Starship Enterprise could be a reality by 2032, engineer says

Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

What are you, A NASA spokesman or something. We need to stop wasting resources not increase wasting resources. Why don't we just grab a ride with Thor on his his Aztec mothership next time he comes by.

There is no way that the cost of these things could ever be recovered by taxpayers. NO WAY. I'm not into making slaves out of my grandchildren just so some people can go play in space. Every venture taken on by our government funded space programs failed to produce anything significant to the taxpayer other than bragging rights of the taxpayers. All that money just to say you were first or best is stupid. Why don't we create a big vacuum cleaner to remove all that space junk for recycling.

We spent a trillion dollars in Iraq
What did we get?

We spent a fraction of that in all the years the space program has been around
What did we get?

Answers:

Iraq: nothing
Space: Everything from new materials, medical advancements, soil enrichment, heavy electronics, even the modern computer. The impact from the space industry has uplifted us tremendously with the short amount of time and money it has had.

You are suggesting somehow this matters to your grandkids?
What are you more proud of as your legasy..some potholes in the middle east, or medical and technological breakthroughs.

You have a "lets just all go back to the caves" mentality. Your desires is to stop any progression and keep on with wasting money on murder verses advancement.

I dismiss your view as harmful to the furthering of our species. Your grandchildren, I suspect, would side with me on this.

potholes or portals, seems the money will be going somewhere..lets put it to productive use now.

Originally posted by rickymouse
So they want the taxpayer to fund a two trillion+ dollar NASA toy to fly around the solar system. What kind of fools do they think we are.

They think you are way down foolish, they made you pay taxes for wars and made you buy useless products, no?

The resources of creating this thing would cause more destruction of our environment too.

Well we are good at destroying, that's beneficial. One destruction more n a world of destruction, nobody will notice this.

We don't have to make every dream become reality. If these people want to explore space, we'll tie them onto a missile and send it to space. Do that a few times and soon our taxpayers will start saving money on these programs.:lol

:
But then we will, again, fulfill otherones dreams instead of ours.

reply to post by Eurisko2012


Perhaps you're right. But I doubt even a community or global effort to build it is feasible....not without the Government being at the forefront of the effort....nor without their resources.

With that said, starting small and scaling up is likely the only way it would happen and in that, far more than 20 years is needed.

reply to post by rickymouse


Actually, the return on the taxes used for the spaceprogram was pretty good if memory serves. The tech boom gave us all sorts of industry firsts and profitable enterprises and Tang was yummy.

Besides, if we are able to put even archaic solar panels in orbit to beam energy back home that would make it all worthwhile in saved oil expenses... and if we could, for example, deflect an incoming asteroid that would obliterate our grandkids than I'd think that's fairly priceless... depending on the grandkids I guess.

So what do they want to power it with? Isn't this ship supposed to travel at the speed of light? ^^ Sounds amazing though.

Originally posted by alphabetaone
reply to post by Eurisko2012

 

Perhaps you're right. But I doubt even a community or global effort to build it is feasible....not without the Government being at the forefront of the effort....nor without their resources.

With that said, starting small and scaling up is likely the only way it would happen and in that, far more than 20 years is needed.

I can easily see the USA on the moon by 2020.

Space tourism is booming right now.

Have you seen the new White Knight 2 Spaceship?

It works!

$200,000 per ride but it works!

Originally posted by Needalight
So what do they want to power it with? Isn't this ship supposed to travel at the speed of light? ^^ Sounds amazing though.

They just said "functional", not identical to the capabilities of the one from Star Trek. It's at least a starting point

Originally posted by Needalight
So what do they want to power it with? Isn't this ship supposed to travel at the speed of light? ^^ Sounds amazing though.

They can install the reactor later.

Impulse drive would work for now.

- Their 2 biggest problems right now - reasonable artificial gravity and life support.-

--------
He should build the shuttlecraft first.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Hi sat
What I have always thought sensible is to send supplies to the moon.
Ones that could be used to build environments, space ships and fuel for them.
Then if and when you can get folks up there to assemble it (them) you would be ahead of the game.
Launching a heavy long distance craft from the moon would be way better than from earth.
This could be done on a trim budget and also provide for advances in technology and JOBS.
A REAL reason for NASA
cheers ljb

Originally posted by Eurisko2012
- Their 2 biggest problems right now - reasonable artificial gravity and life support.-

Life support isn't too difficult to consider. Air scrubbers, purifiers, etc...and link up to some space ice to split the oxygen out of there.
The gravity thing though is the actual issue that scraps the whole idea. it is simply a giant waste if they are planning on spinning it in its current form..totally worthless design. They need to make a ring or tube shape, not a disk. tube shape would allow for many possibilities, a enterprise mockup without gravity is just...well, I guess its done for boasting rights more than anything.

And if we are doing mockup space crafts for the hell of it, I would suggest the normandy is far cooler.

reply to post by Eurisko2012


I have seen it actually, plus other like type efforts in the hopper.

