As the space program is winding down and shuttles are heading to their museum retirement homes, one man is standing up to say we should not be done going boldly where no one has gone before. He wants us to build the starship Enterprise by 2032. And he’s already drafted blueprints.
Systems and electrical engineer, Dan, is the man behind BuildTheEnterprise.org, a website dedicated to making the Enterprise a reality.
Now, ships have been dubbed the Enterprise before. The United States Navy started using the name in the 1700s and then of course there’s the famous NASA space shuttle that began construction in the 1970s. The space shuttle was so named after a letter-writing campaign from Star Trek fans so it’s no wonder someone is pushing for the real deal to happen now. But in the fictional Star Trek universe, the first ship named the Enterprise was traveling through space in the 2130s, Dan would like to up that schedule by one hundred years.
The site has been on and off due to traffic but according to The Verge, “The proposed ship would have an artificial gravity wheel, three ion propulsion engines, and nuclear reactors; it would be able to reach Mars within 90 days. The author, known as “BTE-Dan,” isn’t an expert in the field, but he’s put together a huge wealth of information on current research that could be used to build the ship, how much it might cost, and what would have to be changed or scrapped to turn Star Trek‘s vision into reality.”
“We need a far grander vision of what we should be doing to get humans up into space,” says the author. “If we are going to ask taxpayers to pay billions of dollars for projects to put Americans into space, it should be for an idea that they can relate to and be inspired by.”
“For the record, while in grade school I watched the first Star Trek series each week during the original season on TV in 1966 on my family’s black and white TV,” he writes. “Captivated by the image and idea of the USS Enterprise, I built a long lost model of it from a kit I purchased at a store. I was around nine years old. So I suppose the USS Enterprise has been burned into my brain for a long time, just waiting for a chance to get out.”
Make. It. So.