Space... the Final Frontier...

[Warshawski]

So I was browsing about last night when I saw a news article about an engineer with a rather grand dream...

http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/our-space-problem

I happen to think he has a brilliant idea. If I could TL;DR it for you all and do it justice, I would. Read that page and then look about the site - it\'s all extremely well thought-out, as it should be. The man\'s been an engineer for 30 years.

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

I would like to point out that building the USS Enterprise is a bad idea. Worse than helicopter without any blades. The USS enterprise was built to look good, not to be efficiant in space. A better idea is to have some sort of craft closer to the shape of the interplanetary craft out of avatar at the start of the film. And second of all, what purpose would it have. Why spend the money on a giant spacecraft when you don\'t have a purpose for it. Those are the two main problems with it. There are alot of other problems though.

[Warshawski]

And you clearly didn\'t even look at the rest of the website. A pity. Did you read all the design specs? The reasoning behind choosing THAT shape? (Hint: It makes sense from the standpoint of an actual engineer.) It is nuclear powered, with ion engines. It is not extra-solar. It is interplanetary, with an absolutely enormous main cargo volume. It houses multiple landing craft which can carry large payloads. It is capable of dropping manned and robotic mining outposts anywhere in the system, and then going out and getting the output to bring back to Earth orbit as well.

If you\'d read, you\'d see that a lot of the Enterprise project is based around giving us a permanent space capability.

My advice? Read through the entire website first, before passing judgement.

[Johno]

I just did.

They guy is nuts. . . but just MAYBE in a good way.

I guess the configuration is no WORSE than any other configuration (aside from a lot of useless cosmetic features, but that\'s not really a problem if it gets people interested in getting it happening).

The money is a problem. It relies on the government of the USA putting a ridiculous portion of their GDP (0.27% doesn\'t sound like much, but it\'s an enormous amount of money) into a vanity project (which may have applications, but ultimately it exists because it\'s cool, not because it\'s actually practical).

[Warshawski]

It\'s my take that it\'s mainly the guy\'s attempt to get people interested in space.

[JupiterII]

The website will not load for me. Anyone else having this problem?

[Candre]

The website will not load for me. Anyone else having this problem?

Same here.

[trbinsc]

The website will not load for me. Anyone else having this problem?

Yeah, I think that the site is down.

[Kryten]

Where was the news article? It may have resulted in his site being overloaded.

[UmbralRaptor]

It got linked on slashdot, apparently.

[Endeavour]

I read this entire website, and I really think we need something like this. I want to have a large scale space project in my lifetime that will actually make something useful.

I have never watched the TV show Star Trek, so I don\'t see why it must look like the Enterprise other than as a cool cultural icon. I think if a more efficient design could be made with the same functionality, they should go for that.

Personally, I would not be bothered if all the money for this project came from social security, medicare, and medicaid because I am too young to ever receive the benefits of those programs (they will be bankrupt before I can use them).

There are some serious design flaws pointed out in the forums, but I believe that with a redesign, and the 9 planed years of highly funded and focused research that a space ship/port/station such as this would be possible, and I would love to see it happen.