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I have been watching Star Trek series, and I was wondering... many things in Star Trek lore are fine as sci-fi but completely impossible in real life (faster-than-light travel, teletransportation, matter replicators, etc). But what about the ships themselves? The Starship Enterprise and the Deep Space Nine (fictional space station) clearly dwarf the Starship HLS and the International Space Station, but would humanity be able to build such big things at some point in the future, or that is also just sci-fi daydreaming? Cambalachero (talk) 00:36, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This topic is going to require a great deal of speculation and may take us firmly into WP:NOTAFORUM territory, but then there are also legitimate references out there discussing these questions, I do believe, so perhaps we can rationalize justify it on those grounds. ;) That said, this is a multifaceted inquiry, but I'll try to address what I think are some very obvious points.
First off, much of what constitutes these fictional space vessels / space stations constitutes highly fictionalized technology. And not just at the usual level of handwaviness that you get with any space opera. Aside from a handful of franchises that go whole hog with the space fantasy (Star Wars being the most obvious big name), Star Trek is almost one of the softest of soft shows when it comes to its technical and scientific conceits. So obviously in that respect, there are huge chunks of this vessel that consists of things that do not (and in most cases, almost certainly will not ever) exist.
The next thing I believe kinda-sorta addressing your inquiry is the question of just constructing the basic shell of the vessels as represented. Even this would be no easy task, even assuming that we construct it out more conventional materials in the form of metals and plastics we are capable of mining, molding and engineering in the here and now. According to a search i just did online (which we might take with a grain of salt) the Enterprise D would weigh about 4.5 billion metric tons (and from a rough eyeball, Deep Space Nine about ten to twenty times that). I'll let our decent number of more mechanically adept contributors here crunch the math for how much lift force and fuel and loads with current/near-future technology that would come down to, for getting those materials into orbit (although speculatively speaking, some of it could be mined in space in the coming centuries).
Then of course there is the question of assembling said materials, and the amount of logistics involved with getting those people and/or automated machinery into near earth orbit and maintaining them to accomplish that task. That's to say nothing of how the economies of the world would have to be pretty much given over to the task of gathering, refining, and manufacturing the raw materials, and the impacts that would have for us socially, economically, and environmentally.
So, in short, no, at least within any immediate future. Even if by "could we make this ship" you actually mean a to-scale, non-functional model of one of these vessels, we simply lack the technology, infrastructure, materials, engineering know-how, and social impetus to pull the feat off within current technical limitations and with present day resources, or anything we can say with any confidence is on the horizon. It's very much guesstimation on my part, but I would say this sort of thing wouldn't be feasible (as a purely technical matter) for at least 500-1,000 years, even assuming a future in which we make pretty good speed in mining from, exploring, and even colonizing parts of the solar system. And it could easily end up being several times that long, even in an "optimistic" appraisal. And again, that's just for creating a basic, non-functional simulacra. SnowRise let's rap 04:37, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
4.5 gigatons seems like a very high multiple of the density of water for something only about 600-something meters in the longest dimension. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:27, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A 29 cubic kilometer Borg cube would only weigh about twice as much at average 2023 ocean ship densities. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, again, I caution against taking what the internet at large says about any of these figures at face value. Nevertheless, I think we can safely say that even if every nation on the face of the Earth reworked its economies and industries to pursuing this task, whatever the cost to quality of life on Earth in regards to both human thriving and the environment, it would still be a tall order to reliably but this material in space. And that's assuming we're talking about the most plentiful metals for our to-scale Enterprise model; not fantastical future alloys like 'duritanium' and 'transparent aluminum' (or for that matter, the materials we would use in a functional but much smaller space vessel that might actually be functional. SnowRise let's rap 09:11, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In a plausible future, the metal needed to construct large vessel hulls can be obtained by asteroid mining, and the vessel can be built in effectively zero-gravity (free-fall) conditions in robot-run ship factories orbiting the Sun, say between Mars and the asteroid belt. This will remove most of the obvious problems of building giant spaceships on Earth. --Lambiam 07:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as someone deeply respectful of the humanistic vision of Star Trek, I hate to be the rain on this particular parade, but I think we have to put a big [citation needed] next to some of that. All of this is theoretically possible in the broadstrokes, but technologies like asteroid mining and space-based manufacturing are highly speculative and not at all guaranteed to be as rosy as even the more "hard" and/or cynical of fiction writers like to posit. The Expanse for example is a highly accelerated timeline over what we can probably expect, with it's multiple planets, moons, and asteroids colonized in the next few hundred years, and it's relatively smaller amounts of space based industry and relatively simple ballistic vessel. Nevermind what Star Trek presents.
