Engineers want to build a REAL USS Enterprise in space!

[Oceanas]

Basic Newtonian physics will tell you... something. It relates to a little part called "equal and opposite reaction."

Right on the main page where it talks about the gravity ring, it also mentions that there would be a counter rotating ring to cancel out the rotation and that it would be much thinner than the main gravity ring, and filled with propellant or water to add the necessary mass.

 

[amdhunter]

And who's going to pay for this shit?

 

[CZroe]

Right on the main page where it talks about the gravity ring, it also mentions that there would be a counter rotating ring to cancel out the rotation and that it would be much thinner than the main gravity ring, and filled with propellant or water to add the necessary mass.

Not NEARLY as useful as my suggestion. Mine uses two equal rotating masses that can both be utilized identically. There would be a top floor and a bottom floor spinning opposite directions which could be traversed from the center (floors are side-by-side from occupants' perspectives).

 

[notposting]

We need to get on this. Let's get out there and terrorize the galaxy(ies)!

Only way we will really get real progress is to start doing it.

 

[tboo]

Dibs on Seven of Nine.

 

[CZroe]

We need to get on this. Let's get out there and terrorize the galaxy(ies) solar system!

Only way we will really get real progress is to start doing it.

FTFY.

 

[mnewsham]

FTFY.

yup, getting out of the solar system even with ion propulsion would take a long while

 

[sdifox]

we need fusion first

 

[vailr]

For artificial gravity, there were better and more practical spaceship designs depicted in these 2 films:
2010 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
Red Planet http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199753/
Did the original TV series ever "explain" how gravity was "maintained" aboard the Enterprise? They never depicted such a rotating portion for producing artificial gravity.

 

[clamum]

Sounds cool as hell but I still think that's unfeasible and will never get funded.

Want to fund something realistic and with amazing potential? Fund a manned Mars mission. Don't need fancy technology and we can do it today. I wish politicians (and anyone, really) would read Robert Zubrin's book The Case for Mars. A common sense outline of why and how it can be done today and without spending hundreds of billions of dollars? :awe:

 

[bruceb]

Nice if they can actually do it. Most of the technology, except for phasers, photon torpedos, transporters, shields and of course a decent power plant already exist. We have the computing capacity (but not at the level of what Enterprise has)

 

[randomrogue]

Time to leave the Solar System (~1 ly) with an Ion Engine?

Time to reach Alpha Centauri (~4.4 ly) with an Ion Engine?

Time to reach Gliese 581 c (~20 ly) with an Ion Engine?

 

[Fayd]

Not NEARLY as useful as my suggestion. Mine uses two equal rotating masses that can both be utilized identically. There would be a top floor and a bottom floor spinning opposite directions which could be traversed from the center (floors are side-by-side from occupants' perspectives).

side by side from the occupant's perspective, but you still have to go to the central hub to move between floors...

 

[Doppel]

building a full-sized, ion-powered version of the Enterprise complete with 1G of gravity on board, and says it could be done with current technology, within 20 years.

I stopped reading there, total bullsh*t.

 

[randomrogue]

I stopped reading there, total bullsh*t.

"You wanna hear something really nutty? I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an "airplane," you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it's ridiculous, right? And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon, or atomic energy, or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right? Look, all I'm asking, is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history. "

 

[Doppel]

"You wanna hear something really nutty? I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an "airplane," you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it's ridiculous, right? And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon, or atomic energy, or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right? Look, all I'm asking, is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history. "

You wanna hear something nutty? I knew this mentally retarded kid growing up. He wanted to build a rocket and fly to the moon. You can't do that, we told him. Oh yes I can, he said. He spent all summer building a rail system to launch it. Then he five hundred model rocket motors on the back of his "rocket" and finally it was time to launch. He launched. Most of the motors went off, he took off into the sky and went up 15 feet, came crashing back down and landed on some re-bar sticking out of the ground from a project the neighbors were working on. Died instantly. This story isn't true, though, but it's more true than the USS enterprise being built with 1G in 20 years with current tech. I guess in the end the only way to be sure is to build it, which won't happen, so the safe money is on what I just said, that it's nonsense.

