Realistic Travel Times

Table: Realistic Travel Times provides various “realistic” interplanetary and interstellar travel times. These times assume that starships cannot achieve velocities anywhere near the speed of light, for reasons discussed under Interstellar Travel (see above). Using the table, a starship equipped with a PL 6 ion engine would take 67.2 days to travel from Earth to Mars, while the same ship equipped with a PL 7 induction engine would take 16.8 days.

The travel times listed are based on average distance. Planets move closer together and farther apart based on their relative orbits around the sun, and the travel time between worlds may increase or decrease accordingly.

Table: Realistic Travel Times
—————————————— Time to Destination ——————————————
Distance	PL 5 Engine	PL 6 Engine	PL 7 Engine	PL 8 Engine1	PL 9 Engine2	Light Speed
Earth to the Moon
(240,000 mi.)	40 hrs.	8 hrs.	2 hrs.	1.96 min.	9.2 sec.	1.29 sec.
Earth to the Sun (1 AU)
(93,000,000 mi.)	645.8 days	129.2 days	32.3 days	12.6 hrs.	59.3 min.	8.3 min.
Earth to Mercury
(56,950,000 mi.)	395.5 days	79.1 days	19.8 days	7.7 hrs.	36.4 min.	5.1 min.
Earth to Venus
(26,040,000 mi.)	180.8 days	36.2 days	9.04 days	3.5 hrs.	16.6 min.	2.33 min.
Earth to Mars
(48,360,000 mi.)	335.8 days	67.2 days	16.8 days	6.6 hrs.	30.7 min.	4.3 min.
Earth to Jupiter
(390,600,000 mi.)	7.43 years	1.49 years	135.6 days	2.2 days	4.2 hrs.	35 min.
Earth to Saturn
(704,940,000 mi.)	13.4 years	2.68 years	244.8 days	4 days	7.5 hrs.	63.2 min.
Earth to Uranus
(1,687,020,000 mi.)	32.1 years	6.42 years	1.6 years	9.5 days	18 hrs.	2.52 hrs.
Earth to Neptune
(2,715,600,000 mi.)	51.67 years	10.33 years	2.58 years	15.4 days	1.2 days	4.1 min.
Earth to Pluto
(3,574,920,000 mi.)	68.02 years	13.6 years	3.4 years	20.2 days	1.6 days	5.33 min.
1 light year
(5,865,696,000,000 mi.)	111,600 years	22,320 years	5,580 years	91 years	7.14 years	1 year
Sun to Alpha Centauri
(4.4 light years)	491,040 years	98,208 years	24,552 years	400 years	31.4 years	4.4 years
1 A PL 8 engine can achieve a speed of 2,046 miles per second (1.1% of the speed of light). 2 A PL 9 engine can achieve a speed of 26,040 miles per second (14% of the speed of light).