Технологии «Звёздного пути»: от фантастики к реальности.

Overview of the technology available in the fictional universe of Star Trek

The fictional technology in Star Trek has borrowed many ideas from the scientific world. Episodes often contain technologies named after or inspired by real world scientific concepts, such as tachyon beams, baryon sweeps, quantum slipstream drives, and photon torpedoes. Some of the technologies created for the Star Trek universe were done so out of financial necessity. For instance, the transporter was created because the limited budget of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) in the 1960s did not allow expensive shots of spaceships landing on planets. Discovery Channel Magazine stated that cloaking devices, faster than light travel, and dematerialized transport were only dreams at the time TOS was made, but physicist Michio Kaku believes all these things are possible. William Shatner, who portrayed James T. Kirk in TOS, believes this as well, and went on to co write the book I'm Working on That, in which he investigates how Star Trek technology is becoming feasible.

In the Star Trek fictional universe, subspace is a feature of space time that facilitates faster than light transit, in the form of interstellar travel or the transmission of information. Faster than light warp drive travel via subspace obeys different laws of physics. The name "subspace" has also been adopted and used in other fictional settings, such as the Stargate franchise, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, the Bobiverse series, and Descent: Freespace. Narratively, it plays a similar role to the hyperspace that appears in Star Wars and other works of science fiction. In most Star Trek series, subspace communications are a means to establish nearly instantaneous contact with people who are light years away. The physics of Star Trek describes infinite speed (expressed as "warp factor 10") as an impossibility; as such, even subspace communications which travel at speeds over Warp 9.9 may take hours or weeks to reach certain destinations. One exception to this impossibility was in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Threshold" where Lt. Paris breaks the Warp 10 barrier. In the Star Trek universe subspace signals do not degrade with the square of the distance as do other methods of communication utilizing conventional bands of the electromagnetic spectrum (i. e. radio waves), so signals sent from a great distance can be expected to reach their destination at a predictable time and with little relative degradation (barring any random subspace interference or spatial anomalies). In the Star Trek franchise, subspace communications have a limit of just over 20 light years before they must be boosted, although this limitation has been ignored in several storylines.

Warp drive is one of the fundamental features of the Star Trek franchise; in the first pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, "The Cage", it is referred to as a "hyperdrive", with Captain Pike stating the speed to reach planet TalosIV as "time warp, factor 7". When beginning to explain travel times to the illusion survivors (before being interrupted by the sight of Vina), crew member Jose Tyler stated that "the time barrier's been broken", allowing a group of interstellar travelers to return to Earth far sooner than would have otherwise been possible. Later in the pilot, when Spock is faced with the only action of escaping, he announces to the crew they have no choice but to leave, stating "Our time warp factor " before the ship's systems start failing. In the second pilot for The Original Series, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", time was dropped from the speed setting with Kirk ordering speeds in the simple "ahead warp factor one" that became familiar from then on.

The basic functional principle of the warp drive in Star Trek is the same for all spaceships. It was originally conceived of by a strong energy source, usually called a warp core or sometimes intermix chamber, generates a high energy plasma. This plasma is transported to warp field generators via lines that are reminiscent of pipes. These generators are effectively coils in warp nacelles protruding from the spaceship. The warp nacelles generate a subspace field, the warp field or a warp bubble, which distort space time and propels the bubble and spaceship in the bubble forward. That is similar to the Alcubierre drive, but with some exceptions as the maintenance of sub light velocity and inertia. This means that a spaceship does not come to a complete standstill after the warp flight, but that superluminal and subluminal speeds flow directly into one another. It is also possible to ram another object at warp speed that is outside the warp bubble. This necessitates the existence of fictional deflector shields that protect the spacecraft from damage from collisions with interstellar dust particles and asteroids. The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "By Inferno's Light" indicates that flying at warp speed inside a planetary system is not recommended. The warp core can be designed in various forms. Humans and most of the other fictional races use a moderated reaction of antideuterium and deuterium with Dilithium. The Romulans, however, use artificial micro black holes called quantum singularities.

For Star Trek: The Next Generation and the subsequent series, Star Trek artist Michael Okuda drew up a new warp scale and devised a formula based on the original one but with an important difference: In the half open interval from 9to 10, the exponentw increases toward infinity. Thus, in the Okuda scale, warp velocities approach warp 10 asymptotically. According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual there is no exact formula for this interval because the quoted velocities are based on a hand drawn curve; what can be said is that at velocities greater than warp 9, the form of the warp function changes because of an increase in the exponent of the warp factorw. Due to the resultant increase in the derivative, even minor changes in the warp factor eventually correspond to a greater than exponential change in velocity. Warp factor 10 was set as an unattainable maximum of a theoretical infinite speed, at which an object would occupy all points in the universe simultaneously (according to the new scale, reaching or exceeding warp 10 required an infinite amount of energy). This is described in Star Trek Technical Manuals as "Eugene's limit", in homage to creator/producer Gene Roddenberry. As stated in the collection Star Trek Fact Files, no ship, including highly developed ships like the Borg cube, may exceed warp factor 9.99 with their normal warp drive. To achieve higher speeds, the use of transwarp technology is required.

