Build The Enterprise - $1 Trillion

Myrddin

An anonymous electrical and systems engineer -- we'll call him Scotty -- has determined that by using today's technology, it would take $1 trillion and 20 years to build a working USS Enterprise that could travel to Mars in 90 days.

Even more, the saucer would support 1g of gravity so that the crew wouldn't float around and banging heads. Its length from the front of the saucer to the rear tip of the nacelles would be 960 meters -- twice as long as the former World Trade Center towers were tall.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Enterprise-Star-Trek-BuildTheEnterprise-ion-engines-gravity-wheel,news-15217.html

Hogwash I say

downwithpeace

I think he's missing a few things there like infrastructure and reality.

Myrddin

downwithpeace wrote: »

I think he's missing a few things there like infrastructure and reality.

Yeah aside from the reality aspect of it, I can definitely see this going ahead. Also, it's about three times the size of an actual Constitution Class...would he not have just picked a Galaxy Class ffs

seamus

If you were going to build something that big, I'm fairly sure we could go with more experimental power generation technologies that'll give more bang for our buck. The kind of stuff you don't really do on earth lest you accidentally blow a hole in the side of the planet, you could happily screw around with in a high orbit.

downwithpeace

EnterNow wrote: »

Yeah aside from the reality aspect of it, I can definitely see this going ahead. Also, it's about three times the size of an actual Constitution Class...would he not have just picked a Galaxy Class ffs

Even a shuttle craft would be more ideal, start small and once the basics are known to work then think bigger, NX Class would still be rather large.

seamus wrote: »

If you were going to build something that big, I'm fairly sure we could go with more experimental power generation technologies that'll give more bang for our buck. The kind of stuff you don't really do on earth lest you accidentally blow a hole in the side of the planet, you could happily screw around with in a high orbit.

Could also drop the weapons and keep the experimental power source less spread out, hardly going to meet the Klingons on route to Mars.

helimachoptor

seamus wrote: »

If you were going to build something that big, I'm fairly sure we could go with more experimental power generation technologies that'll give more bang for our buck. The kind of stuff you don't really do on earth lest you accidentally blow a hole in the side of the planet, you could happily screw around with in a high orbit.

In fairness.. also not without it's risks.
If and its a very big if! If it went boom.. and pushed the moon out of its current orbit it could really have some nasty consequences for Earth.

nyarlothothep

Well personally I think this is a great idea. And with the number of nerds who like Star Trek in aerospace/physics, in addition to those in politics/finance who could lobby for such a project and multi billionaires like Bill Gates who could donate small fortunes to this noble project, I think it's definately achievable. Also we need to get into space properly, our survival as a species depends on it, space colonisation is fundamental to our future. So we might as well take the plunge and start working on something like the Enterprise. This is a brilliant idea, where there's a will there's a way. And this would be money better spent than on bank bailouts. Dammit I want to see my Enterprise built!

_Kaiser_

This guy can help.....

downwithpeace

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Well personally I think this is a great idea. And with the number of nerds who like Star Trek in aerospace/physics, in addition to those in politics/finance who could lobby for such a project and multi billionaires like Bill Gates who could donate small fortunes to this noble project, I think it's definately achievable. Also we need to get into space properly, our survival as a species depends on it, space colonisation is fundamental to our future. So we might as well take the plunge and start working on something like the Enterprise. This is a brilliant idea, where there's a will there's a way. And this would be money better spent than on bank bailouts. Dammit I want to see my Enterprise built!

Space ships are achievable or the Enterprise is?, space ships for sure but putting a side your inner nerd for a moment and think what would be needed for a fully operational Enterprise. To Boldly Go...but in smaller craft

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

This guy can help.....

[IMG][/IMG]

I don't trust him.

nyarlothothep

downwithpeace wrote: »

Space ships are achievable or the Enterprise is?, space ships for sure but putting a side your inner nerd for a moment and think what would be needed for a fully operational Enterprise. To Boldly Go...but in smaller craft



I don't trust him.

Yes, but we need ships with artificial gravity if we're serious about real space exploration, living for prolonged amounts of time in zero g is really bad for the human body, muscles atrophy. Also we don't know what's out there so we definately need a laser, to defend ourselves against aliens, asteroids, meteorites etc. We would also need shields to deflect radiation from permeating the craft and to defend ourselves against potential threats, there is some interesting research in this area. There's no point doing it on a small scale, we have to get our hands dirty and build something which is the real deal.

downwithpeace

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Yes, but we need ships with artificial gravity if we're serious about real space exploration, living for prolonged amounts of time in zero g is really bad for the human body, muscles atrophy. Also we don't know what's out there so we definately need a laser, to defend ourselves against aliens, asteroids, meteorites etc. We would also need shields to deflect radiation from permeating the craft and to defend ourselves against potential threats, there is some interesting research in this area. There's no point doing it on a small scale, we have to get our hands dirty and build something which is the real deal.

We're coming at this from different views I think, I'm still thinking Mars from the article so smaller rather then larger but at the same time big enough for safe travel.

