Trekkie wants to build USS Enterprise … in twenty years
A US Star Trek fan has launched an online project aimed at building a working replica of the USS Enterprise … in twenty years. “BTE Dan”, as the fan identifies himself at the buildtheenterprise.org site, says he's tired of stagnation in the world's space programs and feels that shooting for an iconic project like building a ship …
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Re: A journey to Alpha Centauri
"What kinetic energy?"
The kinetic energy of the mass at 0.1C + the relativistic extra kinetic energy due to the increase of the mass at 0.1C.
It's an absolutely enormous amount of energy - it's about 1E18 J to get a tonne to 0.1C
Re: A journey to Alpha Centauri
Say, I think that you've struck onto a quasi "Fountain of Youth". With enough energy and safe travel paths, the highest bidders could buy their educated, wealthy ways on to missions either as specialists or as cryo-passengers. But, a problem would be in the inability to actually *live* among those who are aging in Earth/Real-time ways.
Another interesting idea comes to mind (One that might have been addressed in various sci-fi shows over the decades, maybe Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Trek (Voyager, specifically), and others): suppose that prior to the Alpha Centauri or other travels, a huge mesh of comms relays was built. Now, when the traveling ship is ramping up to near .c, and then is cruising along, imagine they are communicating in near-real time from each end's perspective. Is that possible? If so, the traveling crews would go nuts dealing with people who may seem to be on endless, constant, rapid shift and retirement activity. Or, would that work the other way around? Or, would it not even be a problem? I'm suspecting it would be a problem. Especially for morale on the ship.
Also, does this (depending on the distances involved) nix the ideas of generation ships/multi-generation ships? What stars systems would be a logical cut-off/threshold for when a generation ship would be chosen vs non-generation ships?
Re: A journey to Alpha Centauri
Sean Ellis & Chemist: You probably have the right of it; I thought the energy requirement I'd computed seemed rather low, since I'd originally considered that the actual energy required would be a sizeable fraction of the Sun's entire output for several weeks' worth. I must have dropped a zero or three somewhere...
Unfortunately I didn't have time to check the figures and revise my calculations though, since I posted my original comment while at work, so I'll go with your revisions and agree that it's a Reg-unit fuckton of energy required to achieve this kind of acceleration!
As to a drive mechanism, the sort of thing I had in mind is what I call a RAP - Relativistic Accelerated Particle - drive. I imagine something along the lines of some kind of synchrotron based around a few hundred thousand tons of microscopic black hole, at which you fire ionised hydrogen nuclei (eg protons) almost tangentially to the black hole's event horizon. This would accelerate said protons to very close to the speed of light.
At such speeds, relativistic mass dilation comes into play, to the point where you could potentially increase the effective mass of a proton all the way up to a few kilograms. Then you fire said proton out the back, generating several kilograms of Newtonian thrust for the price of 1 proton. With such a system, an Olympic swimming pools' worth of hydrogen (perhaps stored as water or ammonia) would give you potentially years of 1G continuous thrust.
(BTW I hereby claim this post as prior art on this drive system to prevent some greedy bastard patenting it in future!)
Re: A journey to Alpha Centauri
That’s exactly the point: he described accelerating to c as “taking ten days less than a year”, which means he completely ignores relativity. So he casually tosses in an effectively infinite, massless power source. Well, that IS Star Trek thinking for ya.
Slight gravity mishap
Rotating gravity wheel (at equivalent of 1g?) plus 1g of acceleration across the plane of that wheel would cause a slightly bumpy ride.
Re: Slight gravity mishap
Yes, the 'gravity wheel' is completly pointless if you're accelerating at 1g all the way.
Re: Slight gravity mishap
I agree, and the enterprise design is totally wrong for a constant acceleration ship, they would be walking on the walls, making it a thin long, tall ship with lots of climbing!!!
Go ahead with a open source space ship design, but instead of basing it off a fictional ship, lets design it around the the technology available to us now..
Re: Slight gravity mishap
What technology? Solid rocket fuels and outdated designs? There haven't been any realistic developments towards space exploration at all. Well, none that matter anyway.
The next Reg SPB work?
Shirly this is just crying out for a tie up. We need a suitable acronym of course
Joint Open Really Deep Austronaut Node
Just a few seconds time wasting and I am sure others can come up with something much better.
Re: The next Reg SPB work?
Kinetic
Year
Long
Interstellar
Exploration
Travelling at near c velocities
Is fine - until you encounter a speck of dust.
Call me when that problem's been solved.
Re: Travelling at near c velocities
That is why the Enterprise had a deflector dish on the front.
Re: Travelling at near c velocities
No its not.
It had a deflector dish so when all else failed Scotty could reconfigure it to emit a reversed polarity flow of tachyonic neutrons.
Kidulthood
This 55 year old man reminds me of when I was 7 and bought a scale model kit of the Starship Enterprise from the local toy store for £8.99, clued it together badly, and wished it was real with me sat in the captain's chair.
Corrrr, weren't the 70s great?
