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How do ships fly in Star Trek?

How do ships fly in Star Trek?

Warp drive in Star Trek works by annihilating matter (in the form of deuterium, a kind of hydrogen gas) and antimatter in a fusion reaction mediated by dilithium crystals. This produces the enormous power required to warp space-time and drive the ship faster than light.

How fast is impulse power?

The impulse engines have a required acceleration of 10 kilometers per second per second, which is just over a thousand g’s. Wow. It would take almost two hours and 1.6 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun! That’s the same mass as 337 Empire State Buildings.

How fast is impulse speed TNG?

about one-quarter light speed
Full impulse speed is about one-quarter light speed, sufficient for interplanetary travel. Aboard Federation starships, fusion reactors power the engines using deuterium fuel to create helium plasma.

What does Dilithium do?

Dilithium is a precious crystal used in tactical warp drives. It is semi-permeable to both deuterium and anti-deuterium, and provides a natural chamber for a controlled matter-antimatter reaction, focusing the energy so it can be harnessed and used for power.

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What if we had a Star Trek-like propulsion?

“Star Trek”-like propulsion remains a key problem. Fans are familiar with the warp drive, which accelerated the ship faster than the speed of light and allowed its crew to zip between stars. Such travel defies our present understanding of physics.

Why do Star Trek ships use impulse power?

However, there’s not always a reason to use warp drive, and so, sometimes the ships in Star Trek use impulse power to go at sub-light speed. What is Impulse Drive?

How realistic are the ships in Star Trek?

The ships in the other sci-fi series were more realistic about how space travel works. A realistic ship would be rectangular shaped rather than round because of how artificial gravity works in space. It is also more realistic to travel slower than the speed of light using a Bussard ramjet like the ship Red Dwarf had.

How does the warp drive work in Star Trek?

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Warp drive in Star Trek works by annihilating matter (in the form of deuterium, a kind of hydrogen gas) and antimatter in a fusion reaction mediated by dilithium crystals. This produces the enormous power required to warp space-time and drive the ship faster than light. The Evolution of ‘Star Trek’ (Infographic)