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Impulse drive appears to have
little respect for traditional physics as understood today. It provides
extraordinary accelerations, although extraordinary maneuverability is
not established. Interestingly enough, impulse appears sometimes to be
an FTL drive.
Season 1: "The Naked Now" -
Any stellar debris from a red giant about to collapse all the way into
a white dwarf could be outrun at "half impulse."
Season 2: In "Loud as a Whisper," half impulse is described as a
velocity, rather than an acceleration.
Season 3: "Deja Q" - we have an "asteroidal moon" which the Enterprise
imparts 92 m/s of delta v to in a short order with its tractor beam;
needed is 4 km/s, which may theoretically be created by routing 147% of
safe impulse power through the tractor beam for 29 hours. Unfortunately,
it is the tractor beam circuits cannot handle this quantity, limiting
its use for impulse engine analysis. The warp field is used to reduce
the mass to 2.5 million tons. Dividing across, this suggests the
original mass of the moon to be ~110 million tons, which would place the
average force of the tractor beam over time as being no more than 4.16
billion newtons at 1.47 times normal impulse power to the tractor beam
in the original estimate; however, we may also recall that the moon is
very rapidly decaying into a collision orbit. At the most, this fast
orbital decay represents a free falling mass at a radius of 7000
kilometers from an approximately Earth sized planet, which at an
effective tonnage of 2.5 million tons, would experience a gravitational
force of 224 billion newtons. GCS impulse engines therefore can exert a
total force of at least 4.16-228 giganewtons, and can communicate a
total realspace impulse of at least 435 trillion kgm/s. In "Allegiance,"
we see a close inspection orbit of a pulsar at 20 million kilometers.
Acceleration must therefore exceed 1.44 m/s2.
The Borg, after dropping out of warp, crossed from Jupiter to Earth in
an estimated 27 minutes. The Enterprise exits by Saturn, with an
intended 23:14 intercept of the Borg vessel. Initial velocity is
unknown, but it is reasonable to conclude that neither vessel was on
track to overshoot Earth, and we may assume that the Borg vessel. Given
Newton's equations of motion and the orbital dynamics of Earth, Jupiter,
and Saturn, this would translate to roughly to 49-144,000g for the Borg cube and 134-331,000g for the Galaxy class starship.
Unfortunately, this would involve speeds well beyond that of light.
In realistic (e.g., Einsteinian) terms, the time given to target at
impulse appears faster than c
in terms of average velocity: Saturn does not cross within 25 light
minutes of Earth. This is mildly troubling, although possible from a
dilated frame of reference, as in aboard a spaceship moving close to
light speed. In order for time aboard the Enterprise to be sufficiently
compressed to take 23:14 from Saturn to Earth, the average speed would
be 0.95c or higher. Modeling the
relativistic motion in detail, we arrive at an impulse per second that
insists on the decidedly impolite range of something times 107-8
m/s2.
Season 4: The energy blobs of "Galaxy's Child." Detected moving at 2
million kilometers with sensors that are having "trouble getting clear
readings past four thousand kilometers," they have an ETA of 10 minutes,
31 seconds, for an estimated velocity of 3,170 kilometers per second. If
this course intercept, cited as being "at their current speed," refers
to a constant acceleration intercept with the stationary Enterprise,
then the blobs would have used an acceleration of 1024-2048g. "Night Terrors" sees the
Enterprise using Bussard collectors while stationary, collecting a great
deal of hydrogen and spitting it out for two minutes. "In Theory" -
shuttles are more maneuverable than GCS. Inertial compensation is an
absolute necessity at 0.1 impulse; this suggests somewhere greater than
50g for full impulse. Nacelles
are used for impulse power, and shuttles have thrusters.
Season 5: In "The First Duty," Wesley and his flight teammates were
flying close maneuvers at 80,000 kph (including sharp turns) when an
accident happened. Being able to alter vector from 80,000 kph in one
direction to 80,000 kph in a perpendicular direction in 1-10 seconds
requires 450-4500 gees of acceleration. In "Relics," the Enterprise is
orbiting 150,000 km outside a sun in a 200,000,000 km diameter Dyson
sphere. 60% impulse power will get them out in 1 minute 40 seconds; this
suggests FTL travel.
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