct). That causes a LOT of vibration, you know...

 

[timelord1010]

I might be wrong, but in Trek 4 The Voyage Home the Bird of Prey goes to warp in Earth's atmosphere.
In reality there would be alot of problems if you could travel faster than light. If you had unlimited power to propel your ship it would be ripped apart and any payload or human crew would be crushed unless you had a inertial dampener like in Trek. Also the atmosphere would create drag and heat up the vehicle up if you tried to do this in the atmosphere.
I think if destruction is what you want you could do what Riker was going to do to the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds and warp into a planet.

 

[C.E. Evans]

IMO, warp field sizes are flexible. In most cases, they're fairly close to a ship's hull and have little impact on anything around them (which would explain how the Klingon Bird of Prey could go to warp within Earth's atmosphere). But then I think they could also be expanded to deliberately interact with something close by (such as one case in which--ironically--another Klingon Bird of Prey went to warp next to a star and caused a solar flare that destroyed another vessel).

 

[blssdwlf]

If the ship is going to accelerate to Warp 1 in the atmosphere, most likely it will clear the way with the navigational deflectors so it won't be contacting the atmosphere in it's path. Maybe the deflectors push through the flight path before going to warp will create a sonic boom?

 

[jaspertjie]

If the ship is going to accelerate to Warp 1 in the atmosphere, most likely it will clear the way with the navigational deflectors so it won't be contacting the atmosphere in it's path. Maybe the deflectors push through the flight path before going to warp will create a sonic boom?

I think you are talking about what will happen to the ship, not what surrounds it. The sonic boom will most likely shatter everything around the place where the ship goes to warp, just by the rapid acceleration.

 

[blssdwlf]

If the ship is going to accelerate to Warp 1 in the atmosphere, most likely it will clear the way with the navigational deflectors so it won't be contacting the atmosphere in it's path. Maybe the deflectors push through the flight path before going to warp will create a sonic boom?

I think you are talking about what will happen to the ship, not what surrounds it. The sonic boom will most likely shatter everything around the place where the ship goes to warp, just by the rapid acceleration.

Probably things nearby, yes. But consider that the ship's nav deflectors are actively pushing the air out of its way (perhaps significantly forward of the flight path) that it could be a kinda quiet sonic boom. It would be very similar to the Quiet Spike technology where the sonic boom is shaped by the spike preceding the vehicle, lessening the boom to a rumble. Imagine a very long invisible spike (the nav deflector) preceding the ship prior accelerating to warp. The ship would basically be flying through the vacuum tunnel generated by the nav deflector.

We could also look to The Voyage Home, the Klingon BOP accelerated to warp with no major disruption to the atmosphere suggesting that the problem of warping through atmosphere isn't a problem.

Of course the warp field could be expanded out to cause all sorts of other effects on the environment. And things in the path of the nav deflector would be in danger as they would get knocked aside quite abruptly

 

[SWHouston]

With the Deflectors opening up an avenue, just how long are we talking about. If they really punched it, would there even be enough time for the Air to heat up sufficiently to do damage. I can see the surroundings being at more risk if at all.

Have a good Day !
S.W.

 

[Mytran]

There's also the issue of exactly how fast the BOP was travelling once it jumped to warp within the atmosphere - it takes at least 2 minutes 10 seconds of screen time to go from sea level to space - light speed that ain't!

 

[PrimeDirective]

There's also the issue of exactly how fast the BOP was travelling once it jumped to warp within the atmosphere - it takes at least 2 minutes 10 seconds of screen time to go from sea level to space - light speed that ain't!

I was under the impression that no ship could go to warp within or close to a planet's atmosphere, due to the massive damage that warping the planet's space would cause. From what I've seen so far in Star Trek concerning planets, an M-Class and most other planets' atmospheres are too delicate to survive a starship going to warp inisde them. Can you imagine the devestation a warp field would cause to a planet's ecosystems?

 

[Unicron]

It's been suggested at times that warping close to planets or within a solar system can cause bad environmental effects, but it's one of those things that's often ignored when convenient. We saw the E-D warp away directly from planets in TNG sometimes, for example. But the concept of the warp field being dangerous in this manner is certainly interesting.

 

[blssdwlf]

There's also the issue of exactly how fast the BOP was travelling once it jumped to warp within the atmosphere - it takes at least 2 minutes 10 seconds of screen time to go from sea level to space - light speed that ain't!

You got me interested in re-watching that sequence and sure enough from the time they jump into warp while in the atmosphere and then 2 minutes later we see them above the earth and moving away at a dialogue speed of "Warp 7.5"... that it sorta looked like they were trying to pull a Superman and circled around the planet to gain speed!

Maybe the real reason it took so long was because Scotty replaced the twitchy klingon antimatter injector with a star fleet carburetor

 

[PrimeDirective]

There's also the issue of exactly how fast the BOP was travelling once it jumped to warp within the atmosphere - it takes at least 2 minutes 10 seconds of screen time to go from sea level to space - light speed that ain't!