For me the more interesting part of Cambalachero's question is not the whether something roughly on the scale of these vessels can be constructed, or whether it would be, but rather the timeline. In that respect, there are a lot of unknowns, but enough knowns to be fairly certain that what we are talking about here (even considering likely technological advancements in materials science and computing that will make certain developments proceed along an exponential curve) is likely to be on a scale of thousands of years, rather than a couple hundred as contemporary sci-fi likes to present. And that's assuming that the technologies prove feasible. Asteroid mining may ultimately end up being inefficient. And even if lucrative, the timelines for transport will be considerable. Automation will be essential, since there are considerable physiological barriers to crew missions beyond the protection of the Earth's magnetosphere where radiation is a considerable threat (to say nothing of the rigors of years of weightlessness, privation, risks of hardware failure, and the limit squishy human bodies put on the maximum acceleration of vessels.
And all of this assumes that nuclear war, climate change, social unrest, and fierce competition between the nations of the Earth do not slow or even bring technological advancement to a halt, as surely they will do to at least some extent and in some combination. So "plausible"? Sure, in the broadest sense of the term. Certain? By no means. Likely? I think there's a big question mark there, and that's assuming we're prepared to give our descendants the leeway of a couple thousand years to colonize the solar system.
Your mention of weightless construction also raises another substantial issue to mind: these vessels could never function as vessels, by their basic design. Similarly, Deep Space Nine would never work as a space station, oriented as it is. Because artificial gravity, in the fantastical Star Trek "gravity plating" sense, does not exist and there's no particularly realistic reason to believe it ever will. And the Enterprise is not designed to facilitate gravity by constant acceleration, nor DS9 suited to create it with centripetal force.
That's kind of redundant on the previous statements about all of the more fantastical technology being absent, and this really having to come down to a "can we make something this big" as the only real question left here, of course, but it's worth mentioning in answering the OPs inquiry, because at some point you have to contend with the question of why and how such resources would be martialed. And even if you did have some speculative future culture devoted to the task of creating megavessels in space, they would not look anything like the Enterprise--nor the space stations likely to look like Deep Space Nine or those more conventional Federation giant mushroom dealies. SnowRise let's rap 09:00, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We're not talking about tomorrow here. The question was about humankind's ability to build such big things at some point in the future. The first USS Enterprise (XCV 330) will be launched in 2123, so humankind still has some time left to develop the technology. The launch date of the canonical USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) is then still more than a century into the future. --Lambiam 09:14, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a zero percent chance that our species will ever "launch" anything that looks or acts like the Enterprise as a functional spacecraft. It's design does not match with the needs of an actual vessel, local or interstellar, and it's entire conceit is based upon technologies that do not align even remotely with physical laws. The answer to the OP's question is an unequivocal no, a vessel like the Enterprise would be unfeasible, because very central aspects of its design are based upon fantastical 1960's era sci-fi concepts: even it's basic profile is impractical. As I said, there remains a very interesting area for speculation about whether we could construct something of the same basic scale and mass, and if so, at what point in time. But even that is most likely to be beyond our horizons for a lot longer than your average science fiction fan wants to believe.
