Warp speed

If the enterprise would be right around our sun, how long would it take for her to travel to pluto (assuming its in a straight line) at warp 1, 2, 3, etc.?
thanks

-Mith

In ST:TOS, warp numbers were the square root of the multiple of the speed of light: Warp 1 = c Warp 2 - 4c Warp 8 = 64c I think there was a top limit of Warp 9 or 10.

In ST:TNG, they recalibrated the scale.

From Th Star Trek Encyclopedia, page 556
From Earth to Moon

Standard Orbit - 42 hours

Full Impulse (1/4 light speed) - 5.38 seconds

Warp 1 - 1.34 seconds

Warp 2 - 0.13 Seconds

Warp 3 - 0.03 seconds

Warp 4 - 0.01 seconds

Warp 5 - 0.006291 seconds

Warp 6 - 0.003426 seconds

Warp 7 - 0.002050 seconds

Warp 8 - 0.001313 seconds

Warp 9 - 0.000887 seconds

Warp 9.9999 (theoretical fastest in Trek Universe) - 0.000007 seconds

The official fan-based FAQ on Star Trek warp velocities.

Long story short:

[li] In ST:TOS, warp X is X cubed times the speed of light (not squared). So warp 8 = 512c.[/li]
[li]In ST:TNG, warp X is X to the 3.3333… power times the speed of light for all warp speeds up to Warp 9. So warp 8 = 1024c.[/li]
In ST:TNG, warp speeds above Warp 9 have a hodge-podge “scale” that asymptotically approaches infinite velocity at Warp 10. There is no official formula for it, and a few quoted warp speeds in the 9.X range contradict one another.

Warp 9.999 is also the speed of subspace communications.

Warp 10 is infinitely fast on the (revised) Warp scale. It is attainable via Transwarp, though.
The Earth to Moon figures for based on a distance of 400,000 kilometers, btw.

hahah tahts great and all, but it didnt really answer my question :stuck_out_tongue:

Dude, once you know what the warp speeds represent in terms of real-world velocities, you should be able to do the math yourself.

And don’t tell me you can’t look up the distance to Pluto. :stuck_out_tongue:

Now for Across the Solar System (12,000,000 kilometers) :

Standard Orbit - 142 years

Full Impulse - 44 hours

Warp 1 - 11 hours

Warp 2 - 1 hour

Warp 3 - 17 minutes

Warp 4 - 7 minutes

Warp 5 - 3 minutes

Warp 6 - 2 minutes

Warp 7 - 1 minute

Warp 8 - 39 seconds

Warp 9 - 26 seconds

Warp 9.9999 - 0.2 seconds

Across 5 Light Years:

Full Impulse - 20 years (duh)

Warp 1 - 5 years

Warp 2 - 6 months

Warp 3 - 2 months

Warp 4 - 18 days

Warp 5 - 9 days

Warp 6 - 5 days

Warp 7 - 3 days

Warp 8 - 2 days

Warp 9 - 1 day

Warp 9.9999 - 13 minutes

You can see that real time conversation between Star Fleet headquarters and NCC-1701D would be impossible, though we saw it all the time.

Also, Trek ships usually remain at impulse speeds with systems, unless there is some emergency or other pressing need (like TV film crews on site). :smiley:

12 million kilometers is across Sol system? That doesn’t seem right. :confused:

What was Okuda basing that figure on?

Of course, the OP didn’t specify which Enterprise was making this journey.

If it was the NCC-1701-D or NCC-1701-E, then the travel times would be as NoClueBoy* says.

If it was the old NCC-1701, then the travel times would be slightly longer, because it used the ST:TOS warp speed scale.

If it was the modern naval aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise, then the travel times would be a lot longer because aircraft carriers can’t travel at warp speed. In fact, they can’t travel in space at all. (Unless you count the Yamato and its wave-motion gun, but that was more of a battleship than an aircraft carrier anyway.)

And Okuda screwed up in his Across Sol system distance.

Here are some distance values.

1 A.U. = 1.495X10[sup]8[/sup] kilometers
More Solar System numbers.

What if it was the Enterprise-J? Huh? Well? :stuck_out_tongue:

I think by the time we get a series that shows the Enterprise-J, even hard-core fans will be saying “Well, they’ve milked this premise to death.”

That was a reference to this week’s Enterprise episode where Daniels, the time traveller, talked to Archer and revealed the existance of the E-J sometime in the 27th Century.

Then, of course, you have to consider the Cochrane constant of the space in which you are travelling. I’ve seen this proposed as the “fudge factor” for all those times that the stated warp speed just didn’t make sense.

For example, Kirk rarely seemed to travel faster than warp 2 or 3, unless in a pursuit-type situation. This would translate to between-star travel times measured in months or years.

Thus, the Cochrane constant… a figure which measures the ease with which space will permit warp travel. A sensible navigator will plot courses through known high-Cochrane zones, to get more effective speed out of a given warp setting, and will ignore a pompous captain’s off-the-cuff speed commands.

Interesting concept…is that from the show, or the tech. manuals?

The manuals. It definitely isn’t canon.

I thought Starfleet’s communication equipment was based on wormhole technology, allowing instantaneous travel of the waves containing Enterprise communication.

There was something about how they hadn’t yet figured out how to transport matter through these stable wormholes, which was why the Ent. still had to use warp and so on.

Don’t ask me where I read/heard/saw that.

The warp limit is warp 9.9