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I've always been puzzled by the speeds of space craft in Star Wars. The Millennium Falcon was said to travel at "point 5 beyond the speed of light" - which I guess is 1.5c:

HAN: She'll make point five beyond the speed of light. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've added some special modifications myself.

And it was said by Han Solo to be the fastest ship in the fleet.

HAN: Look. I want you to take her. I mean it. Take her. You need all the help you can get. She's the fastest ship in the fleet.

But at that speed it will take years to travel between solar systems.

Is this a mistake in the Star Wars universe?

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    Why the close votes? This is a good question, which has an interesting accepted answer pointing to retcons and even some justified guesswork about what the hyperdrive classes are.
    – Andres F.
    Feb 21, 2013 at 2:12
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    What fleet??! Han only owns one vessel, the Falcon. It has to be his fastest.
    – Oldcat
    Sep 10, 2015 at 0:41
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    Perhaps it's a logarithmic shorthand. Assume 1.0 is light-speed and 2.0 is infinite-speed, then 1.5 would be pretty-darn fast. Remember that this is a universe full of devise intelligent species, technology, and (thus) standars, so smugglers like Han using less-standard slang wouldn't be implausible. Also, I believe Star Trek uses a similar logarithmic 1-10 scale. Dec 27, 2015 at 8:05
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    Just divide the length of the Kessel run by 12 parsecs and you should be able to figure out its top speed, assuming you do physics like George Lucas...
    – corsiKa
    Feb 26, 2016 at 19:58
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    Clearly he was talking about the Millennium Falcon doing 1.5c without the use of its hyperdrive. Mar 22, 2017 at 18:53

8 Answers 8

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Yes. This is a mistake in the Star Wars universe. George Lucas had no understanding of space travel or physics. Which is why his starfighters swoop about the way World War II fighter planes did.

In modern explanation the "past lightspeed" bit has been retconned away. Instead there are the hyperdrive classes with a reverse scale. The higher the number the slower the ship. So a Class 1 hyperdrive is one of the fastest, but the Millennium Falcon has a 0.5 class hyperdrive. Twice as fast as a Class 1. Just how fast a Class 1 is is never really explained.

Though if you really want to go into it, get some of the role-playing books. They'll have charts for travel between star systems (and possibly distances). You may be able to figure out how fast a class 1 is supposed to be from that.

More information: Hyperdrive on Wikia

[edit] Okay this is a ridiculously rough calculation. I went and pulled out my old WEG RPG book and looked at the space travel section. It didn't have a map or distances or anything -- one of them does, but I don't have the time to find it now -- but it did make this statement:

Even with a well traveled hyperspace route the fastest ships, such as the Millennium Falcon, would take several months to traverse the whole diameter of the galaxy.

Elsewhere the Galaxy was quoted as being 120,000 light years in diameter. Using this we can make a really rough guess at how fast the Falcon is, and from that, what the classes really mean. So we'll assume "several" is 6 months. Using that we can find that a class 1/2 hyperdrive would travel at about 28 light years per hour. So a class one's speed is about 14 light years per hour.

I'll find that map and do a better one later. I'll note that the book does say that well traveled hyperspace routes, such as trade routes, can take significantly less time than less traveled routes. Why that would be, I dunno, but it hints that there is more going on to hyperspace than simply traveling faster than light. [/edit]

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    "George Lucas had no understanding of space travel or physics." Which also explains why the Falcon can make the Kessel Run in less than 3.702813098×10^14 km (aka twelve parsecs). Jan 31, 2011 at 0:59
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    More generally, Sci-fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale
    – Nick T
    Jan 31, 2011 at 3:00
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    They (tried to) explain away the parsecs = distance thing in one of the novels - the Falcon was fast enough to fly closer to a black hole cluster than any other ship, allowing it to cut distance. I can't recall if the reduced distance was supposed to be due to the more direct route or the gravitational effects of the black hole cluster, though.
    – Jeff
    Feb 3, 2011 at 22:04
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    To be fair, even Lucas knew that spaceships don't actually behave like fighters. He ignored that because he wanted that 30s-serial-movie feel. Deliberate artistic choice, not screwup like most of the SW physics.
    – Tynam
    Dec 6, 2011 at 15:17
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    I've always assumed that the "12 parsecs" line was a play by Han, trying to figure out how stupid Ben was so that he can decide whether to charge him extra.
    – gobernador
    Aug 10, 2012 at 14:40
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I've a strong dislike for the kind of EU retconning on display here - it can have a tendency to make something, which was a confusing enough mess to begin with, even more confusing and even messier. The script didn't say "0.5", it said "point five".