And even in a speculative timeline of a few centuries from now, after concerted efforts at launching our colonization of the solar system (bear in mind we haven't even been to the moon in more than fifty years despite having the capacity!), we wouldn't build one giant ship like that when it makes much more sense for the ramping up of the exploitation of the solar system's resources to expend the same amount of material on thousands of (probably unmanned) smaller vessels, if we had the ability to manufacture and machine such precision craft in space.
Look, again, I hate to be the party pooper: I grew up partly on the era of super optimistic sci-fi of this flavour. But as I grew up and became more familiar with the real science and pragmatics involved, I realized that there was pretty yawning gulf between the Gene Rodenberry vision and the more restrained and realistic (but somehow equally romantic) vision of, say, a Carl Sagan vision of space exploration. I can't pretend phasers are in our future, but that doesn't mean I don't hold out a distant hope that we do in fact become 'space seeds'. SnowRise let's rap 10:42, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thousands of years? You don't think there'll be more progress in the time it took to go from ancient Egypt to now? Also, the OP didn't ask about ships that look like they came from Star Trek (why would they?), but "such big things", so WP:STRAWMAN arguments are moot. One distinct possibility is a generation ship to reach another star system. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:51, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Thousands of years? You don't think there'll be more progress in the time it took to go from ancient Egypt to now?"
No, I do think there will be progress, but there are limits to what developments in materials science can do in light of the logistics involved with the kind of endeavours we are talking about here. And I think science fiction gives people really unrealstic ideas about what even the most optimistic timelines looks like from the perspective of scientists and engineers.
Look, take Arthur C. Clarke for an example: he was arguably one of the "hardest" sci-fi authors of his generation, with much more formal background in physics and astronautics than his contemporaries (or present day authors for that matter). And yet even he, in his most famous work of fiction, had us regularly making commercial business trips to the moon and making exploratory manned surveys of Saturn decades ago. Whether from lack of perspective or a knowledge that discussion of more reasonable dates for certain technological and engineering thresholds would make the work less engaging for readers who want to believe they will live to see these things, science fiction writers and auteurs always massively accelerate the timeline for this kind of stuff, and it's really bled into the popular consciousness to create unrealistic expectation.
Also, do bear in mind that for most of that time from the end of classical era (i.e. 'Egypt'), technology developed rather slowly. We could very easily be at the apex of our present technological growth rate and about to hit a plateau. There are certain indicators that this is in fact happening: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] (to take some examples from just the more conventional scientific press: this is actually an instance where I think primary sources/actual researchers are even more pessimistic/skeptical). Putting aside technological advancements, there's some really heavy math to deal with here: we have only so much raw material in terms of certain rare elements, and so much fuel to get it into orbit, and very pressing needs here on planet Earth competing for increasingly scarce resources. I'm not saying it won't happen. But if it does, it's going to take a looooong while longer than most laypersons and sci-fi aficionados want to believe. Sorry.
"Also, the OP didn't ask about ships that look like they came from Star Trek (why would they?), but "such big things", so WP:STRAWMAN arguments are moot."
Yeah..which is why the substantial majority of my responses to them have been very precisely about creating something of that scale/mass, since the actual Star Trek vessels are mostly pure fantasy. But Lambian was speculating about another topic: the realism of Star Trek's canonical timeline. And there's just no connection to reality whatsoever there.
"One distinct possibility is a generation ship to reach another star system."
