Talk:Slingshot effect

Needs reworking
This needs a bit of reworking as, IIRC, in, their initial trip back in time was a result of flying around a gravity well rather than a star, but I don't have a copy of the episode to prove it.


 * They flew around the gravity well of a black star. All stars have a gravity well inluded, no charge. --Captain Mike K. Bartel

Ah, okay, thanks. Alex Peckover 09:33, Jun 22, 2004 (CEST)


 * Wasn't this supposed to be at warp speed? If so, this could be related somehow to the development of timeships.
 * Probably not, we see a 26th century time pod in "A Matter of Time", which jumps back in time sitting stationary in the Enterprise-D's shuttlebay, and Federation Timeships apparently come after this.--Wingsandsword 02:53, 21 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's what happened and here's how we know what happened:


 * Captain's log, stardate 3113.2. We were en route to Starbase 9 for re-supply, when a black star of high gravitational attraction began to drag us toward it. It required all warp power in reverse to pull us away from the star, but like snapping a rubber band, the breakaway sent us plunging through space, out of control, to stop here, wherever we are.
 * --Illwill 04:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Direction?
Someone put back in that after the sling shot you travel either backwards or forward in time. But if you listen to Spock he clearly states in that as you approach the sun you go back in time (basically if you want to or not) then as you are thrown free you are shot forward in time you continue going forward in time till breaking thrusters are fired. Thus if you come to a quick stop you end up back in time, but if you wait you'll end up in the future. ST4 never clearly contradicts that one difference is the crew was unconscious which explains a few extra calculation Spock had to do. --TOSrules 04:53, 5 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Controlled Time Travel?
The slingshot effect was used in 2286 in ST4:The Voyage Home. So why did it take the Federation 300 or more years to create timeships? Is it just me? Why wasn't the Federation exploring the past in TNG? The only possible things I can think of are: (1) Spock gave a REALLY good resaon not to slingshot in ST4, which I must have missed. OR (2) The creation of the Temporal Prime Directive was somehow connected with not using the slingshot method. or something else?


 * for one thing, TNG era ships are big, bulky, and faster than their 23rd century counterparts, try flying something the size of the enterprise D directly into a star at warp speed, and the only thing you'll get is a very extra crispy enterprise when it can't break away in time--152.163.100.10 02:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Not all Federation ships would have to be as big as the Enterprise. Now we have many-thousand-kiloton carriers, and very small boats, along with cruisers and destroyers and frigates inbetween. Surely they wouldn't have a one-size-fits-all doctrine in the future! Schmidt 04:52, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It is because the writers were very short sighted. Time travel is rediculous by itself and the way it was handled in Star Trek is at best... inconsistent. This is one of those things you can't argue about. You just have to ignore that part of your mind that reasons. The same way you do with the mirror universe being so completely different but having the same characters at the same places (even a hologram who's counterpart is a real human). --Bp 04:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Though it sort of makes sense. Time travel into the past is pretty much forbidden by the Prime Directive.  What future Starfleet does is uphold this.  Without the technology to monitor the timeline though, (which anachronistically exists in Enterprise but doesn't seem to be in Federation use even at the time of Admiral Janeway - minus fuzzy El-Aurian and possibly Vulcan abilities), there's no way to do this except by following the transgressor (DS9's Tribbles ep, First Contact).  I think that was essentially the technology leading to Timeships.  As for why future Starfleet didn't mess with Kirk, they seem to regard him as a necessary evil if I remember correctly... - Kuukai2 21:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Official name
The official name for this is light-speed breakaway factor as named by James T. Kirk in --Illwill 02:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Slingshot
If all you need to travel back and forth through time is a beat up, stolen bird of prey, why not do it more frequently? Perhaps the temporal prime directive is something that has been prevalent in Starfleet for some time, even though it is rarely discussed until Voyager. Still, this would have been a viable method of returning to the 24th century for the Enterprise E crew in "First Contact." Seems like a better choice than evacuating and living out the rest of their days in hiding in the 21st century. Spock is the man when it comes to precise calculations, but I think Data would of been able to figure it out too.
 * First off, we know from DS9 that the Temporal Prime Directive most likely existed in the 23rd century. Remember that they had a file on Kirk and his violations. Second off, in First Contact they weren't going to live out their lives in the 21st century for lack of a physical method of time travel using the Enterprise. They were about to blow up the Enterprise. Even with the Bird of Prey, they required high warp to get the slingshot to work, warp nine point something if I recall. Lifeboats don't have warp drive. Shuttles don't have high warp, or the capacity for the entire crew. Earth ships of the time don't have any warp drive, or only a very slow one, and are small. --OuroborosCobra talk 18:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Future's End (VOY) might be more relevant. Why didn't Janeway suggest doing a slingshot in the agile Voyager?  Why was Torres so worried about being an "out-of-work Klingon looking for a job"?  They could have dealt with Starling, turned round, done their slingshot and been home in time for tea.  Obviously, Braxton decided to interfere, but nobody had thought of the simple solution at any time beforehand.  I thought of it the second I saw Earth.  Lack of research by somebody, perhaps.--Indefatigable 23:53, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Starfleet classified information on this method of time travel, so that no one(or few people) were aware of it.--31dot 23:55, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To expand on this idea, which Ronald D. Moore seems to agree with, extremeley precise calculations are mentioned to be involved and it would be unlikely for someone to duplicate them without prior knowledge. The only reason it worked for the Enterprise crew was because they reverse-engineered the circumstances of their accidental time-travel in "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
 * How does Moore agree with this? --OuroborosCobra talk 21:19, February 3, 2010 (UTC)

Slingshot - Clockwise &/or Anti' ?
When using the slingshot effect, would the direction around the star affect the direction through time. As in, when the Klingon Bird-of-Prey HMS Bounty went back in time, was that because they went anticlockwise around the star or didn't it really matter what direction they took ?


 * As far as I know the Sun doesn't have magnetic poles like the Earth, so there is no "up" or "down" with the sun, and a warp field is just a bubble around the ship. So it would be pretty much random which way your ship is orientated when you go around the sun. I would think the entry angle has more to do with the direction you want to break away to. Such as where was the Earth in the solar system on the day where you break away from timewarp, so you have the right direction of flight at that point. --Pseudohuman (talk) 16:00, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

Thats what I meant, does one particular direction or course around a star determine if the ship travels backwards or forwards through time, or is it just fly around the star & cut away at the right moment type of thing ? 194.74.238.137 10:33, August 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * Nope. Based on, at the end of the episode when they went into time warp and broke away from the sun, they were able to first go backwards in time and then reverse direction in time to go forwards and accelerate faster into the future three centuries before reversing engines and coming out of time warp. So based on that, you can navigate the time continuum in any direction at any rate of time passage after time warp is achieved this way. --Pseudohuman (talk) 13:03, August 2, 2013 (UTC)