Build the Enterprise

[Aghanim]

http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/

It have several nuclear electric rocket, a hidden radiator: http://btewiki.org/index.php?title=Thermal (if nyrath come here and complain the lack of radiators) a huge gravity wheel, whipple and electromagnetic shield, small spaceport and a 100 MW laser. Pretty good for a real life Enterprise for me, but is this ship is feasible to build?

[Seret]

is this ship is feasible to build?

No, the guy's a grade A nutter. The Enterprise planform is a stupid design for a spacecraft, the centre of thrust isn't aligned with the centre of mass, and it's just too damn big to be any use for anything. Except flying in loops, of course. If you wanted a humungous ship that could only do flips it would be awesome.

Surprised he hasn't invented some way to include a transporter beam, he's missing a trick there. Maybe we could just dice people very finely, shoot the bits out of a cannon and then glue them together at the other end? After all, it's not about being practical, it's about mirroring The Historical Documents as closely as possible.

[NASAFanboy]

Oh my god, no.

It should be build the Natilus-X, or better yet, a moon base or Discovery One

[Canopus]

God this is just to funny. That design is not practical in anyway. I think NASAfanboy is right, lets build the Discovery one!

(i actually hope nyrath comes here for that)

[Tydeth]

Yeah, the Enterprise has NO right to fly whatsoever in any realistic physics setting. The only way you might get COM/COT lined up would be to have extra engines on the fuselage to counteract the thrust application from the nacelles. The only Enterprise that actually has a chance at maybe working in real physics propulsion-wise is the NCC-1701D, as its Nacelles are lined up below the saucer hull, and may thus be closer to the COM.

[Seret]

Actually I take it back, calling him a nutter is a bit unkind. He's not nuts, he's just a massive Treknerd who doesn't appreciate that not everyone else finds Trek as inspiring as he does. Harmlessly delusional yes, but actually mad, no.

[tom1499]

His plan to use Ion engines means that COT and COM don't need to align, they are so weak they wouldn't do anything. And if we want efficiency and the like, then a metal tube would be easier and fit more than the abstract Enterprise.

[Kryten]

His plan to use Ion engines means that COT and COM don't need to align, they are so weak they wouldn't do anything.

That makes no sense whatsoever. The total impulse will have to be the same for a certain orbit change, whatever the thrust, so the amount of off-centre impulse will be the same, leading to the exact same problems.

[rkman]

I think tom1499 means it doesn't matter because the ship won't ever make orbit anyway. It might just as well have no engines.

from the website:

Ship specs

constant acceleration: 0.0001g

So it won't do warp 9, in fact it won't be going anywhere for a long long time.

Not to mention that 3 ion thrusters providing 0.0001g to a ship that would be the largest structure mankind has ever build, is overly optimistic.

On the other hand, maybe the whole thing is a persiflage of 'projects' such as Mars One and the (only slightly more realistic) 100 year starship (http://100yss.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Year_Starship)

"The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) is a joint U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant project to a private entity in order to work toward achieving interstellar travel.[1] The aim of the project, announced in January 2012, is to work toward achieving interstellar travel within the next 100 years."

It's like Neanderthals making plans to go to the moon. A nice pastime perhaps, but a bit presumptuous to call it a plan.

[NASAFanboy]

I think tom1499 means it doesn't matter because the ship won't ever make orbit anyway. It might just as well have no engines.

from the website:

Ship specs

constant acceleration: 0.0001g

So it won't do warp 9, in fact it won't be going anywhere for a long long time.

Not to mention that 3 ion thrusters providing 0.0001g to a ship that would be the largest structure mankind has ever build, is overly optimistic.

On the other hand, maybe the whole thing is a persiflage of 'projects' such as Mars One and the (only slightly more realistic) 100 year starship (http://100yss.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Year_Starship)

"The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) is a joint U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant project to a private entity in order to work toward achieving interstellar travel.[1] The aim of the project, announced in January 2012, is to work toward achieving interstellar travel within the next 100 years."

It's like Neanderthals making plans to go to the moon. A nice pastime perhaps, but a bit presumptuous to call it a plan.

While I do agree that interstellar travel will happen in the 22nd century to our nearest stars, I think the 100YSS is a little optimistic.

Personally, I think NASA needs a goal that cannot be reached, such as Alpha Century by 2050. But we'll do alot by trying to et there.

And if we do get there, it'll be a huge thing for mankind.

Not Mars by 2040. Alpha Centauri by 2040!

Too optimistic. But we'll do a lot trying to get there

[NovaSilisko]

Oh lord, not this again...

[Motokid600]

Am I the only one who thinks the Enterprise is a **** ugly starship? It's just so dumb and awkward looking. Now the Normandy SR-2... That's a drop dead sexy spacecraft. Modeled after a formula one race car can't go wrong. A lot more practical then the Enterprise too.

[NASAFanboy]

Am I the only one who thinks the Enterprise is a **** ugly starship? It's just so dumb and awkward looking. Now the Normandy SR-2... That's a drop dead sexy spacecraft. Modeled after a formula one race car can't go wrong. A lot more practical then the Enterprise too.

