posted
The other night I began to wonder: "How fast do some of these ships in Trek actually accelerate?" Not knowing, I figured it would be a safe bet to refer myself to my handy tech manual. So, off I went, looking high and low for it. Early in the search, I realized I sold them back to the book store.
DOH!
So, I am forced to ask for help on this matter.
If anyone could be helpful enough to list for me the acceleration of say, the Galaxy class, Defiant Class, and the Intrepid (if any is known at all), I thank you.
If anyone could be helpful enough to list for me the acceleration of say, the Galaxy class, Defiant Class, and the Intrepid (if any is known at all), I thank you.
Well, the TNG:TM lists the Galaxy Class acceleration as something on the order of 10,000 m/s^2 . . . or around a thousand g.
We hardly ever see any representation of awe-inspiring acceleration of such a calibre . . . though some have mentioned the Enterprise in ST:TMP after leaving dock, the "Kumeh Maneuver" in "Peak Performance"(TNG), and a few other examples.
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posted
Something I've always wondered is why the impulse drive can't push a ship to near the speed of light. If you keep adding delta v (acceleration), shouldn't the speed reached only be limited by the light-speed limit? Why should "full impulse" be only 1/4 c (or whatever)? Does impulse rely on some sort of warp field/relativistic mumbo jumbo?
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
The TNGTM says that the ships are limited to 1/4c in order to avoid the problem of time dilation. The Enterprise-D can actually make 0.96c or so.
posted
Hmm, if I remember right, I think it said int he original tech manual that you could accelerate a ship to Warp velocities (since impulse is really just a miniature warp field...sorta) using impulse. But why the "top speed" is .96c, I dunno. I always thought the speed would be exponential.
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Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Well, the idea mentioned is that .25c is generally where they stop accelerating so as to avoid the untidy time dilation effects inherent in traveling near lightspeed in realspace.
(That's not technobabble . . . that's physics.)
Impulse engines are non-Newtonian, though, insofar as they use a small subspace field generator (spacetime driver coil) of below 1000 milliCochranes to give the ship an extra kick and better fuel efficiency.
A subspace field of better than 1000 milliCochranes is necessary for superluminal flight.
(That's not physics . . . that's technobabble.)
Also, it prevents the entire rear-facing area of the ship from having to be a big frickin' sublight engine, like you see on Star Wars Star Destroyers.
(At one point many presumed that the impulse engines provided forward thrust at warp speed, with the warp engines merely providing the continuum distortion effect . . . an episode of Next Gen added to this presumption, when Picard ordered an increase to warp six and Geordi replied "Aye, sir, full impulse". However, the tech-deities that be seem to have settled on the notion that the warp drive's continuum distortion effect is selectively created against the fabric of spacetime to cause the ship to have the necessary acceleration.)
posted
Which is a good conclusion to come to. After all, Kirk was happily flying at warp speeds in TOS "Obsession", while his impulse engines were down for repairs. Those repairs in fact were the reason the gaseous monster was able to enter the otherwise airtight ship: some sort of a vent had been left open in the impulse engines. (I assume there was a semipermeable forcefield or film in place there, to prevent the air from leaking out...)
I gather that there could be physical reasons for not attaining lightspeed even through a non-Newtonian type of acceleration. There might simply be an interstellar medium that creates a drag proportional to some positive power of speed, so at some point the drag becomes too much for any ship to defy. The drag might be "real", from interstellar gases or something, or "technobabble", from a subspace ether of some sort.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Which is a good conclusion to come to. After all, Kirk was happily flying at warp speeds in TOS "Obsession", while his impulse engines were down for repairs. Those repairs in fact were the reason the gaseous monster was able to enter the otherwise airtight ship: some sort of a vent had been left open in the impulse engines. (I assume there was a semipermeable forcefield or film in place there, to prevent the air from leaking out...)
Quite true! (I never got in on that debate . . . I was fairly fresh on the scene when the TNG TM came out, and was quite starstruck with all things spoken by technodeities Sternbach and Okuda.)
quote:I gather that there could be physical reasons for not attaining lightspeed even through a non-Newtonian type of acceleration. There might simply be an interstellar medium that creates a drag proportional to some positive power of speed, so at some point the drag becomes too much for any ship to defy. The drag might be "real", from interstellar gases or something, or "technobabble", from a subspace ether of some sort.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, short of making the spacetime driver coils have more than 1000 milliCochrane field distortion (thereby making them warp engines anyway), there would always come a point at which Newton and Einstein would catch up to you.
Even if I can achieve distortion up to 999.99999999999999 milliCochranes, I'll still never hit lightspeed because of that last wee little bit missing . . . my mass will still approach infinity . . . it'll just take longer.
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
quote:Originally posted by Timo: There might simply be an interstellar medium that creates a drag proportional to some positive power of speed, so at some point the drag becomes too much for any ship to defy. The drag might be "real", from interstellar gases or something, or "technobabble", from a subspace ether of some sort.
What was the TNG episode where they were trapped in a nebula & there was a major drag problem? FGC-47, I think it was..."Imaghinary Friend," I believe.
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posted
Would someone please tell me where in the heck that .96c came from? The TM says .75 for maximum impulse.
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