However, being on the moon (perhaps as colonization) is a far stretch from FTL travel, which frankly is almost a requisite of building such a ship otherwise what would be the point?

But that would certainly be a good small starting point; the moon.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by elevatedone

 

LMAO...Ion drive. Why stop with an ion drive? If Tachyons are proved reality instead of theoretical, you can make a faster than light engine if you could figure out how to harness it and create a "warp" bubble around the ship. Ofcourse you have no way of steering that thing or knowing where the hell you're going or how you're going to get back and if you did get back you would return thousands of years into our future and everyone you ever knew would be dead for thousands of years. You would basically be Christopher Columbus in space and watch out for black holes.

You could end up on the otherside of the universe with no idea where the hell you were at and the stars wouldn't even be remotely familiar.

edit on 13-5-2012 by lonewolf19792000 because: (no reason given)

Sounds like the basic plot of Star Trek Voyager
The future is indeed coming closer, fast fast!

reply to post by SaturnFX


Yeah but where have the majority of funds of gone in the past 11 years???

Iraq or space???


Although ironically Afghanistan was supposed to be the main problem.... confusing yeah


But who made profit and billions of $$ of money?????????????????????????????

reply to post by SaturnFX


I thought you of all people on this site might actually understand???

What happened to you??

Originally posted by longjohnbritches
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

Hi sat
What I have always thought sensible is to send supplies to the moon.
Ones that could be used to build environments, space ships and fuel for them.
Then if and when you can get folks up there to assemble it (them) you would be ahead of the game.
Launching a heavy long distance craft from the moon would be way better than from earth.
This could be done on a trim budget and also provide for advances in technology and JOBS.
A REAL reason for NASA
cheers ljb

Problem is gravity again.
long term moon habitation would weaken a person tremendously just as one issue.
Also there is a distance problem. takes a few days to get to the moon, which is a pain.

I think geosynchronous orbit is the sweet spot overall for construction. Also, the issue is where do we build it.
Which is the key...before we go on building big ships, we need to build a construction station. horse before cart. If this was a dream to make a massive spinning building platform, that would be ideal.
But nope..the idea is to make a spaceship that doesn't actually do anything practical.

Tax money for this design and idea, no..but for the concept of finally getting serious about space inhabitation, most definately.

The moon will more than likely consist of a few mining colonys with no permanent residents..just year long workers (in the short term, until we can sort out some artificial gravity).

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

Yeah but where have the majority of funds of gone in the past 11 years???

Iraq or space???


Although ironically Afghanistan was supposed to be the main problem.... confusing yeah

But who made profit and billions of $$ of money?????????????????????????????

They got really upset when Obama gave the order to take out Bin Laden, it dried up future business prospects for them

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

I thought you of all people on this site might actually understand???

What happened to you??

Not sure if I am following
I have always been about furthering ourselves..be it through tech, space exploration, etc...hell, its my driving motivation...self evolution.

What am I not understanding?
I love the idea, just think the design is super flawed for a initial step....station before ship. functionality before nostalgia. If we do things smart and proper, we can hurry up this whole space exploration and solar system exploitation by decades...making a enterprise is a bad move, making a tube drydock station is win.

Honestly I do not give a flying $%^ for enterprise.

Hoverboard, dear gentlemen.

They still have 3 years to do it. I'll be waiting.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by Eurisko2012
- Their 2 biggest problems right now - reasonable artificial gravity and life support.-

Life support isn't too difficult to consider. Air scrubbers, purifiers, etc...and link up to some space ice to split the oxygen out of there.
The gravity thing though is the actual issue that scraps the whole idea. it is simply a giant waste if they are planning on spinning it in its current form..totally worthless design. They need to make a ring or tube shape, not a disk. tube shape would allow for many possibilities, a enterprise mockup without gravity is just...well, I guess its done for boasting rights more than anything.

And if we are doing mockup space crafts for the hell of it, I would suggest the normandy is far cooler.

I refuse to ride on the Enterprise until it has artificial gravity.

I require an Earth style bathroom with a normal flushing toilet.

--------
The current life support on the ISS works just fine.

The down side is that it smells like someone is constantly burning cookies!

reply to post by SaturnFX


We don't need to spend money in space, we don't need to spend money on war. We are over 15 trillion in debt, that debt was not created from one source. Our roads are falling apart. We need roads more than we need war or space programs. Common sense says to spend money on things with the best return for investment. The computer was not formed by sending ships in space, the technology could have been created without the space program. Mining ores in space cannot be nearly as profitable as recycling. I don't believe that people are so naive as to believe all the lies that are put out there by these people. If we don't start watching what we are doing everything will fall like dominoes. People have become deniers of common sense. Schools don't make people more intelligent, they make people more knowledgeable and conditioned. Conditioning of populations has been going on for a long time.