Goldstein

Have to laugh at the budget

So this proposed ship comes in under 7 times the cost of the ISS up to 2010 and yet it's (scaling proportionately up from the mass & dimensions of the 1701-A) approximately 6,176 times the ISS's mass.

Righto Mr. Engineer.

Myrddin

nyarlothothep wrote: »

There's no point doing it on a small scale, we have to get our hands dirty and build something which is the real deal.

This story is pure fantasy. Unlike the humans in Star Trek, out civilisation revolves purely around greed, personal gain & political conquest. The only reason something like this will ever happen, is that whoever invests in it will want to get rich from it. Doing it to 'further mankind' is as far fetched as the Enterprise we all know & love.

Goldstein wrote: »

Have to laugh at the budget

So this proposed ship comes in under 7 times the cost of the ISS up to 2010 and yet it's (scaling proportionately up from the mass & dimensions of the 1701-A) approximately 6,176 times the ISS's mass.

Righto Mr. Engineer.

Personally I think they should be looking at something along the lines of a Starbase, or even V'Ger. Sure what's a few extra trillion these days...

nyarlothothep

EnterNow wrote: »

This story is pure fantasy. Unlike the humans in Star Trek, out civilisation revolves purely around greed, personal gain & political conquest. The only reason something like this will ever happen, is that whoever invests in it will want to get rich from it. Doing it to 'further mankind' is as far fetched as the Enterprise we all know & love.



Personally I think they should be looking at something along the lines of a Starbase, or even V'Ger. Sure what's a few extra trillion these days...

Well the problem with saying human nature or society=x is that it involves the conflation of human nature with what one's opinion about human nature is. I see this too much on the web, it's too predictable, I'd say that statement has been made about 4 million times in AH. You could even say that the whole nature part of the statement is unwittingly derived from Enlightenment equations of nature with the base, the primitive etc so just how much is the statement one's own or part of historical legacy. We don't have any hard scientific evidence to support any essentialist view of human nature, and even if we say we do we have to examine what we're looking for to begin with in terms of the questions we're asking. There are multitudes of exceptions to the assertion that human society revolves around greed, political gain and conquest, and if it seems like that today, it's just aspects of our culture which are prevalent/vocal right now, it's like if you were in the bible belt in the US you could say human society is religious or if you were in Sweden during the Viking era you could argue that human society is martial. At the moment human societies in the West are actually faltering because corruption/greed in one sector of society is causing a generalised decay. Will societal self preservation would redress this balance? It may or may not do but I'm willing to bet that it does. Human society cannot be reduced to three simple elements, it incorporates those elements but a wide variety of complimentary and conflicting elements, which is why it can evolve. And to top if all off, our survival lies in the stars, people will build this Enterprise. They should be made to.

Myrddin

nyarlothothep wrote: »

We don't have any hard scientific evidence to support any essentialist view of human nature, and even if we say we do we have to examine what we're looking for to begin with in terms of the questions we're asking. There are multitudes of exceptions to the assertion that human society revolves around greed, political gain and conquest, and if it seems like that today, it's just aspects of our culture which are prevalent/vocal right now

No evidence until you just look at the facts:

1) Global Economic Recession/Financial Crisis - This is the main agenda of every single civilized country at the moment.

2) Countless wars/conflicts/violations of human rights - Syria/Egypt/Libya/Israel/Palestine/Iraq/Afghanistan/Congo/Tibet/Iran/Northern Ireland/North Korea/Bahrain/China/ & everything the US is involved with ... Those are just off the top of my head & are all examples of how 'enlightened' we really are.

3) Decimation of the planets resources. Quite simply, we're exhausting our natural resources...to feed our greed. We can't help it, we can't stop...we just take as much as what we want when we want. Oh yeah we plant trees to replace what we remove, but an area the size of France disappears every day in the Amazon every.single.day. I somehow don't think we're planting France sized areas every day :rolleyes: That's not to mention our dwindling fossil fuels, & national scale pollution that goes on every day. All to feed our greedy & selfish society. Many species of animals/insects go extinct every day for the same reasons.

4) Our entire space programme during the Space Race was a charade, & really a military show of force. The vast majority of technological breakthroughs have been found in times of War, be it Radar, Nuclear Weapons, Rocket Science during WW2, Stealth, Guided Weapons, Chemical/Biological Weapons from the Korea/Gulf eras, right up to todays Laser based anti-ICBM measures. Real enlightened stuff like

AND THATS JUST TODAY. History holds many more examples of mankinds enlightened civilisation. Many, many, many more examples exist that can be contradicted with examples of the compassion, intelligence & potential we are capable of...but choose to ignore.

This spaceship will not happen. If it ever does, somebody/some company will get very rich doing it. Thats the only reason it'll get built.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

and that's a bad thing?

if I can get to mars, I dont mind somebody making a buck because they built the ship that takes me there

Myrddin

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

and that's a bad thing?

if I can get to mars, I dont mind somebody making a buck because they built the ship that takes me there

Not at all, it's simply to contradict the 'this should be built to further mankind' point. Mankind is happy here on this polluted, war-ridden, hate filled rock called Earth

I'd definitely go too, & price wise the sky would be the limit.