No offense, but the Normady looks too much like some experimental USAF toy.

I like the ISV Venture Star.

To me, realistic heaps of trusses and fuel tanks and small habitats are completely beautiful.

[Anton P. Nym]

Am I the only one who thinks the Enterprise is a **** ugly starship? It's just so dumb and awkward looking. Now the Normandy SR-2... That's a drop dead sexy spacecraft. Modeled after a formula one race car can't go wrong. A lot more practical then the Enterprise too.

I love the Normandy too, but it's not a practical design; the thrust axis is below the CoM, so it's just as unwieldy as the Enterprise that way.

-- Steve

[Holo]

Thrust vectoring, guys.

[Seret]

Thrust vectoring, guys.

Which is less efficient than simply lining up CoT and CoM in the first place. The Trek Enterprise is a stupid design for a real ship, any way you slice it.

[lajoswinkler]

Star Trek ships have a stupid design in the terms of classical propulsion (throwing stuff at a high speed in the direction opposite of wanted direction of movement), but you have to remember those ships use warp drive which works differently... but which is a fantasy happy time way of moving in space, something that both trek-nutters and surprisingly lot of people forget.

This project that I mentioned recently on another thread is an absolute disaster made by clearly someone so obsessed with Star Trek that he lost the touch with reality.

[czokletmuss]

Pretty good for a real life Enterprise for me, but is this ship is feasible to build?

They can as well try to build Barad-dur or launch New York into space.

Edit: Which reminds me of the petition to build Death Star: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking

Edited September 12, 2013 by czokletmuss

[I.R.L.]

Just want to drop my 2 cents here, but the Nacelles don't propel the enterprise unless its a warp. the red impulse engines do, but they are on the back of the saucer therefore they are almost level with the nacelles and i doesn;t matter anyways.

If this was possible, i'd be all for it though.

[magnemoe]

No offense, but the Normady looks too much like some experimental USAF toy.

I like the ISV Venture Star.

To me, realistic heaps of trusses and fuel tanks and small habitats are completely beautiful.

The Normady look like something who is designed to enter the upper layer of the atmosphere, not only to aerobrake but also to do turns and accelerate, probably collect reaction mass.

I hope it has the deep space engines in the back, probably fusion engines as other say the wing engines are below center of mass.

And I would rather build the Venture Star.

More so as it represent some interesting design challenges. Laser boosted photon sail acceleration for half a year at 1.5g up to 0.7c, anti matter based braking and probably return boost.

Challenge one: accelerate the huge ship with lasers is plausible, downside is that it would take more energy than Earth receive from the sun. Packs of solar cell arrays the size of countries (Texas) at mercury orbit or below.

Challenge two, create the anti matter, yes this take even more energy

The irony is that the ship drive system makes the movies description of Earth an idiot plot. With that sort of energies available your only environmental problem would be to much waste heat. Energy would really be to cheap to measure, else you would launch the ship at 1g and take an two year longer traveling time. Waste? simply turn it into plasma, separate the atoms and sell the pure raw materials.

Anyway even the Venture Star shuttles would be cool, think we do them first.

[Aghanim]

For some reason everytime I tried to reply this the browser have a problem, but ^

Making the laser launcher that huge to propel a ship at 1 G = a freaking huge instant city wiper/ship vaporizer

[AstroDoc]

Enterprise

My 1st attempt, just to see if it was possible .. before I checked out the forum.

Obviously I left it on the launchpad and edited the persistent file to get it into orbit. Yes I know that's cheating in a major and perhaps shameful way, but I thought the effect was worth it.

I would like to have seen the screenshots from sirguinea, but I couldn't open them

Perhaps there might have been more pictures on the 1000 page threads, but on the more obvious 'Star Trek' and 'Enterprise' threads there weren't many pictures.

AstroDoc

[CptRichardson]

Yeah, the classic design doesn't make much sense as a ship without some fancy tricks. STO's Guardian class would be more along the lines of what we would build with a few tweaks to balance it out. Still wouldn't do it unless the cannae drive motors produce a useful amount of thrust (at which point having nacelle housings with dozens of them mounted inside on gimbals would actually make sense)

[ZedNova]

The center of thrust is actually aligned somewhat with the COM, the thrust doesn't come from the nacelles, it comes from the impulse engines on the "Neck" of the saucer section. The nacelles only channel the plasma used to create the warp field. (Don't ask me how)

That said;

This project is impossible with current tech, it's silly and a waste of human resources.

[Sky_walker]

Personally, I think NASA needs a goal that cannot be reached, such as Alpha Century by 2050. But we'll do alot by trying to et there.

Too optimistic. But we'll do a lot trying to get there

Wow... I really admire how your nickname is totally appropriate.

You know what we would do a lot of in all that time? A lot of arguing about wasting money on unrealistic goals, and a lot of 3D renders. That would be about it.

The center of thrust is actually aligned somewhat with the COM

"Somewhat" being a key difference between is and isn't.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Sky_walker