Humanity can now build the Enterprise from STAR TREK - but it's gonna cost you [View all]

[derby378]

Engineer: Star Trek’s Enterprise ship could be built in 20 years at a cost of $1 trillion

Created by a systems and electrical engineer with 30 years' experience, the BuildTheEnterprise site sets out a very specific timeline for the research and construction of such a massive space-related undertaking. The first nine years are dedicated to research, component testing, and drawing up a number of possible blueprints. The following 11 years are dedicated to development, where components will be manufactured and launched into space for assembly.

On year 20, the ship would be ready for a "moon fly by" with full crew and supplies. The plan may seem overly ambitious, but consider that we're already using a number of gadgets that were all but predicted by the Star Trek television series.

The estimated cost of building the Enterprise: about $50 billion a year for the next 20 years — $1 trillion in total. That sounds like a lot of money (because it is), but considering that the United States spent nearly that much on the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to bail out banks in 2008, putting a trillion towards making Star Trek a reality suddenly doesn't seem as ludicrous. Yeah, it's still pretty ludicrous, but in a really cool way.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/engineer-star-trek-enterprise-ship-could-built-20-173540774.html

Admittedly, there's still that pesky problem with circumventing Einstein and developing a working FTL drive, but here's the site for those who are interested:

http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/