Well you're going to think I'm a dedicated killjoy, but there's also a lot of reasons to believe that a generation ship is an infeasible option for reaching other star systems, from the mass:fuel ratios involved, to the ability to create sustainable and maintainable system while at high velocities, to the need for constant acceleration/deceleration at the back end, to shielding from interstellar materials at velocities where a grain of sand could blow out the front end of your vessel, to the impacts on human physiology of spending a lifetime in space, to the fact that we have substantial reason to believe that humans cannot safely gestate in such environments...the list goes on and on. The environs even just outside our solar system are extremely hostile and arduous. There are a number of scenarios for interstellar travel that now appear more realistic (though still highly speculative). Non-human drones or an artifical successor species are much more likely to be our first transplansts outside the solar system. But this is really an entirely different (and arguably longer) topic of discussion from the OP's question, and we're deep into the NOTAFORUM woods now, so I'm gonna stop here. SnowRise let's rap 12:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to keep overlooking that the question is not, "will it happen?", and also not, "is it advisable?", but merely, "will it, at some point in the future, become possible?". Also, less than two centuries ago engineers and scientists presented proofs that sustained powered flight by a flying machine was impossible, and a century before that they would have believed that almost instant communication with the other side of the globe was no more than the stuff of fairy tales. --Lambiam 13:09, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, yeah? But also, we have to approach completely fictional concepts on the terms of what they are. Unless there's strong empirical reason to believe in a particular development, there's no more reason to expect a given sci-fi contrivance from happening than there is any other random flight of fancy. Concepts that fly in the face of the normal operation of the laws of nature should be especially doubted, and even when it comes to (relatively) more mundane concepts, such as scaling up our surface to orbit lift capacity have to be considered in the light of reasonable projections and not random hopes of miraculous new developments in technology.
Yes, I suppose you can reasonably parse the OP's question to ask whether it is theoretically possible, in any permutation of the future, that we will be creating such massive constructs in space at some point along the timeline. But they also ended their query with "or is this sci-fi daydreaming", which suggests to me that their query is actually more nuanced, and they want a frank assessment of what the odds are and what the timeline might look like. And I stand by general assessment above: it's not the Star Trek timeline. It's probably not even The Martian's timeline. It's going to take us a while to get out there. It is one of my most earnest wishes for the future that it happen, but it's not a sure thing, based on the challenges we are facing in the near future. And to the extent that it may be more like than not (maybe) to happen on a long enough timeline, that timeline's almost certainly significantly longer than some people want to think.
Now if you'll all excuse me, I think I'll watch an episode of TNG before I turn in. :) SnowRise let's rap 13:27, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry, we've got plenty of time to innovate up some science/fiction before the serious problems hit our planet. Nimur (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actual large structures that humans have constructed, and serious-ish proposals and scientific investigations into even bigger stuff: Megastructure, Megascale engineering. Actual easiest way by far to build a big spacecraft: Send up a robotic craft, with light sail for essentially infinite "free" maneuvering. Could slap some ion thrusters on too if you want. Already done, multiple times, so this is in the "existing and deployed tech" column. Send it to go land and set up shop on an asteroid. (Also with existing prior art.) Including deploying solar panels for nonstop supply of free energy. Voila, this is the founding of your new asteroid mining facility.
One of those, you're going to want to be an asteroid that you've determined to have the specific properties you want. This is going to be the core "hull" of your new craft. It's already a big old chunk of Stuff that's already there, for free. Why wouldn't you just use that thing literally lying around out there in space for anyone to come along and pick up? If you were building a car, from scratch, and came across basically a mostly-machined engine block and a big pile of metals and stuff, just lying around in the open, with a sign next to them saying "Free To Anyone", would you think about taking those to use in the making of your new car? Also in this analogy you are a little strapped for cash and having a devil of a time ordering materials and parts from anywhere.
Without very cheap spacelaunch, probably involving some non-rocket spacelaunch system, that makes it cheap and easy to chuck stuff up from Earth into orbit, the overwhelming limiting factor in anything "space" is the launch cost in hauling any bit of mass up and out of Earth's gravity well, because of the tyranny of the rocket equation. This is why spacecraft budgets spend huge sums on very fancy expensive complex multi-junction solar panels for power, that catch more photons. Because, that's still cheaper than having to haul up heavier cheaper panels atop a rocket. Down here in the dirt, most panels are the boringest lowest-tech simplest and least-efficient polycrystalline silicon, simply because those are cheapest and down here mass is not usually much of a limiting constraint. There's plenty of sunlight! Just put up more panels if you want more juice!