As an aside, what about the Virgin Space thingy...isn't that due to start bringing up space tourists?

nyarlothothep

EnterNow wrote: »

No evidence until you just look at the facts:

1) Global Economic Recession/Financial Crisis - This is the main agenda of every single civilized country at the moment.

2) Countless wars/conflicts/violations of human rights - Syria/Egypt/Libya/Israel/Palestine/Iraq/Afghanistan/Congo/Tibet/Iran/Northern Ireland/North Korea/Bahrain/China/ & everything the US is involved with ... Those are just off the top of my head & are all examples of how 'enlightened' we really are.

3) Decimation of the planets resources. Quite simply, we're exhausting our natural resources...to feed our greed. We can't help it, we can't stop...we just take as much as what we want when we want. Oh yeah we plant trees to replace what we remove, but an area the size of France disappears every day in the Amazon every.single.day. I somehow don't think we're planting France sized areas every day :rolleyes: That's not to mention our dwindling fossil fuels, & national scale pollution that goes on every day. All to feed our greedy & selfish society. Many species of animals/insects go extinct every day for the same reasons.

4) Our entire space programme during the Space Race was a charade, & really a military show of force. The vast majority of technological breakthroughs have been found in times of War, be it Radar, Nuclear Weapons, Rocket Science during WW2, Stealth, Guided Weapons, Chemical/Biological Weapons from the Korea/Gulf eras, right up to todays Laser based anti-ICBM measures. Real enlightened stuff like

AND THATS JUST TODAY. History holds many more examples of mankinds enlightened civilisation. Many, many, many more examples exist that can be contradicted with examples of the compassion, intelligence & potential we are capable of...but choose to ignore.

This spaceship will not happen. If it ever does, somebody/some company will get very rich doing it. Thats the only reason it'll get built.

But you see nature is the enemy of humankind. We have dwindling resources because the Western way of life, comfort/luxury should be the entitlement of every human being on the planet. And nature, being a bit sh1t, says no you can't have that, I want you to go back to just barely surviving, eating and reproducing. But the human spirit screams no! I want my central heating, satellite tv, games consoles etc and I don't want to spend half my day getting food and then cooking said food. If I were to be reductionist I would say our nature conflicts in many ways with nature's intentions. It's not a case of greed, it's a case of nature being flawed. That's why we improve nature with technology, but we're not so adept at it yet because our resource management is lacklustre. We have had a window of opportunity with the advent of fossil fuels to develop the next big thing in power generation, we have to hit upon it before time runs out. But I don't think it's a case of greed, everyone wants the nice things in life and why not. It's not entitlement, it's our right, why live in squalor because it's more noble.

The Global financial crisis will resolve itself in one of two ways imo, either we'll get a return to class based heirarchies, or we'll have an improved world where potential thieves get their wings clipped before they can commit financial crimes. I'd like to think the latter, because people are more educated than at any other time in history. The only reason the show has been running thus far is because there hasn't been a widescale major depreciation in the standard of living, when that happens things will unravel fast. The elite can only rule with the consent of the majority, to paraphrase Game of Thrones, power is an illusion.

Wars...yes but apparently we're less war like. Certainly in the West, it would be hard to draft everyone into the army and stoke the fires of jingoistic patriotism without some dramatic sleight of hand. I'm not saying humanity is enlightened, in fact I think most of humanity is dismissable but I think humanity has the potential to improve, why not believe in that in order to make it so? A delusion of grandeur is only such until it's realised. Arnold Schwarzenegger believed in himself and became governor of California. But you would have called him insane to entertain such notions of film stardom and political power when he was starting off.

I disagree that most scientific advances come about through war. That seems to me like saying that war is good for the economy, which it's not. I'm not saying the world isn't an unfolding disaster, a car crash in slow motion, a cringe worthy experience which shows up humanity as tragic species hijacked by unscrupulous lower life form nasty people ie politicians/bankers/corporate and military men backed up by a brainwashed self absorbed large minority/small majority who will do and say anything to preserve a systemically broken status quo because their identities and welfare are invested in its very existence. But in spite of all this, I think the world has the potential to improve and we're here today with more freedoms (which the authoritarians among us are trying to take back for security durrr!), better living conditions than ever, in more peaceful times
with improved attitudes towards war, bigotry etc. Therefore I still think that this ship should be built.

helimachoptor

Could we not just build the defiant??? It's a lot smaller! Or even a runabout!

volvoman480

I'd love to see a miranda class ship being built. She'd be a bit cheaper to build than the Enterprise. I've always like the miranda class ships, they look fantastic.

http://www.durfee.net/startrek/c_Miranda.html




Oh yeah, speaking of miranda class starships; "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN"

Myrddin

Oh an excuse to post a Miranda Class ship? Yoink! Love them :cool:

IvySlayer

Miranda class..the redshirts in space :pac: