I was watching a recent program about the things Da Vinci had designed some 400 years ago. Several of these things were quite practical and probably would've worked well. Hundreds of years before they entered actual production. Such as the tank (armored chariot), the diving suit, and the parachute. And his work on heavier than air flight wasn't too far off the mark. Back to the thread title. Do you think there is anyone today designing stuff like starships that are close to what will be actually built four hundred years from now? Or even 200 years from now.
Personally, I think someone will at some point build an actual USS Enterprise as seen in the original Star Trek. I don't mean it will be an actual starship with warp drive and phasers and stuff, but some future uberfan will have the means to build an actual space vessel . . . or possibly just a space station . . . that will be a perfect duplicate of the Enterprise. Possibly as a tourist attraction, space hotel, that sort of thing.
And for a small one time investment of $100 million from each member of this board, that uberfan will be me.
Does anyone else remember the guy who used to spam up TrekBBS with his plans for a hotel that would be this?
No, but I seem to remember a guy who claimed to have constructed working phasers and lightsabers, both of which were powered by gasoline.
Some guy had the notion of building an Enterprise replica in Vegas but apparently cooler heads prevailed.
Also, I think interstellar travel, if it happens, will occur along the lines of opening wormholes or quantum teleportation instead of any sort of "warp drive". A stargate seems more likely.
With the right money and access to technical resources (human, and material), I'd have an orbital shipyard constructed for the purpose of building me an ion drive replica of the Defiant.....only with hand rails in the corridors and seat belts on all the chairs, to make up for the lack of artificial gravity.
Heh. A hotel like that would be pretty fun. Especially if it was big enough for a Star Trek convention..
It'd be fucking sweet. Make it round, so you can simulate the primary hull, with lower floors configured on the inside to represent the secondary hull. A series of elevators could simulate turbolifts, and the bridge would be located on top, at the penthouse level. Guest rooms would be interspersed with 'public' areas such as sick bay, science labs, the gymnasium, and crew lounges (with dumbwaiters to the galley, etc) Throw in a couple 'ST the Experience' type deals, a suitably attired and made-up staff, and presto.
>< What about... I dunno, communicator-shaped keys? Plug them into the wall to open the doors, and they attach to your shirt in the meantime.
I'm building a Milleneum Falcon in the backyard, but I can't decide whether to put a 2-bbl or 4-bbl carburator on the hyperdrive.
