BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

Not sure if this belongs here or in Science versus Science Fiction.
But you have to admit this chap has obviously given it all a lot of very careful thought.

The Gen1 Enterprise can arrive at Mars within 90 days of leaving earth’s orbit. This is derived from various analyses sponsored by NASA that show that with mass to engine power ratios within our reach, a 90 day travel time is possible. See here for more on the Gen1 Enterprise missions including the missions to Mars. See here for more on Mars and moon bases with 1g gravity.
For seeing the NASA estimates for mass and engine power needed for a ship to make it to Mars in 90 days, see here. The mass estimates and engine power estimates are derived for the Gen1 Enterprise by way of scaling up the estimates for the NASA spacecrafts.

Loads more here
http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/

[King Random]

WOW! Man, that's far out.

[Shadowwolf]

Well technically they did build the Enterprise, first shuttle so it was, mind you it was only a test vehicle and never saw orbit that I'm aware of.

I seriously doubt though that anyone will actually build that Federation hull design until space tech is so far advanced that such frivolity may be indulged by very rich persons or groups.

[ChrisH]

Maybe his next project could be to build a new aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy.

[MikeG]

Interesting site. He really needs the upgrade to his web server though.

[MikeG]

Any thoughts on this guys idea for a 1G magnetic gravity wheel?

[M Paul Lloyd]

It's do-able MikeG but I do wonder why to be honest.

After all it would make more sense to equip the ship with an Ion drive propulsion system that could accelerate the vessel at 1g for the first half of the journey and decellearte for the second half, that way the overall flight time would be kept to an absolute minimum, which is really the main problem with trying to get manned missions to Mars in the first place. Plus the ship would not have to be so massive and therefore require less fuel and propulsion systems.

He has unfortunatly broken the golden rule of engineering which is 'keep it simple' ........

[nemisis39]

interesting idea seems to me he has taken the hull of the enterprise and filled the areas with current technology clever idea really.

Interesting site. He really needs the upgrade to his web server though.

First, let me apologize for the extremely slow web page loading. Often the pages won’t load at all and then they time out. Even with limited access, the site traffic spiked from 100 visitors last Tuesday (and these were mostly me working on the website) to 42k visitors on Saturday. It will likely have over 60k today. The site traffic has completely overloaded my service provider, so yesterday I had to purchase a dedicated server at a different company. I hope to have it working today or tomorrow and then the site should run nice and fast

seems he is trying to mike

[MikeG]

Interesting observation on the shape of the proposed Enterprise.

According to astronautics researcher Nicolas Lee of Stanford University, the Enterprise’s iconic shape could be a hindrance. “If we wanted to build something that large, a sphere or cylinder would be better at holding pressure against the vacuum — think scuba tank or submarine,” he said.

I believed that a vacuum has constant pressure, which is already known to us. A shape in space should be irrelevant, as there are no forces to create resistance and fatigue. It's not like diving to ever greater ocean depths for instance. If the force of a vacuum is known, and we can factor that into account, then why not build the Enterprise along the original design?

[M Paul Lloyd]

then why not build the Enterprise along the original design?

It's the 14.7 pounds per sqaure inch of internal pressure that's the problem MikeG.
In aircraft design, such as large airliners pressurisation can be used to some advantage as it makes the monocoque hull structure stiffer, in much the same way that a fizzy drinks can is more rigid when full than when empty.
However this only really works well for cylinderical/spherical structures and in the case of the Apollo capsule (which was conical) the pressure had to be limited to about 5 pounds per square inch to save on structural weight but with a higher oxygen level to compensate.
To create a suitably Earth-like environement on board this version of the Enterprise would require a substantial pressure hull design that would impose a significant weight penalty.
Personally I don't see it being very practical.

Interestingly one of the very early designs for the Gene Rodenberry Enterprise featured a spherical forward hull.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Ea ... feries.jpg