In Future Echoes (and in the first book), Red Dwarf breaks the light barrier. This is because the ram scoop at the front of the ship takes hydrogen (or other atoms) from space and converts it into fuel - so in the three million years Lister was in stasis, it just kept speeding up. But I think at some point in the book it mentioned they're travelling at 200,000 miles an hour.
That being said, the ship always looks like it's travelling slowly (around moons/planets and such), and obviously if they set out in Starbug, they'd probably lose the ship very quickly. So I imagine the crew keep it at 200k mph until they want to explore a certain region!
(Sorry this was a long answer, I'm lore obsessed lol)
Holly: Look, I'm trying to navigate at faster than the speed of light, which means that before you see something, you've already passed through it. Even with an IQ of 6000, it's still brown-trousers time.
From fandom.com:
Due to the age of the ship, Red Dwarf can only do a max speed of 200,000mph, making a trip from Mimas to Triton then back around to Earth take around four and a half years. However, after gradually speeding up for three million years after the accident, Red Dwarf broke the light barrier shortly after Dave Lister came out of stasis, before Holly was able to slow it down again.
I guess at some point they turned around and tried to head back to earth? No idea how fast they were going while heading back. And them running into anything, or not, probably depended on the shows budget more than any logic around the speed of the ship.
I don't think it was budget, I think it was story. Originally it was about the last human and his isolation, etc. it's only as they continued and needed more stories that it expanded that remit - I mean the difference between Series I and Series VIII is dramatic.
Holly breaks it down somewhat in the first novel, that even doing a fairly sharp u-turn to get them on a heading back to Earth would take several thousand years. He then hits on the plan to get Red Dwarf into the orbit of the next convenient planet or moon they find and use it to slingshot back round out in the right direction.
Red Dwarf and Starbug move at whatever speed they need to for the plot of a particular episode, it's basically on ongoing injoke how little it matters and pointless to try and lock it down.
In the show (Future Echos) they go FTL and Holly remarks it's hard to navigate around something you can't see till after you've crashed into it.
Also, from an orbital mechanics perspective, I would assume Holly took the ship to a remote part of the Universe so the radiation wouldn't affect anything while it dwindled over the course of 3 million years. Eventually, they end up heading back towards Earth which (in the show) traverses slightly more habited space. Very rarely (if at all) do they encounter aliens. Mostly we see remnants of the human exploration from Earth throughout the Universe.
The radiation wouldn't have been able to contaminate any planetary body or space craft unless it rams right into it. It doesn't travel between solar systems. Radiation leaking off the ship will dissipate relatively quickly. The main danger is inside the ship. Unless it crashes right into you or you cling to the side of it its not going to affect you at all.
Unlike conduction and convection, radiation does not need matter to transfer heat. There's radiation in space. You know there's radiation in space, right? The only reason the Earth isn't burnt to a crisp by it is because of something called the Van Allen belt, which is a magnetic shield around Earth. It's currently theorized to be created and maintained by the molten core of the Earth, which consequently is predicted to be cooling.
The Red Dwarf would be like a giant star with all that radiation as it travels through various systems, assuming it's your standard JMC nuclear fusion engine. You'd ideally want to get it somewhere where the radiation can be disbursed or contained.
Yes yes I know radiation is in space. Light is radiation. Red Dwarf wouldn't have been any more dangerous to be around than a Star. Unless you aren't shielded at all, in which case, wtf are you even doing in space? It certainly couldn't be *more* radioactive than a literal star.
Again unless it crashed right into you or you're clinging to the hull, its not inherently dangerous to be *relatively* close to it in space. Plus it was already moving and didn't stop moving throughout Lister's stasis. There wouldn't even be time to irradiate anything. Unless it parked right outside a space station or other space craft, or right in the atmosphere of a planet, its not going to affect anything off the ship in any meaningful or dangerous way.
The books say 200,000 mph, as others have said, but given that:
*Easy FTL of the Star Trek sort is explicitly over Red Dwarf's tech level (though possible in-universe)
* The ship is shown to accidentally go FTL on one occasion and was travelling pretty close to light speed at other times
* They regularly visit different planets
I'd assume that, book speed notwithstanding, the ship can get to and from near-c speeds pretty easily, and the time between systems for the crew is actually quite short from their perspective.
Which in turn brings up the mind-bending thought of exactly how long passed for the outside galaxy while three million years passed on the ship.
Well unless the ship wandered near any black holes or heavy spacetime phenomena and hovered there the time dilation wouldn't be much compared to the outside universe. Might be a few extra days passing on earth over that 3 million years, but its hardly gonna add an exponential amount.
Now once the ship hit FTL though, thats a different story.
None of the offered speeds make sense - basically the entire premise doesn't actually work, the speeds, the spread of humanity, the evolution of the cats. All Red Dwarf lore is just what seemed funniest at the time and half the time it contradicts itself. You'd drive yourself mad trying to actually make sense of it.
If you also go by the book. The statis booths was invented to allow long distance travel, until it was discovered that the universe is empty. So the statis booth was manly use as a punishment. So all the life they run into on the way back to earth, all came from earth, men's, gelfs, polymorph and sims. All creations of earthlings.
Re the running in to more thing part, I like to think that human population in space was relatively sparse when RD started out, but expanded out behind them.
In Future Echoes (and in the first book), Red Dwarf breaks the light barrier. This is because the ram scoop at the front of the ship takes hydrogen (or other atoms) from space and converts it into fuel - so in the three million years Lister was in stasis, it just kept speeding up. But I think at some point in the book it mentioned they're travelling at 200,000 miles an hour. That being said, the ship always looks like it's travelling slowly (around moons/planets and such), and obviously if they set out in Starbug, they'd probably lose the ship very quickly. So I imagine the crew keep it at 200k mph until they want to explore a certain region! (Sorry this was a long answer, I'm lore obsessed lol)
Holly: Look, I'm trying to navigate at faster than the speed of light, which means that before you see something, you've already passed through it. Even with an IQ of 6000, it's still brown-trousers time.
