# Warp speed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 5, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638 "2004-03-05T03:39:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Methos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Methos)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/1 "2004-03-05T03:39:42Z")
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
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/2 "2004-03-05T03:44:04Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/3 "2004-03-05T03:53:33Z")
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
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/4 "2004-03-05T03:53:38Z")
[The official fan-based FAQ on _Star Trek_ warp velocities](http://www.calormen.com/Star_Trek/FAQs/warp_velocities-faq.htm).
Long story short:
[li] In ST:TOS, warp X is X **cubed** times the speed of light (not squared). So warp 8 = 512_c_.[/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 = 1024_c_.[/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.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/5 "2004-03-05T03:56:42Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Methos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Methos)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/6 "2004-03-05T03:57:28Z")
hahah tahts great and all, but it didnt really answer my question 😛
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/7 "2004-03-05T04:05:12Z")
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. 😛
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/8 "2004-03-05T04:06:30Z")
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). 😃
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/9 "2004-03-05T04:12:53Z")
12 million kilometers is across Sol system? That doesn’t seem right. 😕
What was Okuda basing that figure on?
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/10 "2004-03-05T04:13:46Z")
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.)
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/11 "2004-03-05T04:20:52Z")
And Okuda screwed up in his Across Sol system distance.
[Here are some distance values.](http://www.panoptikum.net/sonnensystem/solarsystem.htm)
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/12 "2004-03-05T04:28:49Z")
[1 A.U. = 1.495X10[sup]8[/sup] kilometers](http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/~gbd/lectures/astronomy5/img5.htm)
[More Solar System numbers.](http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/ceps/etp/ss/ss_planetdata.html)
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/13 "2004-03-05T09:05:53Z")
> [@tracer](#):
>
> 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.)
What if it was the Enterprise-J? Huh? Well? 😛
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/14 "2004-03-05T12:26:19Z")
> [@Aesiron](#):
>
> What if it was the Enterprise-J? Huh? Well? 😛
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.”
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/15 "2004-03-05T19:14:04Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Vlad\_Dracul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vlad_Dracul)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/16 "2004-03-05T23:31:24Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2004, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/17 "2004-03-06T04:57:40Z")
> [@Vlad Dracul](#):
>
> 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?
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2004, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/18 "2004-03-06T07:02:18Z")
The manuals. It definitely isn’t canon.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/19 "2004-03-06T15:40:55Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#):
>
> 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). 😃
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.
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### Author:  [@I\_wish\_I\_knew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_wish_I_knew)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2004, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-speed/232638/20 "2004-03-06T15:48:10Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> 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.
The warp limit is warp 9.9
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