Thus your answer to "it's insanely expensive to get stuff into orbit" is, then don't haul up into orbit anything more than the bare minimum. Do everything, except what you absolutely can't, in space where you're already out of Earth's gravity well. Nothing about this is going to change ever until and unless getting mass into orbit from Earth's surface gets a lot cheaper. Because, gravity is physics and fundamental physical laws and you can't argue with it or convince it to be nice and turn down the gravity a bit on Earth so it's not so hard to launch rockets anymore, any more than you can argue with a brick wall to convince it to let you pass through it.
People's intuition doesn't "get" this stuff properly because it's not designed for these questions; it's "designed" for stuff like, is that a predator in those bushes, or, will this kill me if I eat it? It all looks so easy on the TV or computer screen. Those rockets look so pretty going up, like it's nothing at all. Except the overwhelming amount of mass they're carrying is just fuel, to enable them to haul more fuel to burn to haul more fuel to burn to haul...and eventually to get that tiny little payload at the top into orbit.
The asteroid belt has about 3% the mass of the Moon. Not ginormous but not nothing either. So your ballpark figure answer to is x feasible is, how much mass you need? Do the math. Numbers don't lie, though they can frequently be misinterpreted or tortured into confessing to things you want.
For slightly bigger lifts, we could put up a space elevator on the Moon today, with a tether made of a material such as Kevlar, because of the Moon's lower gravity. For a space elevator you need a counterweight at the "top". Know what makes a good counterweight? An asteroid of sufficient mass! Light sails give you "free" continuous thrust; it's just a matter of gradually altering its orbit until the Moon's gravity captures it (like what Mars might have done to get its moons). Energy is everywhere in the Solar System thanks to our life-giving star pouring it out nonstop. That's not your limiting factor. Mass and getting that mass to where you want it even if gravity would rather you not are. --47.155.41.201 (talk) 20:06, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you are not neglecting the fundamental truth that such an act is not entirely without precedent. Clearly looking at the largest transport we have built can be enlightening. For instance, the largest oil tanker ships in the world must surely come close to representing the true mass of the Enterprise. That is to say, that we have worked with something like that amount of metal previously. So what, per chance, would be the most egregious difficulty with performing the same metallurgy in space? Especially, if some location could be found for machining that did not happen to exist within the Earth’s gravity well. Yes, I would concede that the shape and dimensions of said craft should probably be altered to maximise efficiency, after all, professional scientists likely did not perform design work for whoever produced Star Trek. But clearly, the idea is sound, Especially after Nuclear Fusion is figured out in full. 31.94.62.178 (talk) 15:34, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It will also be useful to add that we do not wish to try and rack our brains over artificial gravity or laser weaponry herein. The idea simply is to discuss the feasibility of a Sci-Fi style space ship that is comparable in size to the world’s largest ocean ships. The best way to discuss these things is to build off of knowledge already gained from the shipbuilding industry and its technologies, and then also throw in small amounts of knowledge about NASA spacecraft and other such things.
I would think about more efficient spaceplanes at first, with a goal of increasing the size and passenger capacity of these such vehicles. Also don’t forget smaller craft, some as small as 2 person capacity, seen in various Sci-Fi movies and series. I think the one thing that unites these craft and sets them apart from NASA craft is their speed and efficiency. Clearly today’s space agencies need to focus on new technologies such as Nuclear Fusion, Solar Power and other things that don’t involve liquids or gases that are burnt in an engine. They should also prioritise methods to shrink the size of the craft at first, with, a view to reducing the weight of them. This would then allow more people to be carried by a craft that weighs the same as today’s rockets, if these gains in efficiency can then be translated to larger craft.