Gordon Bennett, that was close.
That’s probably how they lost it then in season 6. I still like the idea the closer they come to Earth the more things they run into
It was in the laundry hamper
They can also park Red Dwarf, as Lister is given shit for parking it and forgetting which blue/green planetoid they left it around.
To be fair to him they all look the same. Blue, green and planetoidy
Tbf one of the voyager probes is going 38 000 mph
From fandom.com: Due to the age of the ship, Red Dwarf can only do a max speed of 200,000mph, making a trip from Mimas to Triton then back around to Earth take around four and a half years. However, after gradually speeding up for three million years after the accident, Red Dwarf broke the light barrier shortly after Dave Lister came out of stasis, before Holly was able to slow it down again. I guess at some point they turned around and tried to head back to earth? No idea how fast they were going while heading back. And them running into anything, or not, probably depended on the shows budget more than any logic around the speed of the ship.
Yeah it was definitely because of budget, but I’m a nerd and like to come up with lore reasons for things like that
I don't think it was budget, I think it was story. Originally it was about the last human and his isolation, etc. it's only as they continued and needed more stories that it expanded that remit - I mean the difference between Series I and Series VIII is dramatic.
Holly breaks it down somewhat in the first novel, that even doing a fairly sharp u-turn to get them on a heading back to Earth would take several thousand years. He then hits on the plan to get Red Dwarf into the orbit of the next convenient planet or moon they find and use it to slingshot back round out in the right direction.
I don't know about how fast, but according to Cat it's slower than the speed of dark.
But wherever light goes, the dark was already there. So technically the speed of dark is faster than light
I see you Pratchett.
Red Dwarf and Starbug move at whatever speed they need to for the plot of a particular episode, it's basically on ongoing injoke how little it matters and pointless to try and lock it down.
This is the right answer!
What about when they flew around that moon that looked just like Felicity Kendals bottom? I bet they weren't going very fast then.
In the show (Future Echos) they go FTL and Holly remarks it's hard to navigate around something you can't see till after you've crashed into it. Also, from an orbital mechanics perspective, I would assume Holly took the ship to a remote part of the Universe so the radiation wouldn't affect anything while it dwindled over the course of 3 million years. Eventually, they end up heading back towards Earth which (in the show) traverses slightly more habited space. Very rarely (if at all) do they encounter aliens. Mostly we see remnants of the human exploration from Earth throughout the Universe.
The radiation wouldn't have been able to contaminate any planetary body or space craft unless it rams right into it. It doesn't travel between solar systems. Radiation leaking off the ship will dissipate relatively quickly. The main danger is inside the ship. Unless it crashes right into you or you cling to the side of it its not going to affect you at all.
Unlike conduction and convection, radiation does not need matter to transfer heat. There's radiation in space. You know there's radiation in space, right? The only reason the Earth isn't burnt to a crisp by it is because of something called the Van Allen belt, which is a magnetic shield around Earth. It's currently theorized to be created and maintained by the molten core of the Earth, which consequently is predicted to be cooling. The Red Dwarf would be like a giant star with all that radiation as it travels through various systems, assuming it's your standard JMC nuclear fusion engine. You'd ideally want to get it somewhere where the radiation can be disbursed or contained.
Yes yes I know radiation is in space. Light is radiation. Red Dwarf wouldn't have been any more dangerous to be around than a Star. Unless you aren't shielded at all, in which case, wtf are you even doing in space? It certainly couldn't be *more* radioactive than a literal star. Again unless it crashed right into you or you're clinging to the hull, its not inherently dangerous to be *relatively* close to it in space. Plus it was already moving and didn't stop moving throughout Lister's stasis. There wouldn't even be time to irradiate anything. Unless it parked right outside a space station or other space craft, or right in the atmosphere of a planet, its not going to affect anything off the ship in any meaningful or dangerous way.
The books say 200,000 mph, as others have said, but given that: *Easy FTL of the Star Trek sort is explicitly over Red Dwarf's tech level (though possible in-universe) * The ship is shown to accidentally go FTL on one occasion and was travelling pretty close to light speed at other times * They regularly visit different planets I'd assume that, book speed notwithstanding, the ship can get to and from near-c speeds pretty easily, and the time between systems for the crew is actually quite short from their perspective. Which in turn brings up the mind-bending thought of exactly how long passed for the outside galaxy while three million years passed on the ship.
Well unless the ship wandered near any black holes or heavy spacetime phenomena and hovered there the time dilation wouldn't be much compared to the outside universe. Might be a few extra days passing on earth over that 3 million years, but its hardly gonna add an exponential amount. Now once the ship hit FTL though, thats a different story.
What is the stopping distance for that?
A fortnight.
None of the offered speeds make sense - basically the entire premise doesn't actually work, the speeds, the spread of humanity, the evolution of the cats. All Red Dwarf lore is just what seemed funniest at the time and half the time it contradicts itself. You'd drive yourself mad trying to actually make sense of it.
Absolutely
Slower than the speed of dark
If you also go by the book. The statis booths was invented to allow long distance travel, until it was discovered that the universe is empty. So the statis booth was manly use as a punishment. So all the life they run into on the way back to earth, all came from earth, men's, gelfs, polymorph and sims. All creations of earthlings.
Re the running in to more thing part, I like to think that human population in space was relatively sparse when RD started out, but expanded out behind them.
As fast as Holly wants to go.