Warp Speed Comparison

let's do a maximum warp race between all the major series Star Trek ships I realized that I didn't really have a good understanding of just how fast each ship was going so the enterprise-d goes warp nine point six and the voyager goes warp nine point nine seven five and I guess the voyager is faster but how much faster it's really hard to picture this stuff so I put together some comparisons we'll be comparing the speed of light which is warp one next comes the NX oh one Enterprise which has a maximum warp speed of five point two which translates roughly to 140 times the speed of light then we have the 1701 Enterprise at warp eight 512 times the speed of light skipping ahead to the next generation the enterprise D now TNG uses a new warp speed scale at this scale its maximum warp speed of nine point six translates to 1909 times the speed of light Deep Space nine staff ient has a class seven warp drive which is rated for warp nine point five exceptionally powerful for a ship its size but slightly slower than the enterprise-d clocking in at one thousand eight hundred and forty-one times the speed of light the voyager represents a significant technological leap and warp speeds its class nine warp drive propels it to warp nine point nine seven five which is four thousand three hundred and fifty four times the speed of light and finally it let's look at the enterprise e there's no solid specs on its maximum warp speed some say warp nine point seven some say warp nine point nine eight five and some say warp nine point nine nine five warp nine point seven felt a little slow to me and nine point nine nine five seems a little fast so let's go with nine point nine eight five now I know there are plenty of examples of these ships going considerably faster than they're supposed at maximum warp speeds but I'm not going to deal with anomalies or alien enhanced engines or how fast the ship can theoretically go but with significant damage or danger to the ship I'm going for its maximum warp speed as it would appear in the manual for each ship so let's come up with a test here I've chosen to race these ships from Earth's orbit to the edge of interstellar space that's roughly 123 astronomical units 123 times the distance between Earth in the Sun that's some and point four billion miles are eighteen point three billion kilometers so the first line is Earth's orbit and the last line is the beginning of interstellar space and here are the orbits of the gas giants in our solar system for reference the ships won't be the scale of course but their speeds will play out in real time ready engage the enterprise e'en Voyager tear through the course leaving all the other ships in the dust but the enterprise-d and the Defiant are still going pretty dang fast compared to the 1701 and the NX o1 now when I first ran this test I was thinking man these ships aren't really that fast are they but looking at light there it's barely five million miles into the journey but remember that's also light speed light is crazy fast and even the NX o one which looks like it's barely moving is going over 100 times as fast still the NX o1 and the 1701 are taking a while they would take roughly seven minutes and two minutes respectively to finish light would take 17 hours to make this journey now I don't think we got a really good look at the NX of 1 and the 1701 so I set up a test just for them we're going to race from Earth to Jupiter with light the NX 0 1 the NCC 1701 and well we'll throw on the enterprise D for fun engage the NX still feels a little slow here just goes to show what 100 years of warp drive development can do and there's our little beam of light still struggling to keep up it would take light over 40 minutes to make this journey well that's it for now let me know if there are other comparisons you'd like me to make and also let me know if I've missed anything or made any mistakes and make sure to ask if you want clarification on my methods thanks for watching liking commenting and sharing this video with your friends and I'll see you next time

Channel: EC Henry

Views: 3,034,579

Rating: 4.8999362 out of 5

Keywords: star trek analysis, star trek, warp speed, warp speed analysis, warp speed comparison

Id: iSyfpUyzQGU

Length: 4min 7sec (247 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 07 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/ReenenLaurie]

Really gives perspective on how big space really is. (even just "local" space)

[u/BigJ76]

Love videos like this. Really puts it in perspective when you see the ships at warp on a chart like that

[u/omenmedia]

Cool, really shows just how big space is. It always bothered me in First Contact how they were patrolling the Neutral Zone, and Picard then sets a course for "Earth, maximum warp." Even at 9.975 it's still going to take a heck of a long time, right?

[u/ImmaculateJones]

I believe the Enterprise D went through significant Warp drive upgrades over the years, and I thought it reached a maximum velocity of 9.975 at the end of the series.

[u/Alteran195]

Very interesting video.

Hearing Voyager referred to as the Voyager is always weird sounding to me.

[u/knightcrusader]

In "The 37's", when Amelia Earhart asked Tom how fast Voyager could go, he responded "Warp 9.9... in your terms that's about... 4 billion miles a second".

So.... 4,000,000,000 mps / 186282 speed of light mps = 21472.82x speed of light.

Which means Voyager could have made it home in 4 years. Sounds like he's an order of magnitude off. Of course, he could have been just throwing out a number cause he really didn't know the conversion factor of kilometers to miles.

[u/sisko4]

Technically correct or otherwise, I think this is a great video and should be required watching for anyone writing a Startrek episode (hint hint CBS).

[u/[deleted]]

Arent they snails compared to a star destroyer though?

[u/ApostleofV8]

Isnt it mostly moves along speed of plot? In a TNG episode, I think the E-D is trapped in another galaxy, the original unchanged E-D could maintain a speed that will cross delta-quad in 3 months... never mind Voyager.