Perhaps he will need this?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/U-S-S-Enterprise-Manual-Haynes-Workshop/dp/1844259412
First, we can't get anywhere near 99% c. More like 10%, (and even that is purely on paper in wet dream fantasies that ignore the astounding problems presented in engineering, materials, and economics). It's not just a question of acceleration.
second, even at that "low" speed, bumping into even a tiny gram of dust would be like being shot at with a nuclear bomb.
Not that bad, probably
As far as we know the density of gram-sized dust in interstellar space is low enough that one wouldn't hit one (to a high degree of probability).
Much smaller dust would be dangerous. Carrying your reaction mass as ice frozen into a long thin cylinder with the crew quarters at the back end ought to work, as long as none of the incoming dust generated enough energy to blow the whole mass to pieces, or enough gammas to fry the crew.
Galaxy Quest
This guy does realize that Star Trek is fiction, not some form of space exploration reference material...
Size?
Was the classic type 1701/Refit Enterprise really that large?
I don't think so.
Size is not the issue
It's all very well comparing it to mamoth buildings... but they weren't built in space! Building something that big in space (couldn't realistically build it on the ground) would be rather challenging.
Why am I bothering to even write this??!
Re: Size is not the issue
"Why am I bothering to even write this??!"
Similar thoughts went through my mind too.
Re: Size is not the issue
Like Lister suddenly realising the futility of fancying Wilma Flintstone - " Why am I even bothering? She'd never leave Fred!"
To eventually go where no man has gone before
It's a great idea but probably better done when we've nailed the basics of space travel better and can afford to have some fun with it. It's nice to think that one day the most beautiful ship ever to grace the screen galaxy could make its' maiden voyage - 40 Eridani A sounds like a nice place to visit..
So much for this guy's pet project - I think we should drop things back to a more reasonable level. I'm now off to register www.buildoptimusprime.org
Crashed?
Looks like someone has set it into a nose dive at the ground. Shouldn't the saucer section be a little more dented?
Re: Bah sod the enterprise..
I'm voting for the Death Star -- maybe we could convert the moon.. hollow it out, clad it in metal...
Re: Bah sod the enterprise..
According to that last TV version, Galactica survived because it was still running Windows 2000 whilst the Cylons released a virus that crippled all the schmucks running Metro, all of whose lusers and MSCE admins had no clue about fixing without a GUI or auto recovery disc and animated wizard.
Maybe one day
If we ever reach the level of something like Ian M. Banks' "The Culture", with highly advanced technology and infinite resources, then we might build a replica of the Enterprise one day. Just for a laugh. A bit like the way we build working replicas of old navy ships today.
In simplistic terms given todays technoiogy yes you could build a small "bolt together" craft in space up at the present international space station.It would however consume great amounts of resources in both materials and funds to get the thing even off the ground ,much like the international space station itself.
Id think even if it were viable you would be talking at the moment of a one way trip for astronauts, as resources and payload would negate the ability for a return ticket.........so whos up for volunteering?
We need an Orion launch.
Just one Orion launch could get 20000+ tons of raw space building materials into orbit not to mention pre-built factories to utilise them.
It's the only way ahead I reckon.
Just take one of the near earth asteroids, hollow it out , using the material to make the items need for fitting out the inside of the asteroid.
Nearly there
all you have to do the hollow out the asteroid as you travel, throwing the waste rock out of the back as fast as possible, but trying to avoid hitting anything important. This type of propulsion is called the "Flinger" method, no expensive rocket fuel needed, just a rail gun very similar to the one the US Navy are testing.
Nah... Trekkie ships won't be our frst design.
I always thought a Babylon 5 esque ship would be most likely as a first gen space ship. Blocky in design like earths warships now, just like submarines but with a rotating section. Afterall space will be dominated by the military most of the time.
And then fighters and small craft will come after that much like the transport planes of today, or the star fury with engines on the various pylons and a centrally located squishy pilot to avoid the G force created by turning and thrust.
Star trek afterall is hundreds of years of evolution in ship design in a make believe world, we have to develop so much more before that.
The NCC 1701 seems a little over ambitious.
Surely the NX-01 would be a better place to start?
Moon base?
If the next steps are to really establish a working moon base - the Space 1999 Eagle design is much more practical design as a space workhorse than Enterprise. The Enterprise would be rather dull with very slow "impulse" ion engines don't you think?
Enterprise is a lousy design.
Considering that the only engines we will be able to use are thrust-based one (even if they are ION engines), then the design of the Enterprise will give off-center propulsion.
Lousy for a spacecraft, where the sources of thrust have to be located in such a manner that the sum of the thrusts goes through the center of gravity of the craft. This will not happen with two dorsal thrusters.
Easily done
1. Buy one of these: http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/AMT660
2. Assemble in the ISS (but DON'T open a window when cementing)
3. Chuck out airlock.
You're all missing the best candidate for our first interplanetary space craft ..... Prometheus (from Stargate). imo it's far more adapable to current technologies:
Length: 195 meters, Width: 80 meters, Height/depth: 65 meters
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/98/potd/1167437882_28.jpg
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Prometheus
:-)
The original design for the U.S.S Enterprise pictured in this article was only 305m long...nowhere near the 906m depicted here. I realize this is just fantasy, but get it right people.
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