Should we build a real-life Starship Enterprise and fly it to Mars? (+video)

One engineer thinks so. His incredibly detailed plan for a functioning version of the iconic spaceship includes a rotating saucer to simulate Earth's gravity.?

By Nancy Atkinson,?Universe Today / May 14, 2012

Concept for a gravity wheel inside a 21st century USS Enterprise. Visit BuildTheEnterprise.org to learn how to build the 1st generation USS Enterprise over the next 20 year with 1g gravity. It's a spacecraft, a spaceport, and a space station all in one!

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.

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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.?
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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.

?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.

While 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.

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