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

The guy's actual web site: http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/

That was submitted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3967130

Alternate reports of the same story:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3965116 (msn.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3964173 (io9.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3961894 (universetoday.com)

Now this should be a Kickstarter project. With such detailed plans as "Research" for 9 years I'm not seeing any risks here. Jokes aside, I'm not really sure what the point would be. As much as I love the idea of spaceships and exploring space, the budget this would require vs. the payoff - at this point in time, given the other problems we have on Earth - do not seem worthwhile.