Let's assume that there's a scale of speeds beyond the speed of light. The Falcon is on the fifth point of that scale. It needn't be more complex than that.

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    This is the best answer of the lot. May 2, 2016 at 18:30
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I thought that comparing how fast a ship gets from point A to point B in the Star Wars universe was determined by how good their navi-computer was. (Not sure if I have the term navi-computer right. By that, I mean an computer for navigation (or astrogation if you like that term better).)

Apparently hyperspace has a vast network of routes and the better the navi-computer, the more efficient a route it took through hyperspace thus getting the ship to its destination faster.

I'm sure velocity is also important though. It seems to me the Millenium Falcon always seemed to be slower than pursuing star destroyers until it jumped to hyperspace. In the "A New Hope" Luke is alarmed at the rate the imperial cruisers were gaining on them as they fled Mos Eisley, for example. Even though in the Cantina Han Solo claims to have outrun imperial ships. (Not the local bulk cruisers, but the big Corellian ships ... just to clarify which ones.... :) )

To answer the question, I like to think the Falcon was a fast ship. Han Solo and Lando Calrisian seemed to think so, although every one else seemed to have never heard of it (Obi-Wan), thought it was a piece of junk (Luke), and offered to get out and push (Leia). I guess it depends on your point of view. (After all many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view....)

So I guess this is a pretty good question that is sure to offer many different perspectives!

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    While, I generally agree, remember the Falcon was escaping the effects of the planet's gravity while the destroyers were already clear of it (relatively) and the falcon would presumably need time to build up to full speed. Of course this doesnt address why the bulk cruisers were already up to that speed, but do we really want to open that can of bantha fodder? Feb 23, 2011 at 14:57
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    For the record, navicomputer is indeed the correct term, though in most EU books I see it rendered in one word. +1
    – The Fallen
    Jan 31, 2014 at 14:30
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    I've heard the navicomputer explanation before. It falls apart once you think about Han telling Lando to take the Falcon because she has the best Hyperdrive navigation in the fleet. Doesn't seem all that useful in a pitched space battle. But maybe when he boats she's "the fastest ship in the fleet" he's only referring to star fighters and other small, maneuverable vessels. The Falcon seems to keep up with TIE Fighters well enough.
    – Schwern
    Apr 6, 2015 at 15:37
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    As a note, the Falcon tends to have a high top sublight speed in video games, but take a while to accelerate up to it. Not necessarily canon, but it does lend credence to the "needs time to get to full speed" idea. Jun 15, 2019 at 17:20
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Star Wars uses a reverse scale. The lower the rating, the faster the ship. 0.5 is 2x as fast as an Imperial warship. The scale is asymptotic, with 0.0 being infinite speed, and higher numbers being slower. The next fastest ship is Boba Fett's Slave I, which had a class 0.7 hyperdrive.

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    To expand on that, the Imperial ships teknophilia mentioned are referred to as having a Class 1 hyperdrive. The Death Star had a Class 2 or 3 hyperdrive (if I recall correctly) and most civilian ships had relatively slow Class 4 or 5 drives.
    – Cajunluke
    Jan 30, 2011 at 16:13
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    Still doesn't explain the "past light speed bit". Jan 30, 2011 at 16:13
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    It looks like an error on part of the writers. Taken straight from Wookiepedia's "Lightspeed" entry: "Lightspeed was a slang term referring to the speed at which a starship traveled through hyperspace. In reality though, lightspeed, or traveling through hyperspace with a class 1.0 hyperdrive motivator was actually over one hundred million times faster than the speed of light, allowing a ship to cross the galaxy in a matter of days." Jan 30, 2011 at 16:23
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    His words could be taken to mean "Once you pass light speed by entering hyperspace, this ship will make time as well as a class 0.5 would" Jan 25, 2012 at 18:07
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    That isn't a reverse scale. A reverse scale would count down rather than up. It is a reciprocal scale.
    – Oldcat
    Sep 10, 2015 at 0:43
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I've always written it off as Han using anachronistic language. It's similar to how people my age still say they're going to "tape" a show on TV. Once a term gets into common usage, it often separates from its original meaning. So it's entirely conceivable that people might still call something "light speed" long after it has ceased to be an accurate description. And the "point five" may not be a simple decimal scale.