 

[randomrogue]

See the real problem isn't that it won't work. There's a good chance that with a $1 T budget it would. The problem is that people don't grasp the distances in space. Yes the first step would be Moon, Mars, and Asteroid exploration but to leave the solar system with an Ion Engine today would take something stupid like 15 million years. So as long as people understand that anything we build today would be used for near Earth exploration we'll be ok. Just do a cost/benefit study and decide if the loss would be worth the potential rewards you'd get from research and exploration.

 

[Doppel]

FWIW I would give some of my own money voluntarily to fund a truly stupid-big project. I don't even care what. USS Enterprise, a great pyramid, except like 30X as big as the ones in Egypt, sky-scraper that makes burj khalifa look like a joke. I think the US needs a-at-me type project like it used to do, just for the simply awesomeness factor.

 

[randomrogue]

I'm not spending a trillion dollars on a spaceship that runs slower than our current unmanned probes. Especially when we already have a space station in orbit.

I agree with you about a big, look at me now bitches, project though. First they should probably fix the housing market, the banking sector, manufacturing, health care, social security, and education.

We're fucked. Just build the stupid Enterprise so that I can go live there.

 

[Hacp]

I'm not spending a trillion dollars on a spaceship that runs slower than our current unmanned probes. Especially when we already have a space station in orbit.

I agree with you though about a big, look at me now bitches, project though. First though they should probably fix the housing market, the banking sector, manufacturing, health care, social security, and education.

We're fucked. Just build the stupid Enterprise so that I can go live there.

Lets see, 1 trillion to have access to the Moon's oil. I'll take it.

 

[randomrogue]

Lets see, 1 trillion to have access to the Moon's oil. I'll take it.

Are you referring to Petroleum? Fossil Fuels? On the Moon?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Until they have found something worth going to, I doubt anything like this will happen. So far everything they've found is cool, but really doesn't do us much good. If there's not money to be made.....

Also, if the government (as it is today) is involved. It will cost 4x as much as it should and do half as much.

 

[CZroe]

For artificial gravity, there were better and more practical spaceship designs depicted in these 2 films:
2010 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
Red Planet http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199753/
Did the original TV series ever "explain" how gravity was "maintained" aboard the Enterprise? They never depicted such a rotating portion for producing artificial gravity.

They talk about "gravity plating" or something all the time and the warp drive and deflector dish manipulate gravity to do their work. In fact, the primary reason why we couldn't build something like this now is that it's too much to risk losing to some errant rock that we couldn't deflect. Earth orbit is clear of most such debris due to the yearly gravity sweeps it gets and the fact that most things passing through the orbit would be in unstable orbits that decayed long ago or got swept by any other major body.

Time to leave the Solar System (~1 ly) with an Ion Engine?

Time to reach Alpha Centauri (~4.4 ly) with an Ion Engine?

Time to reach Gliese 581 c (~20 ly) with an Ion Engine?

*facepalm*

A light year is a measurement of DISTANCE and not time.

Edit: I see that you are asking for the times. That said, it's hard to say that the solar system is anywhere near 1 ly without including the Oort cloud and, well, I wouldn't because gravitational influence is seemingly infinite (see Galaxy Superclusters). I wouldn't count much of anything past 100AU (Oort cloud is 50,000AU).

side by side from the occupant's perspective, but you still have to go to the central hub to move between floors...

Yes. This was understood. I wasn't implying a convenience, just emphasizing that they surface of the disc was not the usable floor space.

Are you referring to Petroleum? Fossil Fuels? On the Moon?

How can you be gullible enough to fall for a troll that was so blatant that it doesn't even count as a troll? (seriously hopes the light year=time thing wasn't a troll) It was pretty much the same joke as Futurama's "Whalers on the Moon."

 

[Matthiasa]

Which is exactly why he was asking how long it would take to reach those distances..
May want to read a little more carefully next time.

 

[randomrogue]

Look I realize the internet is new to you and all but please try to keep up. Clearly I put distances on there since the question was time. In both cases those are rhetorical questions put there to make a point and not to attract someone like you who is brand new to the internet and confused as to what is going on here.