Timeline for How fast can impulse drive propel a ship?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
26 events
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 9:31 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Jul 16, 2015 at 9:24 | answer | added | Jaydee | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jul 16, 2015 at 9:20 | history | protected | AncientSwordRage♦ | ||
| Jul 16, 2015 at 9:10 | answer | added | Grandswiss | timeline score: -1 | |
| Mar 25, 2015 at 21:50 | answer | added | M. A. Golding | timeline score: -3 | |
| Feb 3, 2015 at 13:25 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @Pureferret - I understood "half impulse" meant "one half of maximum impulse", but my point was that although I (and bitmask) thought it would seem more natural to treat these as fractions of some maximum acceleration, it seems from the lines of dialogue above that the are fractions of some maximum impulse velocity. This just seems a little weird to me since in space, there's no friction or air resistance to keep you from going faster and faster as long as you have fuel to burn, but I guess "maximum impulse" could be more like a self-imposed rule than a limit of the impulse engines. | |
| Feb 3, 2015 at 8:53 | comment | added | AncientSwordRage♦ | @hypnosifl I believe that's a variation on 'a' half (as oppossed too two halves, three halves etc) . Compare it with one hundred vs a hundred, the former is numerically 100 not 101. | |
| Feb 3, 2015 at 0:54 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @bitmask - I also think it would make more sense if "half impulse", "quarter impulse" etc. referred to fractions of some maximum acceleration that could be provided by the impulse drive, but doing a google search for "impulse" and site:chakoteya.net there do seem to be lines that contradict this idea, like in the TNG episodes "Loud as a Whisper" where Wesley says "Reducing velocity to one half impulse", and "Timescape" where Geordi says "We'll have to limit our maneuvering speed to one half impulse". | |
| Feb 3, 2015 at 0:39 | history | edited | Hypnosifl |
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| Jan 25, 2015 at 5:16 | comment | added | Anthony X | I'm quite sure that there was a bit of dialog (order and response) in one TNG episode which implied that the Enterprise D could travel FTL on impulse. At the time I thought it was a bit of bad writing - an attempt to make the Enterprise D seem really impressive at the expense of canon. | |
| Apr 23, 2014 at 21:34 | answer | added | anoxm | timeline score: 8 | |
| Dec 10, 2012 at 22:53 | vote | accept | AncientSwordRage♦ | ||
| Sep 15, 2012 at 20:01 | answer | added | aramis | timeline score: 12 | |
| Sep 6, 2012 at 13:05 | comment | added | Chad | @KiethThompson I seem to recall data saying they were at .99 the speed of light but some unknown alien entity was pulling away. | |
| Sep 6, 2012 at 13:02 | comment | added | Chad | @Pureferret - Yes that is how inertia works... However the interial dampeners that allow the enterprise to make high g maneuvers with out being torn apart and sustain accelleration that would at least incapacitate(due to being stuck to your chair or the wall) or even cause black out(10G will black out even most fighter pilots) will steal some of that ability to maintain speed. Which is why they need to maintain thrust... I guess it is a good thing energy is cheap in the future. | |
| Sep 6, 2012 at 2:26 | comment | added | Gorchestopher H | My impression was that impulse drives were always required to move. The warp drives creates the warped space field, but you still need to move through that warped field, so you use your impulse drive. Moving at some factor of impulse to me meant that they simply hadn't engaged the warp drive. | |
| Sep 6, 2012 at 0:28 | comment | added | Keith Thompson | The original series gives the impression that they use impulse to accelerate up to (nearly) the speed of light, and then warp to go faster (warp 1 being the speed of light). Which doesn't make much physical sense, since without some wibbly-wobbly spacey-wacey stuff it would take infinite energy to approach light speed. In Elaan of Troyius, they traveled from one planet to another at "sublight factor .037". I believe the first explicit use of "warp" for sublight speed was in The Motion Picture, when Kirk ordered "Ahead warp point five". | |
| Sep 5, 2012 at 23:10 | comment | added | NominSim | It would have to be limited at some point to avoid relativistic effects. | |
| Sep 5, 2012 at 22:51 | history | edited | AncientSwordRage♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 5, 2012 at 22:50 | comment | added | Izkata | @bitmask Yep, "impulse speed" doesn't sound familiar at all. I can recall "impulse drive" and "impulse power" from the series, though. | |
| Sep 5, 2012 at 22:35 | comment | added | bitmask | In space any propulsion would translate to an acceleration, not a constant speed. Anything that could brake the ship is most likely negligible, so the whole concept of "impulse speed" doesn't make literal sense. It makes more sense to call it "impulse acceleration". The resulting speed should therefore increase linearly with time (classically). Typical suspension of disbelieve is in place. | |
| Sep 5, 2012 at 21:01 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackSciFi/status/243453803033133056 | ||
| Sep 5, 2012 at 20:42 | comment | added | Gorchestopher H | My understanding was that "impulse speed" was whatever maximum speed could be obtained by a ship's available impulse drives (fusion reactor pushing out plasma). It is always sub-light speed, and it is likely different for every ship (size, number of drives, etc.). | |
| Sep 5, 2012 at 20:39 | comment | added | AncientSwordRage♦ |
@Chad It would mean no theoretical maximum speed besides c, as that is an acceleration.
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| Sep 5, 2012 at 20:10 | comment | added | Chad | I do not have my tech readout handy but I seem to recall a maximum 20g accelleration under Impulse on the NC1701-B. Though I do not know if that is canon. I also do not know what that would make the maximum speed though. | |
| Sep 5, 2012 at 19:34 | history | asked | AncientSwordRage♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |