Engineer Thinks We Could Build a Real Starship Enterprise in 20 Years

Nancy_A writes: "An engineer has proposed — and outlined in meticulous detail – building a full-sized, ion-powered version of the starship Enterprise complete with 1G of gravity on board, and says it could be done with current technology, within 20 years. “We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise – so let’s do it,” writes the curator of the Build The Enterprise website, who goes by the name of BTE Dan."

Captain, I donna think she can take any more...

[dpilot]

Error establishing a database connection

I'll try later.

Slightly more seriously, form follows function. The form of the Enterprise, if it were to follow any sort of function at all, would have been dictated by warp physics. You could force-fit a nuclear-reactor powered ion-engine propelled spaceship into a shape like the Enterprise, I suppose. But I'm sure there would be other, much more logical shapes.

Like f'rinstance the Discovery from 2001, or the starship from Avatar.

Make it so.

[evafan76]

Eventually, our species will need to start colonizing other planets. Now we just need a President to say "WE WILL DO THIS" and a Congress to fund it so we can get our asses in gear and do it. As a Conservative, I believe most of the Federal Government needs gutted, but Space Research and Defense are not things we should skimp on.