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If a ship, say the U.S.S Enterprise, were to travel from Earth to Mars for a mission or something how long would it take? Minutes? Hours? Is there an estimate as to how long space voyages usually take in Star Trek?

Null
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Fingolfin
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3 Answers3

17

The Enterprise D's maximum speed is warp 9.8. This is equivalent to around 1,015,313,576,887mph

Given that Mars is typically around 140,000,000 miles from the Earth, that means that the Enterprise could (if they were monumentally stupid enough to do an in-system warp jump) reach Mars in substantially less than one second.

That all being said, the fastest we ever see a ship traveling at sublight speeds is half-impulse (half the speed of light). That means that a realistic journey would be around 10 minutes, depending on the amount of time it takes to get your luggage through security.

Valorum
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  • even at warp 1 the trip would only take between 3 and 22 minutes – KutuluMike Jan 26 '16 at 01:35
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    @MikeEdenfield - Pfft. Warp 1 is for losers. Pedal to the metal, Mr Crusher. Engage!! – Valorum Jan 26 '16 at 01:36
  • I don't have a copy handy at the moment, but IIRC the ST Technical manual actually has a table of speed->time taken to reach the moon. Might be interesting to ratio that out a bit and see if it corresponds... – Jon Clements Jan 26 '16 at 01:43
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    WARP FACTOR 9.6: 1.28 trillion mph / 1,909 x speed of light / Earth to moon: 0.000704502 seconds / Across solar system: 21 seconds / Between 2 nearby stars: 23 hours / Across 1 sector: 4 days / Across Federation: 5 years / Across entire galaxy: 52 years / To nearby galaxy: 1,048 years / Notes: maximum rated speed can be maintained for 12 hours" – Valorum Jan 26 '16 at 01:48
  • Didn't the warp speed scale change after Kirk's time? Excelsior was supposed to be transwarp, after all. – Zeiss Ikon Aug 24 '22 at 18:06
  • I feel that there aren't enough significant digits in the mph value. At least you did say "around". – Organic Marble Aug 24 '22 at 18:07
  • @ZeissIkon - This is the Enterprise D, using the modern warp scale – Valorum Aug 24 '22 at 18:07
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    @OrganicMarble - I was just marvelling at my own precision when you posted that comment. And also chuckling at my joke – Valorum Aug 24 '22 at 18:08
  • Then there's something off in the conversions. 1.28 trillion mph is only about one parsec per hour. Then again, Enterprise (any version) sometimes flies at the speed of plot... – Zeiss Ikon Aug 24 '22 at 18:09
  • @ZeissIkon - Aye. And I've just realised that Mars isn't typically 249 million miles, it's that distance when it's in opposition. But the conversion still holds. Less than a second at high warp and a matter of minutes at sublight – Valorum Aug 24 '22 at 18:11
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Due to revisions to the warp speed scale over the decades of Star Trek production, this would vary at maximum speeds. There is, however, a general agreement that Warp 1 is equal to the speed of light, and for our purposes, that is fast enough.

At their closest, Earth and Mars are 225 million kilometers apart, which is equal to 12.5 light minutes, making the journey from Earth to Mars, if a straight line course was possible, twelve and a half minutes at Warp 1. At their furthest, they are 22.3 light minutes apart, leading to a journey something in excess of 23 minutes apart; a direct course is impossible at that point, as the sun lies along a straight line between Earth and Mars at that point.

Complicating factors include: limitations (inconsistently expressed on screen) to use of Warp Drive within a solar system, likelihood of traffic throughout the solar system, the need to avoid collision en route, and the fact that no on-screen version of The Enterprise has been limited to Warp 1. As Richard points out, at maximum warp, the journey would be nearly instantaneous.

Politank-Z
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Warp factors are a matter of scale the old TOS factor was cubed (Third power) so Warp 1 was light speed and warp 2 was 8x the speed of light. Mars is 200 million miles from Earth at it's farthest, 36 million at it's closest. So at Warp 2 they could arrive at Mars at it's closest from Earth in 24 seconds.

LazyReader
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