Slingshot effect The slingshot effect , also known as the light - speed breakaway factor , was a method of time travel through the use of an artificially - created time warp . This maneuver was performed by traveling at an extremely high warp factor towards a massive body with a high gravitational attraction , such as a star . After allowing the gravitational pull to accelerate the vessel to even faster speeds , the vessel would then break away from the stellar body , creating a whiplash effect which could transport the vessel through time . Performing this maneuver required extremely precise calculations to be made , such as availability of fuel components , acceleration , and mass of a vessel through a time continuum . ( ; ) Uses . In 2267 , the Starship accidentally traveled through time to the late 1960s , when an encounter with a previously - uncharted black star required the crew to utilize all warp power in reverse to break away from the star ' s powerful gravitational attraction , creating a whiplash effect . In order to return to their own time , the crew of the " Enterprise " recreated the accident , using the gravitational pull of Earth ' s sun to perform the slingshot . ( ) In 2268 , the " Enterprise " would utilize this method again in order to travel back in time three hundred years , in order to conduct historical research on planet Earth . ( ) In 2286 , Admiral Kirk and his command crew were forced to use the maneuver again , this time in the stolen Klingon Bird - of - Prey , when an extremely powerful probe threatened to destroy Earth while attempting to contact by then - extinct humpback whale s . To appease the probe , Kirk and crew used the slingshot effect to travel back in time to the late 20th century to retrieve two humpback whales . ( ) In 2365 , Captain Jean - Luc Picard and Commander William T . Riker speculated on what phenomenon could have thrown the " El - Baz " back in time . While Riker knew the shuttlepod didn ' t have warp drive , he still suggested the theory that it could have somehow accelerated beyond warp 10 . Picard suggested this could have been achieved by a warp - powered slingshot using the gravitational pull of a star . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Based on " Star Trek IV The Voyage Home " and " Tomorrow is Yesterday " , going beyond warp 10 and creating a time warp are two stages in the slingshot effect . In " Star Trek IV " the time warp was generated after the ship had passed warp 9 . 8 . While in " Tomorrow is Yesterday " going reverse through time already begins when the ship is approaching the stellar body at over the speed of warp 8 . In the episode it is stated by Sulu , that the speed of the " Enterprise " goes " off the dial " for a moment after the ship has broken away from the star and reverses its direction in time to travel forward again , suggesting the ship does go " beyond infinite " at that point . Ronald D . Moore commented : " " I would assume that the precise calculations involved in using the slingshot method are something of a closely - guarded secret . " " According to " Star Trek Maps " ( p . 6 ) , the speed increase that dislodges the ship from the space - time continuum in a slingshot effect is caused by a mathematical factor called the Cochrane ' s factor . It is added as a multiplier to the basic warp formula based on the amount of curvature of space the ship is traveling through . While the factor within the normal interstellar medium of Federation space is an average of 1292 . 7238 and in the intergalactic void only 1 , in the close proximity of stars and other massive objects it is so high that these disproportionately high speeds are created . Apocrypha . In the novel " Engines of Destiny " , Scotty acquires another Bird - of - Prey and attempts to use the slingshot effect to travel back in time and prevent Kirk ' s death on the , believing that he can travel back to the day of Kirk ' s death and beam Kirk to safety just before the ship is struck by the energy ribbon , thereby not actually " changing " history as Kirk would still vanish and be presumed dead . The maneuver itself is successful , but as a result , a timeline is created where the Borg have assimilated Earth ( without Kirk in the Nexus - a fate that Scotty naturally knew nothing about at the time - Jean - Luc Picard either failed to stop Tolian Soran ' s attempt to return to the Nexus or died in the process , and thus , without Picard ' s unique insight into the hive mind , the Borg assimilated Earth when they went back in time in ) , and it requires the intervention of the - which fortunately followed Scotty ' s ship closely enough to avoid being caught up in the changes to history - to undo Scotty ' s mistake and return Kirk to the Nexus . In the tenth anniversary special trilogy " " , the USS " Defiant " accidentally slingshots around the Bajoran wormhole after a second wormhole opens within DS9 itself , and is sent twenty - five years into the future . Although unable to return by repeating the procedure - something that is apparently vital due to the time - travellers being ' out of sync ' with the rest of the universe and therefore unable to use other time - travel methods to return home - before the Bajoran wormhole is merged with a red wormhole that was created as they departed , by entering a realm of non - linear time inside the merged wormholes , the crew are able to avert the creation of the red wormhole and erase the future they witnessed while returning to their time just before the destruction of " Deep Space 9 " in the past . In the novel " Forgotten History " , it is revealed that , initially , the " Enterprise " was the only ship capable of performing a slingshot maneuver , due to its engines being exposed to a unique set of conditions during their jump back in time after a cold start in , resulting in the newly - formed Department of Temporal Investigations claiming the engines during the ship ' s refit to create a timeship of their own . However , the knowledge of how to make any ship capable of performing a slingshot maneuver was revealed to Kirk by Agent Lucsly of the DTI when he was forced to work with Kirk during a malfunction of " Timeship Two " , which trapped the ship between 2273 and 2383 and risked altering the future . In the novel " Elusive Salvation " , the " Enterprise " is able to send a small probe back to 1971 via the slingshot effect , the probe containing a recorded message to Kirk ' s 20th century contact Roberta Lincoln asking for her help in finding out anything about an alien ship that crash - landed on Earth in 1845 , the recording also noting that the probe is programmed to destroy itself in Earth ' s sun after delivering the message to limit potential temporal contamination .