Star Trek Enterprise Tested to Mach 5

Sporkinum writes "University of Queensland Laser Diagnostics Dept has a page where they put the Enterprise through the gauntlet in a mach 5 wind tunnel. It did surprisingly well."

Re:Eh?

[kalidasa]

Mach 1 at sea level is 0.0000001135 c. Warp 1 is conventionally assumed to be c.

Re:Eh?

[proj_2501]

Warp 1 is stated to be c in both the TOS and TNG warp scales in the Star Trek TNG Technical Manual.

After that the warp scales are two divergent wacky exponential sawtooth things.

Atmospheric Rentry Mistatement

[Jedi Holocron]

But the Enterprise isn't designed to enter an atmosphere??

Very true!

Very wrong! The saucer section of the Enterprise was designed for rentry and planetside landing.

Okay, now I've shown my colors...forgive me.

Re:Atmospheric Rentry Mistatement

[cduffy]

Wasn't that the E, or otherwise one of the later models, where that feature was introduced? It's the original Enterprise they're testing here.

Truly trek geeky

[iamsure]

The truly trek geeky apparently arent here.

Plenty of people are asking why they tested the atmospheric effects, when enterprise never goes there.

In fact it did, in multiple episodes, and in multiple movies.

Star Trek 4, multiple TOS episodes, and of course plenty of times in the TNG (granted different design, but still).

The enterprise wasnt designed for it, but its definitely a valid question and test - it's occured more than a few times.

Re:Atmospheric Rentry Mistatement

[Rogue974]

Actually (and this how how much of a geek I really am) if you reference the early Star Trek Technical manuals, the 1701 was designed with a saucer section that could be used as a "lifeboat" for plantary landings. The saucer was seperable like the 1701 D, but the main difference is the technology had not been put in place to allow simple redocking. For a 1701 era ship to redock with it's drive section required a major overhaul in space dock. That is the reason you never see the 1071 split like the 1701D did, you don't seperate a 1071 unless you really mean it!

Re:Atmospheric Rentry Mistatement

[DuncMan]

You're a rubbish geek :-) .

Kirk and friends were flying a stolen Klingon ship in Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home, not Enterprise.

Also, now that we have the excellent series (Star Trek:) Enterprise, don't we have to rework references to the "original" Enterprise?

Re:What does this matter if...

[Dyolf Knip]

Technically, yes. But bear in mind that the thickest nebula you're likely to find Out There is still a harder vacuum than any laboratory chamber can produce. Interstellar space is at most 10 atoms per cubic meter. You try to get down to even 100x that density and your chief problem will not be keeping air out but preventing the very material your chamber is made out of from evaporating.

Actually

[MassD]

Space isn't a vacuum... there is a small amount of gas, mostly hydrogen, floating around even in the most desolate regions.. Its small, something on the order of one molecule per liter or something like that. So there is a TEENY TINY bit of pressure in space, that will come into play at high speeds. I would think that under extremely high speeds, even sub-light speeds, the drag created would actually be surprisingly large.