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Hi,
Just wanted to clear up something regarding the accelerative capabilities of Star Wars vessels. In the films, we see ships engaging in rapid acceleration prior to jumping to lightspeed. Is there a minimum velocity that has to be reached for this to occur or can the jump be performed whenever?

Also, is this observed acceleration in line with the figures postulated in the Propulsion Technology pages of the main stie? If not and if it is higher, then why aren't the ships capable of this level of acceleration in normal manoeuvers

Thanks.

Well, there could be an indicator. In the German version, they talk in ANH at two occasions (Han last sentence, before the Falcon jumped away from Tatooine and Vaders first sentece after Trkin asked Vader, if the Falcon has escaped the Death Star) about "Sprung durch die Lichtmauer" what can be translated as "jump through the light barrier". Therefore I conclude, that SW ships must travel faster than 300.000 km/s to enter hyperspace. But that speed seems only to be needed for a split second....

There is no jump through the light barrier in the English version.

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:There is no jump through the light barrier in the English version.

Which is canon over foreign ones--no offense or anything--the English version is the one GL originally created it for, so we use the one that has his closest interpretation of events, which is the the English version.

Personally, I subscribe to the following theory (my own):

The ship accelerates rapidly and when it reaches a minmum velocity, the hyperdrive kicks in and technomagically shunts it to the tachyonic side of the lightspeed barrier.

I was just wondering if any of you agree/disagree with the minimum velocity requirement.

Also, if anyone has done any calculations on the observed accelerations prior to the lightspeed jump, do these equate roughly with Mr. Wong's calculations (30 km/s for SSD Executor IIRC)?

Supreme_Warlord wrote:Personally, I subscribe to the following theory (my own):

The ship accelerates rapidly and when it reaches a minmum velocity, the hyperdrive kicks in and technomagically shunts it to the tachyonic side of the lightspeed barrier.

I was just wondering if any of you agree/disagree with the minimum velocity requirement.

Also, if anyone has done any calculations on the observed accelerations prior to the lightspeed jump, do these equate roughly with Mr. Wong's calculations (30 km/s for SSD Executor IIRC)?

I agree with your theory. I've always conceptualized it like the Delorean from "Back to the Future." It can travel through time, but first it needs to accelerate to a certain speed. After that's done, they can engage the Flux Capacitor and go wherever they want.

From the movies alone i was under the impression, that they don´t need to reach a certain speed to go ftl.

One moment the ship is there and in the next it is gone.

What i want to say, they can make a jump to hyperspace from a stand-still.

FTeik wrote:What i want to say, they can make a jump to hyperspace from a stand-still.

Anyone watching the movies can observe that it "jumps in speed" before disappearing. As long as its visible, its still sublight, so they have to massively accelerate before they cross over.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Anyone watching the movies can observe that it "jumps in speed" before disappearing. As long as its visible, its still sublight, so they have to massively accelerate before they cross over.

I think that's probably an effect of using the hyperdrive. We never see ships accelerating that fast when it would be potentially life-saving, like Han trying to escape Star Destroyers, the Tantive IV fleeing the Devastator, or the Rebel transports escaping Hoth.

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Anyone watching the movies can observe that it "jumps in speed" before disappearing. As long as its visible, its still sublight, so they have to massively accelerate before they cross over.

I think that's probably an effect of using the hyperdrive. We never see ships accelerating that fast when it would be potentially life-saving, like Han trying to escape Star Destroyers, the Tantive IV fleeing the Devastator, or the Rebel transports escaping Hoth.

I never said it wasn't a side effect, but its clearly neccessary that it is pulled to a certain acceleration before jumping.

I think what DGG is saying is that the acceleration may be the jump itself, not a prerequisite for a jump.

Is it even possible for us to determine whether or not the rapid acceleration in real space is a side-effect of the hyperdrive or a prerequisite for the jump?

I think that was what I was saying. AFAIK, we don't know.

Master of Ossus wrote:Is it even possible for us to determine whether or not the rapid acceleration in real space is a side-effect of the hyperdrive or a prerequisite for the jump?

You're right.

Han says the Falcon is capable of ".5 past lightspeed". Lightspeed is about 300,000,000 meters per second.. 300,000 km per second.. 1,080,000,000 km/h. God damn that's fast. The falcon would be 1,620,000,000 km/h.

(Of course I assume he wasn't talking about Hyperspeed)

Vexx wrote:Han says the Falcon is capable of ".5 past lightspeed". Lightspeed is about 300,000,000 meters per second.. 300,000 km per second.. 1,080,000,000 km/h. God damn that's fast. The falcon would be 1,620,000,000 km/h.

(Of course I assume he wasn't talking about Hyperspeed)

That sounds frankly like a bunch of gobbledy-gook to me...

A few interesting quotes on entering hyperspace that may help the discussion:

Return of the Jedi, p147 (quote nabbed from SWTC) wrote: Lando pulled back the conversion switch and opened up the throttle. Outside the cockpit, the stars began streaking by. The streaks grew brighter, and longer, as the ships of the fleet roared, in large segments, at light-speed, keeping pace first with the very photons of the radiant stars in the vicinity, and then soaring through the warp into hyperspace itself -- and disappearing in the flash of a muon.
The blue crystal planet hovered in space alone, once again; staring, unseeing, into the void.

