Comment by delinka | Hacker News Reader

Comment by delinka | Hacker News Reader

Some random guy designs a cool looking ship. Then he gets his buddy to modify science (or create new science) to make it seem feasible. Then, Random Guy creates stories based on this entire thing...

Why would anyone think basing reality on this fictional ship is a good idea?

There's an awful lot of science that needs to be discovered before we can do much of this. And the problem is that, in a capitalist-driven world (especially one that must have its profits tomorrow), it's not profitable at all to do this. Now, I'm a pure research proponent, but picking a goal 150 years in the future for a technology we don't even know could exist (say warp drive) is just a dumb way to try to Do Science.

Let's keep spending money on alternative fuel research, nuclear research, medical research ... and at some point, one of my great-grandchildren (or yours) will see the ground we've covered and have that epiphanic moment where she discovers proper wormhole travel. Or whatever.

> There's an awful lot of science that needs to be discovered before we can do much of this.

Not for the Gen1 and Gen2, and possibly not even for the Gen3. We already know how to build ion thrusters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster

Building an ion drive ship to meet the Gen1 or Gen2 specs is a matter of engineering and cost, not science. The only other significant spec is the radiation shielding, but we know how to do that; again, it's just a matter of engineering and cost, not science.

The big change in the Gen3 specs is the required 1g acceleration, which is probably too high for ion thrusters to reach based on our current knowledge. So we would need to do some development on nuclear rockets; but there has been scientific work done on fission and fusion rocket concepts, so even here it's mostly engineering and cost. It would certainly help to have a breakthrough in materials technology that would let us build lighter radiation shielding for a Gen3 ship, but we could build one without it (albeit it would be a lot more expensive).

I agree the Gen4 spec is "out there".

Fiction plays a fundamental role in shaping the direction of our efforts.

For instance, Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" planted the seed for the Apollo Program. As Asimov's work on the laws of robotics planted a seed to inspire future AI development.

Edit: To better make my point, "Robert Manning used to make cardboard rockets... Now he makes real ones."[1]

[1] http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/04/caines_arcade_vis...

Agreed. But notice that "shaping the direction" is not the same as "let's build Star Trek."

Fiction inspires us to consider new possibilities, it doesn't give us a roadmap and blueprints. This desire to build Enterprise is assuming that Star Trek is indeed a roadmap and blueprints. Did we build the Apollo vehicles based on descriptions of technologies, materials or even shapes by Verne? No.

> This desire to build Enterprise is assuming that Star Trek is indeed a roadmap and blueprints.

If you actually look at his roadmap and blueprints, Gen1 through Gen3 have nothing to do with the fictional Enterprise. It's just a catchy name. Only the Gen4 spec gets into "fictional science" territory (warp drives).

True, it seems like the Star Trek theme is just being used for the "hearts and minds" effect. Which might not be too bad an idea.

Yes, exactly! Leonardo Da Vinci's contemporaries didn't believe the helicopter would work when he drew it either. Granted, the current helicopters look nothing like what he drew, but he did get the idea of it right and one tends to iron out problems while experimenting.

All I can see are guys making fun of this guy's ideas because it was originally based in fiction. That is an illogical argument. The man with the plan has put up all the details he can on his website. You can pick apart his ideas if they really are flawed. Why just focus on the fact that his idea was originally a piece of science fiction.

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