Stellar Frontiers Real Life Enterprise Starship Possibilities

Have you all seen these ideas/ dreamings? Entertaining stuff!

NASA's real life Enterprise may take us to other star systems one day

BuildTheEnterprise

This kind of thing is an absolute waste of taxpayer money and I will explain why. This amounts to nothing more than paying a LOT of money to create a Hollywood movie prop. Much more money that it would cost for some Hollywood prop company to create the same thing.

The reason this is a waste of money (and nothing approaching science, much less engineering) is because there is a very specific way that you go about developing a new aerospace vehicle. If you have a new, theoretical propulsion technology (which this entire "warp drive" concept is), then you do NOT simply run off and start designing a vehicle. No, the proper, acceptable way to proceed is to first develop a subscale model of the propulsion technology itself. You do this to PROVE THE CONCEPT behind the theory. Once you have proven the propulsion technology is viable, then and only then can you begin to design a vehicle based upon the real world data you collected on the subscale propulsion model.

What we have here is the GOV giving a bunch of money to NASA to "design a vehicle" for a propulsion technology which is still barely at the theory level. No one has even taken this theory and reduced it to a preliminary engineering design for an engine that will operate based on the theoretical principles. Let me make this clear: Not only is there NO warp drive engine in existence today to prove this concept, there are not even any engineering level equations that define the "design knobs" which engineers can utilize to design an engine that will operate within the concepts of the theory.

So NASA has taken public money and designed a vehicle which is 100% fantasy, and 0% practical because no one even has shown that Alcubierre's theory can be put into practice. This is pretty much the epitome of irresponsible spending of public money in my business (the aerospace vehicle development business).

I am sure the few people who worked on this "design" had a great deal of fun, but they were not doing engineering. At all. They were doing the same thing that Hollywood model designers have done on movies going back as far as Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

RMT

Or it stirs the imagination of children to go into Math and Science.............................it all starts with a dream.

Better to shoot for the stars and hit the moon, than shoot for the moon and hit that peak over there.

Robot said:

Or it stirs the imagination of children to go into Math and Science.............................it all starts with a dream.

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Hollywood already does that, and does a much finer job than NASA. So why do we need to spend more money (at higher rates) on NASA when Hollywood has that covered, in spades? I, myself, was a product of the Star Wars generation. It solidified my desire to go into aerospace engineering that had formed during the Apollo era (a real spacecraft, not this warp drive fantasy). So the fantasy of Hollywood played a part, but it was the reality of what NASA used to do that showed me how to make things real.

RMT

RainmanTime said:

This kind of thing is an absolute waste of taxpayer money and I will explain why...
RMT

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I see no evidence that the visuals inspired by Dr. Harold White's work were funded with any taxpayer money whatsoever. In fact, if you look at the information on the artist's flickr page (IXS Enterprise (IXS-110) - an album on Flickr) it reads as if it is simply the work of a passionate volunteer to help Dr. White have some nice visuals for his presentations (see copied text below).

As far as the "BuildTheEnterprise" site, that is all one man's doing and unrelated to any government-funded program.


The IXS Enterprise is a theory fitting concept for a Faster Than Light ship. It's designed for/with NASA scientist Dr. Harold White and used in his presentations as an extra. Mike Okuda also brought input, and designed the Ship's insignia.

I'm currently in the process of repainting and texturing the ship. This version will replace the first version, that was less detailed in terms of materials. (Mesh stayed the same.)

Total hours into this project: 1600 and counting.

Enjoy!