The interesting part is where it says "keeping pace first with ... photons." This implies two things: first, that somehow time dilation is overcome (probably what is referred to as relativistic shielding; I've seen references to relativistic shielding to keep one's own view of time in synch with the universe during hyperjumps, or, specifically, the effects when said shielding is faulty); and second, that a ship nearly reaches lightspeed (or does!?) before actually transitioning fully into hyperspace.

Rogue Squadron, page 2 wrote:How his ship moved through hyperspace didn't really matter--as long as it remained on the course Whistler had calculated and had attained sufficient velocity before entering hyperspace, he'd arrive intact.

Clear enough: a ship has to reach a certain velocity before entering hyperspace. This would either be dependant on a ship's "rest" velocity before the relativistic shielding was activated or on the destination, probably based on the distance.

Rogue Squadron wrote:page 133:
The hyperdrives barely sipped fuel, while the sublight engines gulped it. Running up to a lightspeed jump burned a lot of fuel, though not as much as maneuvering through a dogfight.

page 303:
"We also have a long run up to light speed so we can make the jump out of the gravity well. All this means we've got a half hour over the target. If we burn too much time and fuel fighting, we don't get out."

Both of these mention running up to lightspeed, giving the indication that this occurs before actually entering hyperspace. It does seem likely, however, that the ability to make the run is tied into activating the hyperdrive (pulling the "conversion switch" in the RotJ quote).

The Bacta War, page 289 wrote:"Sir, the ships are outbound toward Thyferra. Exit speed is consistent with that of the freighters or our own ships."

This seems to indicate that the velocity when entering hyperspace is dependant on the destination.

Isard's Revenge, page 189 wrote:A little shudder ran through Corran's fighter. A Defender latched onto his ship with a tractor beam and would accelerate him to the appropriate speed to make the jump to lightspeed. On only two engines Corran's ship wouldn't have made it, though those engines were enough to power his hyperdrive.

This one's odd in that it implies that the pre-jump accelerations are made soley by the sublight engines. Of course, we can't completely rule out the possibility that the switch was flipped but not noted, or that the velocity was attained over a longer period at normal sublight acceleration rates.

Vexx, just out of curiosity, why don't you write figures in scientific notation?

Master of Ossus wrote:Vexx, just out of curiosity, why don't you write figures in scientific notation?

Maybe he doesn't know SN?

Uh oh, shadows from the past...

Supreme_Warlord wrote:Personally, I subscribe to the following theory (my own):

The ship accelerates rapidly and when it reaches a minmum velocity, the hyperdrive kicks in and technomagically shunts it to the tachyonic side of the lightspeed barrier.

I was just wondering if any of you agree/disagree with the minimum velocity requirement.

Also, if anyone has done any calculations on the observed accelerations prior to the lightspeed jump, do these equate roughly with Mr. Wong's calculations (30 km/s for SSD Executor IIRC)?

The speed was acutally 300,000 km/s (or 186,000 mi/s for Americans) which is the speed of light.

They just move reaaaaally fast. How 'bout that?

I always thought the rapid acceleration was entirely the hyperdrive. The "keeping up with photons" quote is interesting, but it's impossible for any object to achieve C normally, so I would figure that the short period of time they're moving at C in realspace is entirely the work of the hyperdrive. As for having to move at certain velocities before entering hyperspace, since momentum is conserved, could it be possible that they accelerated to that speed in order to be moving at that same rate when they dropped out of hyperspace?

Speed is sort of meaningless in space anyway, isn't it? Depending on your frame of reference, you could be simultaneously at a dead stop and moving faster than C (if your local galaxy and a distant galaxy were moving apart at a relative velocity faster than 300,000 km/s). Since it doesn't seem logical that hyperspace would have any particular frame of reference, speed shouldn't matter (though acceleration might). Maybe it could be speed relative to the nearest large gravity well (local star or planet). Dunno.

IIRC, Saxton theorises that SW ships actually skip over c while accelerating for Hyperspace jumps, since it is impossible to travel at c at all...

Master of Ossus wrote:Vexx, just out of curiosity, why don't you write figures in scientific notation?

Easier for me to understand with a bunch of zeros.

Man you people need to stop being so defensive. Sheesh.

Vexx wrote:

Master of Ossus wrote:Vexx, just out of curiosity, why don't you write figures in scientific notation?

Easier for me to understand with a bunch of zeros.

Man you people need to stop being so defensive. Sheesh.

That's not defensive behavior; it's a valid question asked very politely.

Besides, wouldn't you find it cumbersome to have to type out 1E38? If you desire to discuss the numbers associated with science, you are going to come across numbers that are unimaginably large and small. Using scientific notation is a very simple way to express these as consise figures. It is also the convention here. The sooner you become accustomed to using it, the better off you'll be.