Finally, we can be in a position to ask questions about larger craft, in particular space ships that will be built and launched from Earth’s orbit. The previous “pessimism-city” discussions that have now been collapsed, haven’t taken into account this more incremental approach. I also believe that speed increases are a must, as even 1% of the speed of light is ludicrously fast, fast enough to reach the Sun from Earth in less than 24 hours. Pablothepenguin (talk) 20:42, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Would it at all be incorrect mention that on this Earth there exists many oil tankers, cruise ships, and aircraft carries that are blatantly larger than the claimed size of the Enterprise? How can the pessimists from earlier possibly claim otherwise? Yes we can build something that big. Yes the Earth does contain enough metal for the task. So why the pessimism and confusion? Is it really THAT hard to build that kind of metalwork in space? And is it that hard to imagine someone like Royal Caribbean or Carnival offering space cruises in 1,000 years for goodness sake!? Pablothepenguin (talk) 22:06, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Enterprise of 2001 and 1966 are moderately shorter than the longest aircraft carrier (the shortest of those), the Enterprise-D of 1987 is about 641.5 meters. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:30, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
(See top of page.) But naturally by discussion you meant "sources", right? Card Zero (talk) 11:59, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not an opinion: Metalic astroids in the solar system exist, and are estimated to hold way more metals than what is available on Earth's crust.
Trival prediction: Once cheap interplanetary travel exists, metals for constructing The Enterprise are non-issue. Zarnivop (talk) 12:33, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was a non-issue in the first place. I mentioned previously that there are oil tankers that are larger than the Enterprise these days. Pablothepenguin (talk) 12:36, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have the technology, though, to launch them into deep space. --Lambiam 15:00, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Deep space? You mean the place into which the Voyager probe went? I think that would take a while, but surely we do have the technology to focus on solar system missions at this time? Pablothepenguin (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I meant "deep space" in the sense of NASA's Deep Space 1 and Deep Space 2 probes, which did not venture beyond the orbit of Mars, but by "launching them", I meant launching tankers that are larger than the Enterprise. The potential energy to go from the surface of Earth to interstellar space is about 2.6 times that needed to reach Mars, but can be delivered gradually. To escape Earth's gravitational well, it needs to be delivered in a concentrated burst. --Lambiam 13:53, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If the spaceship were manufactured off-Earth and designed never to experience substantial gravity, it could be made from foam glass, metal foam, or a nanofoam like carbon nanofoam. Thus a craft of large volume might not need to be very massive compared to terrestrial ships. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:04, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes and no. The larger the surface area a ship has and the faster it is expected to travel, the more ballistic shielding is required to protect it from impacts with particulate matter. Next to the mass-to-fuel ratio issues, the difficulty in creating a vessel capable of surviving impacts at any kind of significant speed is considered the limiting factor for speculative interstellar crafts. Even at the relatively tiny speeds of objects in low earth orbit, very small objects can pulverize much larger ones at hypervelocity: [10], [11], . With the vastly faster velocities of any ship traveling at relativistic speeds, even a grain of interstellar dust could cave in a titanium hull like it was made of cobwebs unless it was epically massive in thickness. On top of this, if you want a human crew (or even unmanned systems that continue to perform for long durations) you need radiation shielding to protect against the effects of ionized gas and cosmic rays. All of these threats are ubiquitous and more or less constant in space, whether we are talking about the solar system or interstellar travel. The exotic and porous materials you describe are not really fit for these purposes.
What you really want for space travel is the opposite: a hull that is as thick as possible, with a surface area that is as low as possible both relative to the desired overall volume (based on whatever the purpose of the craft is), and the lowest possible mass (for purposes of propulsion and fuel load), once accounting for the other three factors. This is again part of what I am trying to say about Star Trek vessels being absurd models for spacecraft in terms of profile and scale: and the mass is very much a part of that. These are vessels that were created by entertainment industry visual design artists, not astronautic engineers. That said, lightweight craft of the sort you describe have made their own appearances in science-fiction as well...though not always in a super positive light! SnowRise let's rap 00:56, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
