Building the USS Enterprise over the next 20 years | Hacker News Reader

Building the USS Enterprise over the next 20 years

buildtheenterprise.org

32 pointsasto19 comments

Some random guy designs a cool looking ship. Then he gets his buddy to modify science (or create new science) to make it seem feasible. Then, Random Guy creates stories based on this entire thing...

Why would anyone think basing reality on this fictional ship is a good idea?

There's an awful lot of science that needs to be discovered before we can do much of this. And the problem is that, in a capitalist-driven world (especially one that must have its profits tomorrow), it's not profitable at all to do this. Now, I'm a pure research proponent, but picking a goal 150 years in the future for a technology we don't even know could exist (say warp drive) is just a dumb way to try to Do Science.

Let's keep spending money on alternative fuel research, nuclear research, medical research ... and at some point, one of my great-grandchildren (or yours) will see the ground we've covered and have that epiphanic moment where she discovers proper wormhole travel. Or whatever.

Fiction plays a fundamental role in shaping the direction of our efforts.

For instance, Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" planted the seed for the Apollo Program. As Asimov's work on the laws of robotics planted a seed to inspire future AI development.

Edit: To better make my point, "Robert Manning used to make cardboard rockets... Now he makes real ones."[1]

[1] http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/04/caines_arcade_vis...

Agreed. But notice that "shaping the direction" is not the same as "let's build Star Trek."

Fiction inspires us to consider new possibilities, it doesn't give us a roadmap and blueprints. This desire to build Enterprise is assuming that Star Trek is indeed a roadmap and blueprints. Did we build the Apollo vehicles based on descriptions of technologies, materials or even shapes by Verne? No.

> This desire to build Enterprise is assuming that Star Trek is indeed a roadmap and blueprints.

If you actually look at his roadmap and blueprints, Gen1 through Gen3 have nothing to do with the fictional Enterprise. It's just a catchy name. Only the Gen4 spec gets into "fictional science" territory (warp drives).

True, it seems like the Star Trek theme is just being used for the "hearts and minds" effect. Which might not be too bad an idea.

Yes, exactly! Leonardo Da Vinci's contemporaries didn't believe the helicopter would work when he drew it either. Granted, the current helicopters look nothing like what he drew, but he did get the idea of it right and one tends to iron out problems while experimenting.

All I can see are guys making fun of this guy's ideas because it was originally based in fiction. That is an illogical argument. The man with the plan has put up all the details he can on his website. You can pick apart his ideas if they really are flawed. Why just focus on the fact that his idea was originally a piece of science fiction.

> There's an awful lot of science that needs to be discovered before we can do much of this.

Not for the Gen1 and Gen2, and possibly not even for the Gen3. We already know how to build ion thrusters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster

Building an ion drive ship to meet the Gen1 or Gen2 specs is a matter of engineering and cost, not science. The only other significant spec is the radiation shielding, but we know how to do that; again, it's just a matter of engineering and cost, not science.

The big change in the Gen3 specs is the required 1g acceleration, which is probably too high for ion thrusters to reach based on our current knowledge. So we would need to do some development on nuclear rockets; but there has been scientific work done on fission and fusion rocket concepts, so even here it's mostly engineering and cost. It would certainly help to have a breakthrough in materials technology that would let us build lighter radiation shielding for a Gen3 ship, but we could build one without it (albeit it would be a lot more expensive).

I agree the Gen4 spec is "out there".

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28821.0

The topic ended by:

"Sci fi fans taking on NASA engineers is too funny, but also a waste of time. We deal with real hardware here.

Locked."

That was an interesting discussion. It's a pity the forum rules are strict there. I'm no spaceflight/physics pro but he did have reasonable arguments.

There was no reasonable arguments made. Simply put, if we wanted to build a space craft of the size or capacity of the enterprise, designing it from the outside in would be a terrible way to do it. The enterprise is a fictional concept produced over a very small amount of time by an artist. That alone means that it is simply unsuitable for the task.

Rather than think of it as somebody trying to bring a sci-fi object to life, why not think of it as someone wanting to make space-flight a reality and realising that a sci-fi object would be a good start?

I posted this article to HN mostly because I wanted to see technical arguments as to why this would not work. This guy's thinking on a scale that is MUCH bigger than the current space technologists. Space flight is difficult and full of challenges but since we have to solve significant problems anyway, why not solve the ones that apply to spacecraft of this scale? (because this sort of ship inherently solves some big issues with humans in space like very little space in the ship, damage to human bodies from low gravity etc)

> I posted this article to HN mostly because I wanted to see technical arguments as to why this would not work.

As I posted above, for Gen1 and Gen3, and possibly even Gen3, I don't think there are any.

The most important good thing these specs do is add in acceleration, even if it's small (0.002g is pretty small). Robert Heinlein said decades ago that the way we do space flight now, with ships "coasting" except for brief rocket burns to change course, is the equivalent of floating down the Mississippi on a raft. What we need are the equivalent of sailing ships--ships that always have some "push", even if it's small. The difference in travel times for any significant distance is amazing (note that current plans by NASA for a trip to Mars have it taking two years one way!).

It's an interesting idea to think in this scale, but the proposal of "build the enterprise" is simply flawed. Building complex machines is hard. Why would we waste time trying to apply arbitrary constraints which are based on what an artist 60 years ago thought a spaceship might look like?

As a way of catching the attention of the public and getting some energy behind large scale space exploration, there might be a little merit. Unfortunately the person making the proposal is clinging to the idea that actually building the enterprise is a good idea. It's not. If instead of this they had actually said "Build the enterprise", and on clicking through to the site, the first thing you read was "Not really, but here are all these great reasons for large scale space exploration. Let's get behind this.", then it might have actually gained some traction. As it is, anyone with a grain of knowledge about the complexities of building large scale projects will instantly dismiss this as the scifi fan fantasy that it ultimately is.

It's unfortunate that the guy is apparently an electrical engineer. It gives some credibility to the idea which it doesn't really deserve.

While I think this is very cool and would like it to happen, I don't think this is a good thing to be focusing on just yet. It seems like trying to build the HMS Victory before you've quite figured out how to build coastal clippers.

A better short term goal might be to get space stations up at Earth-moons L4/L5 that we can use as shipyards, resupply and refuelling stations. I think only once we start building spacecraft in space will transport around the solar system become more commonplace.

Some relevant links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point_colonization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Networ...

That sounds more rational. But "lets build a station at L4" doesn't have the same appeal as "lets build freaking Enterprise", now does it? :)

You are looking for the "100 Years Space Ship", financed by DARPA (the same that made the Internet) and others.

http://100yss.org/

From the Mission Statement: "100 Year Starship will pursue national and global initiatives, and galvanize public and private leadership and grassroots support, to assure that human travel beyond our solar system and to another star can be a reality within the next century."

Awesome idea. The site desperately needs some HN help though. No call to action, not even a form to be notified through a mailing list; Twitter link is hidden.

Kickstarter.

It just misses the core factor mentioned in the fiction. The Nietzschesque need for a 3rd war were we would come out as a unified earth. Under one government.

Also the immediate need to focus on that after contact with the vulcans.

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