In the book Star Trek Encyclopedia and the compilation Star Trek Fact Files, some warp velocities are given directly. For comparison, the following table shows these values and also the calculated speeds of the original warp scale, the calculated speeds of a simplified Okuda scale and some canonical reference values for warp speeds from onscreen sources. Warpfactor Warp scale from Encyclopediadirectly given values(Michael Okuda) Cubic warp scale(Franz Joseph) Revised warp scale(Michael Okuda) Onscreen Reference (Canon)(Multiple of speed of light) 1 1× 1× 1× 2 10× 8× 10× In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Dead Stop", it is said that Enterprise would take about a decade (10 years) to travel 130 light years at warp2. Thus warp2 corresponds to about 13 times the speed of light. 3 39× 27× 39× In Star Trek: The Next Generation "The Most Toys" (S3:E22, at 35:38) the crew of Enterprise D discovers that the android Data may have been stolen while on board another ship the Jovis. At this point the Jovis, which has a maximum warp factor of 3, has had a 23 hour head start, which Ensign Crusher's calculation puts her anywhere within a 0.102 light year radius of her last known position. Thus, warp3 is 38.875 times the speed of light. 4 102× 64× 102× In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Resolutions", it is said that a Voyager shuttle would need about 700 years of flight time for a 70,000 light year journey back to Earth. It follows that warp4, the stated maximum speed of the shuttle, is about 100 times the speed of light. In the movie Star Trek Beyond it is stated that the USS Franklin (NX 326) was the first Earth ship who was capable of warp 4. Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg): "This is the USS Franklin, sir, can you believe it? First Earth ship capable of warp 4." It is unclear when the Franklin was first launched but it is speculated to be between 2145 and 2151. 4.5 150× 91× 150× In the Star Trek: Enterprise pilot "Broken Bow", Commander Tucker states "warp 4.5 next Thursday", to which Captain Archer responds "Neptune and back in six minutes". The distance from Earth to Neptune varies all the time as both planets orbit the Sun, however the average distance between the two is around 30.63 au (4.58 billion km) and 29.76 au (4.45 billion km) average 4.52 billion km. Therefore, a round trip of 9.04 billion km in six minutes would imply that warp 4.5 is about 84 times the speed of light. 5 213× 125× 213× In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "The Expanse", Captain Archer says the flight to the Delphic Expanse is equivalent to a three month trip. Upon arrival of the Enterprise, the distance to Earth is given as 50 light years. Thus, warp5, the maximum speed of the Enterprise, corresponds to about 200 times the speed of light. 6 392× 216× 392× 7 656× 343× 656× In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "E²", the Enterprise will fly through an 11.6 light year long subspace corridor for a meeting with Degra. However, the Enterprise is thrown 117 years into the past. As the older Enterprise encounters their younger counterpart (to warn them), Captain Lorian suggests modifying the warp drive so that the younger Enterprise can briefly reach warp factor 6.9 and cover this distance in about two days without using the corridor. Thus, warp 6.9 corresponds to about 2117 times the speed of light. In the Star Trek: Discovery episode "New Eden" (S2:E2), Commander Michael Burnham says a signal "is in the Beta Quadrant, 51,450 light years away," to which Captain Christopher Pike replies, "at top speed that would take us 150 years to get that far," indicating the maximum speed of the Discovery is 343 times the speed of light (51,450 light years / 150 years). That corresponds to warp7 of the original warp scale. 8 1024× 512× 1024× 9 1516× 729× 1516× In the episode Bloodlines from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Riker claims that the Enterprise would need around 20 minutes for a 300 billion kilometer flight at warp9. Thus warp9 corresponds to a speed of 900 billion kilometers per hour (= 250 million kilometers per second) or about 830 times the speed of light. 9.9 21,400x 970× 2083× In the episode "The 37's" from the Star Trek: Voyager series warp 9.9 is directly mentioned in a dialog with four billion miles per second (6.4 billion kilometers per second), which is around 21,400 times faster than the speed of light. 10 Infinitevelocity 1000× 2154×In the episode "Threshold", Tom Paris breaks the warp 10 threshold, but travel beyond the threshold is later discovered to be unacceptably hazardous to biological life. In the episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" the Traveler's modifications to the Enterprise D's propulsion system allowed the Enterprise to travel 2.7 million light years from the Milky Way Galaxy to M 33, effectively blowing past several smaller galaxies, in a few minutes, which according to La Forge, was off the charts, surpassing Warp 10 of the known scale. According to the Technical Manual the authors estimated the speed of this episode at warp factor 9.9999999996. Upon further modification, the Enterprise D was thrown over a billion light years into an uncharted place in the universe in a matter of seconds with a warp factor that is, according to Data, no greater than 1.5. 11 Beyondscale 1331× 2960× In episode "The Changeling" the Enterprise briefly reached warp factor 11, as a result of Nomad's "correction of inefficiencies" in the antimatter control system. In the episode "By Any Other Name" the Kelvans modified the Enterprise engines for greater sustained speed of warp factor 11 to travel from the Milky Way Galaxy to the Andromeda Galaxy. 12 1728× 3956× 13 2197× 5166× In the alternative future depicted in "All Good Things ", the series finale of The Next Generation, the "future" Enterprise D travels at warp 13, perhaps as a result of another reconfiguration of the warp scale. 14 2744× 6613× At one point in "That Which Survives" the Enterprise traveled at a warp factor of 14.1. 15 3375× 8323× 18.56 6395× 16928× According to Gene Roddenberry's first concept script Star Trek is , the original Enterprise had a maximum speed of 0.73 light years per hour, which is about 6395 times the speed of light. This corresponds with warp factor 18.56 of the cubic scale.