I could see the Enterprise's laser being used for something like this.

Nice find!

true, plus the defiant, intrepid, sovereign class, sabre class, norway class. unless someone has invented a shield was can protect them from kinetic damage?

thanks, it came out today on space.com. Maybe they can use this plus the radio communications for communications. Even though with the laser it can be done at a greater distance and can send more information. Was thinking do you think they should add other weapons? such as rail guns, missiles/torpedoes, nuclear missiles/torpedoes? Also was thinking what scientific equipment will they put on the ship?

Found this as well.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...id=SA_Facebook

While I get your trying to make a real starship but... it would be more pheasable to Start with the NX-01 as it is a more gravometrically balanced ship, as it does not have a lower hull

While I can't argue that the design is whimsy, I have to call shenanigans on the rest, just for the sake of Star Trek History. According to an interview with Matt Jefferies, who designed the Enterprise (Jefferies Tubes are named in his honor): ...and......and finally...

Something like the NX-refit might be a good compromise - it has better functionality, and is still recognizable as an Enterprise.

personally, I think that humanity has proven itself to be too irresponsible and destructive to take care of their own planet, so I really hope that all human efforts to leave this rock end in abject failure. No reason to let the disease of humanity spread itself across the galaxy like a malignant cancer.

Well that's looking on the bright side.

A good robust space program might very well inspire people to work together on the important things. Especially if it's an international effort.

Just because things are bad now, doesn't necessarily mean they always will be.

on space.com they have mentioned next year they will launch the biggest solar sail yet maybe they could use this as an emergency propulsion system and also found something called Graphene which is the new strongest and lightest material man has made so that could be add to the ship. Has there any news on the cold-fusion front? As for an enterprise ship maybe they should start with something smaller than work they way up to the BTE e.g. maybe nx class or nx refit as suggest maybe a definet class, dont have to worry about the neck or sovereign class too.

BTW will Dan start a new petition?

That could be cool. I could see it powering the ship's life support systems in the event of a power failure. Though such a failure is unlikely with three separate reactors, it's always good to be prepared.

Graphene would be very useful on the Enterprise. Not only would mixing it into the composite hull make the ship a lot tougher (and keep the mass/weight down), but it's apparently capable of blocking radiation as well (though this hasn't been tested in space yet). We might not even need a storm shelter!

Dan talks about graphene here and here.

As it happens, Dan started a new petition a couple weeks ago. Basically it asks the American Department of Energy to do research into the feasibility of LENR devices as a potential power source. If it does work out, it's something they'll want to have ready as soon as possible.

It's highly unlikely the finished ship will look much like any of the Enterprises in Star Trek. It'll have the same saucer-hull-neck-nacelles configuration so that it's recognizable, but the rest is up to the designers. I suspect the closest Enterprise it will resemble is the Sovereign class, as a thin neck like that of the 1701 or 1701-A would be a bit risky. The NX refit would be another nice concept.

A small design prototype will probably be built on Earth or in space, though it won't be very large. Just big enough to run tests and see how a big version would perform.

I'm not sure. A day or so after the last petition expired, they upped the signature requirement to 100,000 signatures (still within a single month). I don't think BTE is quite strong enough to pull that off yet, especially since we only made 7,200 last time.

If there is another petition, it probably won't launch until at least May (to coincide with the release of Star Trek Into Darkness).