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White House Petition Urges U.S. To Build Real-Life Starship 'Enterprise'

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The Creeper
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« on: January 07, 2013, 12:58:08 am »

 White House Petition Urges U.S. To Build Real-Life Starship 'Enterprise'

Posted: 01/04/2013 9:44 am EST



Enterprisestarship
This model of the fictional starship Enterprise was used in the weekly hourlong “Star Trek” TV series that aired September 1966 to June 1969.

By: Clara Moskowitz
Published: 01/04/2013 07:50 AM EST on SPACE.com

An engineer is petitioning the White House to study the possibility of building a real-life starship Enterprise like the fictional vessel in television's "Star Trek."

The proposal was submitted through the White House's official "We the People" channel, which promises an administration response to any petition that gathers at least 25,000 signatures. Just last month, a petition to build a Death Star like the spherical spaceship in the movie "Star Wars" garnered that critical mass, and is currently awaiting its official response.

The Enterprise proposal comes from an engineer who goes by the name BTE Dan, who detailed plans for constructing a life-size, flyable starship Enterprise on his website last year.

"We have within our technological reach the ability to build the 1st generation of the USS Enterprise," BTE Dan wrote in the petition, viewable here.

As of this writing, the petition had 3,335 signatures, with more than 21,000 to go.

The project, BTE Dan maintains, wouldn't be a vanity exercise, but rather a practical step forward for space exploration. [The Top 10 Star Trek Technologies]

"It ends up that this ship's inspiring form is quite functional," he wrote. "This will be Earth's first gigawatt-class interplanetary spaceship with artificial gravity. The ship can serve as a spaceship, space station, and space port all in one. In total, one thousand crew members & visitors can be on board at once."
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The Creeper
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« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2013, 12:59:07 am »



A diagram of the real-life starship Enterprise proposed by an engineer who says most of the technology is at hand.
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« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2013, 01:05:27 am »

 Some experts have questioned the feasibility of certain aspects of BTE Dan's plan — for example, no technology for artificial gravity currently exists, and the largest number of people ever accommodated on any space vehicle until now has been 13 (when the shuttle Discovery docked to the International Space Station in April 2010).

However, scientists are pursuing the dream of interstellar spaceflight — travel to other stars — which would require a significant technological leap from current spacecraft, none of which have yet left the solar system. An organization called 100 Year Starship, initially kicked off with seed money from NASA and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), aims to establish the technologies needed for interstellar flight within 100 years.

Plus, if the Enterprise could be built, BTE Dan argues that its motivational benefits would match its scientific paybacks.

"Few things could collectively inspire people on Earth more than seeing the Enterprise being built in space," he wrote. "And the ship could go on amazing missions, like taking the first humans to Mars while taking along a large load of base-building equipment for constructing the first permanent base there."

For more details about the proposed Enterprise plans, see BTE Dan's site: BuildTheEnterprise.org.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

    Star Trek's Warp Drive: Are We There Yet? | Video
    The Evolution of 'Star Trek' (Infographic)
    Gallery: Visions of Interstellar Starship Travel

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2013, 01:09:21 am »

Engineer thinks we could build a real Starship Enterprise in 20 years

In Star Trek lore, the first Starship Enterprise will be built by the year 2245. But today, an engineer has proposed - and outlined in meticulous detail – building a full-sized, ion-powered version of the Enterprise complete with 1G of gravity on board, and says it could be done with current technology, within 20 years. "We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise -– so let's do it," writes the curator of the Build The Enterprise website, who goes by the name of BTE Dan.

This "Gen1" Enterprise could get to Mars in ninety days, to the Moon in three, and "could hop from planet to planet dropping off robotic probes of all sorts en masse –- rovers, special-built planes, and satellites."

Complete with conceptual designs, ship specs, a funding schedule, and almost every other imaginable detail, the BTE website was launched just this week and covers almost every aspect of how the project could be done. This Enterprise would be built entirely in space, have a rotating gravity section inside of the saucer, and be similar in size with the same look as the USS Enterprise that we know from Star Trek.

Engineer thinks we could build a real Starship Enterprise in 20 years"It ends up that this ship configuration is quite functional," writes BTE Dan, even though his design moves a few parts around for better performance with today's technology. This version of the Enterprise would be three things in one: a spaceship, a space station, and a spaceport. A thousand people can be on board at once – either as crew members or as adventurous visitors.

Engineer thinks we could build a real Starship Enterprise in 20 yearsWhile the ship will not travel at warp speed, with an ion propulsion engine powered by a 1.5GW nuclear reactor, it can travel at a constant acceleration so that the ship can easily get to key points of interest in our solar system. Three additional nuclear reactors would create all of the electricity needed for operation of the ship.

The saucer section would be a .3 mile (536 meter) diameter rotating, magnetically-suspended gravity wheel that would create 1G of gravity.

The first assignments for the Enterprise would have the ship serving as a space station and space port, but then go on to missions to the Moon, Mars, Venus, various asteroids and even Europa, where the ships' laser would be used not for combat but for cutting through the moon's icy crust to enable a probe to descend to the ocean below.

Of course, like all space ships today, the big "if" for such an ambitious effort would be getting Congress to provide NASA the funding to do a huge 20-year project. But BTE Dan has that all worked out, and between tax increases and spreading out budget cuts to areas like defense, health and human services, housing and urban development, education and energy, the cuts to areas of discretionary spending are not large, and the tax increases could be small. "These changes to spending and taxes will not sink the republic," says the website. "In fact, these will barely be noticed. It's amazing that a program as fantastic as the building a fleet of USS Enterprise spaceships can be done with so little impact."

Engineer thinks we could build a real Starship Enterprise in 20 years"The only obstacles to us doing it are the limitations we place on our collective imagination," BTE Dan adds, and his proposal says that NASA will still receive funding for the science, astronomy and robotic missions it currently undertakes.

But he proposes not just one Enterprise-class ship, but multiple ships, one of which can be built every 33 years –- once per generation –- giving three new ships per century. "Each will be more advanced than the prior one. Older ships can be continually upgraded over several generations until they are eventually decommissioned."

BTE Dan, who did not respond to emails, lists himself as a systems engineer and electrical engineer who has worked at a Fortune 500 company for the past 30 years. The website includes a blog, a forum and a Q&A section, where BTE Dan answers the question, "What if someone can prove that building the Gen1 Enterprise is beyond our technological reach?"

Answer: "If someone can convince me that it is not technically possible (ignoring political and funding issues), then I will state on the BuildTheEnterprise site that I have been found to be wrong. In that case, building the first Enterprise will have to wait for, say, another half century. But I don't think that anyone will be able to convince me it can't be done. My position is that we can -– and should –- immediately start working on it."

For the complete space nerd experience, check out Build The Enterprise.

Hat tip to Rand Simberg.

This post originally appeared on Universe Today. Top image: Paramount Pictures/CBS Studios. Lower images: BuildTheEnterprise.org.

http://io9.com/5909774/engineer-thinks-we-could-build-a-real-starship-enterprise-in-20-years
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« Reply #9 on: January 07, 2013, 01:14:25 am »

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« Reply #10 on: January 07, 2013, 01:15:05 am »

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0514/Should-we-build-a-real-life-Starship-Enterprise-and-fly-it-to-Mars-video
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