Also, I kind of get the idea from the cantina scene that Han isn't being entirely straightforward with what he perceives to be desert hicks --- throwing around jargon to impress them and drive up the price.

The result is that I'm not inclined to pick apart what Han says as a though he's giving a lecture on propulsion at space college.

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What most people fail to realize is that when making a movie, it is entirely possible that travel times between, say, Tatooine and Alderaan (or the Death Star, as it were in the fourth when Han made the comment referenced above) were much longer than they appeared in actual screen time. You don't question it when a movie skips over a plane trip over the Atlantic, even though that takes several hours. So maybe the Falcon did take a month or two to get from Tatooine to Alderaan and we just were not shown it. Now by all accounts I doubt it takes 6 months to cross the galaxy, probably more like 2 or three. Otherwise the timing would be very off on most of these events, but you do have to realize that Obi-Wan taught Luke a god bit about the force and a lightsaber on that first trip on the Falcon. So it's safe to assume that the travel speeds of the Falcon are more like 40-45 times the speed of light. This means that a class 1 hyperdrive probably goes about 20-25 and a class 4 more like 8-12. Still not as instant as shown in the movies, but that's just Hollywood for ya.

Also I would like to point out that these speeds put Star Wars warship speeds on a par with that of ships from other sci-fi series, such as the mass effect cores in Mass Effect (minus the use of mass relays) and the hyperdrives of the Stargate series.

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    This makes some more sense when you consider how much Obi Wan paid for passage aboard the Millennium Falcon. Luke was pretty aghast at the price Obi Wan wanted to pay, saying they could buy a ship for that much. If the trip only took a few hours, it would hardly seem reasonable to pay that much.
    – shim
    Mar 22, 2017 at 18:16
  • Not talking about shaving off a fraction of the trip by flying in a luxury high speed ship. The Millennium Falcon is a run down freighter in a galaxy full of starships and pilots. Here on Earth, planes are faster than say cars, and cost more, but planes cost a lot more to run and they have high demand with low supply. The economics of space travel in Star Wars are vastly different.
    – shim
    Mar 27, 2017 at 20:01
  • @shim Quite the opposite, I think. A faster trip is more expensive (does the defunct Concorde ring a bell?) Apr 13, 2020 at 17:25
  • My comment above already addresses your point.
    – shim
    Apr 13, 2020 at 17:28
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The Millennium Falcon goes 4,401 light-years per hour: The Kessel Run is 18 parsecs. Han Solo said he did it in 12. Maybe he meant 12 seconds, not 12 parsecs. A parsec is 3.26 light-years, so the Kessel Run is 58.68 light-years. Han's ship is twice the speed of a c1 hyperdrive (being c0.5), so a c1 hyperdrive can go 58.68 light-years in 24 seconds. 24 seconds×2.5 is 1 minute. 58.68×2.5 is 146.7 light-years. 146.7 L-Y/Min. Multiply by 60 to get 8,802 light-years per hour. 120,000/8,802= A c1 Hyperdrive can cross the Galaxy in 13 hours and 38 minutes. You can multiply 818 (Minutes) by whatever class the hyperdrive is to find how long it takes to go 120,000 light-years. Just a theory. Also, it says to go from Cornelia to Bespin it takes 7 or 8 hours with a c1 hyperdrive, and that's halfway across the galaxy, so my theory is one of the closest.

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    Welcome to SFFSE! Do you have any source as to where you get your specs of the Millenium Falcon from? Jul 19, 2015 at 4:47
  • Your math looks good to me, and seems to agree with most of the other peices of canon that others are quoting here. 👏 Dec 27, 2015 at 8:25
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Or, he could be talking about the sublight drive. Star Wars ships have a sublight drive, which is the regular engines, and a hyperdrive which is lightspeed. But, he was saying she'll make point five past lightspeed, which doesn't seem like much, unless the Falcon has been retrofitted with an illegal sublight drive that goes .5 faster than the speed of light.

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    A sublight drive that faster than the speed of light might be illegal, but it would certainly be self-contradictory.
    – Blackwood
    Aug 25, 2016 at 20:12
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    How can "sublight" be faster than light? Aug 25, 2016 at 20:54

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