You got me interested in re-watching that sequence and sure enough from the time they jump into warp while in the atmosphere and then 2 minutes later we see them above the earth and moving away at a dialogue speed of "Warp 7.5"... that it sorta looked like they were trying to pull a Superman and circled around the planet to gain speed!

Maybe the real reason it took so long was because Scotty replaced the twitchy klingon antimatter injector with a star fleet carburetor

Wouldn't impulse power be enough to get a starship to break a planet's gravitational hold? Impulse power is using ionic propulsion.

 

[sojourner]

Impulse power IS NOT using "ionic propulsion". In fact, it has never been quantified on screen and therefore there is no canon reference for what exactly impulse power is.

 

[PrimeDirective]

Impulse power IS NOT using "ionic propulsion". In fact, it has never been quantified on screen and therefore there is no canon reference for what exactly impulse power is.

I wasn't drawing from in-universe sources to make my statement, but from current understanding of outerspace propulsion; I'm talking about ion propulsion. If scientists say that that kind of propulsion is possible, then why couldn't they be used to move a starship through space?

 

[SWHouston]

I thought that Impulse Drive was a reaction from a Fusion Generator, creating Plasma, which could be directed.
Or, is Wiki A wrong ?

 

[Mytran]

Doesn't W-A use the technical manuals as a source of canon? If so, their description may be accurate, depending on where you draw the line!

Nice to see they've finally allowed for FTL impulse though

 

[sojourner]

Impulse power IS NOT using "ionic propulsion". In fact, it has never been quantified on screen and therefore there is no canon reference for what exactly impulse power is.

I wasn't drawing from in-universe sources to make my statement, but from current understanding of outerspace propulsion; I'm talking about ion propulsion. If scientists say that that kind of propulsion is possible, then why couldn't they be used to move a starship through space?

Ion drives (ionic propulsion is not the same thing) are high impulse, not high thrust. Something the size of a starship would take months/years to break orbit using current technology. The still in development VASIMR may lead to a drive with both high impulse and high thrust.

 

[PrimeDirective]

Impulse power IS NOT using "ionic propulsion". In fact, it has never been quantified on screen and therefore there is no canon reference for what exactly impulse power is.

I wasn't drawing from in-universe sources to make my statement, but from current understanding of outerspace propulsion; I'm talking about ion propulsion. If scientists say that that kind of propulsion is possible, then why couldn't they be used to move a starship through space?

Ion drives (ionic propulsion is not the same thing) are high impulse, not high thrust. Something the size of a starship would take months/years to break orbit using current technology. The still in development VASIMR may lead to a drive with both high impulse and high thrust.

I was just thinking about how current understanding of Ion propulsion could evolve in the future, and be used on starships. Thanks for making me aware of the VASMIR program; I'll look more into it It wouldn't take a vessel months/years to break orbit, the space shuttle's propulsion system does it in a couple of minutes. Future propulsion systems would make the current time seem like a snail who's taken slow potion.

 

[sojourner]

I wasn't drawing from in-universe sources to make my statement, but from current understanding of outerspace propulsion; I'm talking about ion propulsion. If scientists say that that kind of propulsion is possible, then why couldn't they be used to move a starship through space?

Ion drives (ionic propulsion is not the same thing) are high impulse, not high thrust. Something the size of a starship would take months/years to break orbit using current technology. The still in development VASIMR may lead to a drive with both high impulse and high thrust.

I was just thinking about how current understanding of Ion propulsion could evolve in the future, and be used on starships. Thanks for making me aware of the VASMIR program; I'll look more into it It wouldn't take a vessel months/years to break orbit, the space shuttle's propulsion system does it in a couple of minutes. Future propulsion systems would make the current time seem like a snail who's taken slow potion.

The space shuttle has NEVER left earth orbit, it cannot even make it out of low earth orbit to high orbit. Your comparison is invalid.

In reference to months/years to break orbit I was referring to a large ship like Enterprise trying to do it with Ion drives. Do not take my comments out of context.

 

[PrimeDirective]

Ion drives (ionic propulsion is not the same thing) are high impulse, not high thrust. Something the size of a starship would take months/years to break orbit using current technology. The still in development VASIMR may lead to a drive with both high impulse and high thrust.

I was just thinking about how current understanding of Ion propulsion could evolve in the future, and be used on starships. Thanks for making me aware of the VASMIR program; I'll look more into it It wouldn't take a vessel months/years to break orbit, the space shuttle's propulsion system does it in a couple of minutes. Future propulsion systems would make the current time seem like a snail who's taken slow potion.

The space shuttle has NEVER left earth orbit, it cannot even make it out of low earth orbit to high orbit. Your comparison is invalid.

In reference to months/years to break orbit I was referring to a large ship like Enterprise trying to do it with Ion drives. Do not take my comments out of context.

Then how do astronauts get into space, by a magic pony ride? Lol. Of course the shuttle itself is not capable of breaking the planet's orbit, that's why it's on two giant rocket boosters. Regarding the future of propulsion, you never know what's going to be possible