Is warp speed or impulse speed faster on a Star Trek spaceship?
Impulse drive is a sublight (slower than lightspeed) propulsion system. Impulse speed is related in terms of fractions of full impulse. Full impulse speed is 1/2 of the speed of light. Warp speed is measured as Warp One being one times the speed of light, and the rest of the speeds depending on which series you are in. The Warp scale wasn’t really defined in TOS, but was loosely based on the Mach scale, where mach 1 is speed of sound, mach 2 is 2 times speed of sound, etc. In TOS, Warp 10 was about 10 times the speed of light. In TNG, they had obviously reengineered the scale, because the original Enterprise had occasionally reached speeds as high as Warp 13; and now a starship with almost 200 years of advancements couldn’t break Warp 9.98 in the pilot episode. (Encounter at Farpoint) And I should be quiet now before I prove how much of a geek I am.
