The Space Ship Enterprise

[American Patriot]

Reagan's "Star Wars" wasn't "Star Wars" - just so you understand.

That was a media-made up name for the "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI).

The Remote Access Panel outside my office door still has the original SDI heraldic symbol on it.

Looks like this:

[American Patriot]

In the 1980s nothing was launched except for the Space Shuttle.... there were no large ships, stations or missiles put into space.

SDI's purpose was to provide a type of "shield" over the US (and allies) where various types of equipment would be used to shoot down ICBMs from Russia or China.

The Russians want to call it an "offensive system" but there was never anything offensive about the system (expect the Russians want to take offense at it because it negates their ability to put a missile on-target in the USA).... but it didn't become a reality until many years later. (check the wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strateg...nse_Initiative as it is pretty accurate on dates).

[American Patriot]

Cool!

Can i download it?

It'll be a great screensaver.

I stole that from Wikipedia, it's on the internet already lol

[American Patriot]

Here's the more recent one before the one that caused all the conspiracy nuts to go... nuts.





Here's the old one and new one together:



Here's why the conspiracists went bonkers...

[vector7]

Of course, I am being somewhat facetious because I know if we DO have such technology it won't come out.

But, that begs the question, why bother with Missile Defense if we have the ability to fly into space using some "Star Trekish" technology? All for show? Billions of bucks wasted on magnetic rail guns, kill vehicles, missiles, launching crap from Aegis missile cruisers, specialized radar systems, both land and sea-based?

Why bother with all that? All for show? That's a damned expensive show..... and it doesn't even come with HD TV graphics does it?

Can we take out Russia, China and anyone else we want with impunity from outerspace - or well, from outside the atmosphere when ever we wish then? Using lasers, masers and who-knows-what else?

I don't know for sure. I doubt it, but I wouldn't rule it out.

I think our Military may have some cool prototypes but are probably in very limited supply, among other DARPA cool tech stuff.

As we continue cutting our military budgets for social programs in this country, coupled with the ongoing infiltration from the Axis. Hacking and transferring technology to other countries that ultimately falls into to China and Russia's military technology is putting our US military readiness at a real strategic disadvantage.

The Axis will probably have some breakthroughs themselves through this activity to counter some of ours.

How will these toys at our secret military bases fare after some aggressive surgical nuclear strikes against them happen?

With the Left viewing Russia and China now as friends, will Panetta keep our military prepared for an unthinkable Axis multinational attack?

[Ryan Ruck]

Reagan's "Star Wars" wasn't "Star Wars" - just so you understand.

That was a media-made up name for the "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI).

The Remote Access Panel outside my office door still has the original SDI heraldic symbol on it.

Looks like this:

You should pry it off and take it with you when you leave and, hang it in the boat somewhere.

[American Patriot]

LOL good idea. I can probably have a couple of those made up for me by the graphics folks though, so as not to damage the drywall. LOL


The RAPs actually have those imprinted on them. RAPs are remote access panels that are shells with electronics we use to swipe our badges and secure and access areas.

[Malsua]

I find it sort of comical that the government has to come up with slogans and pretty logos for everything.

[American Patriot]

Here's a picture:

https://www.llnl.gov/str/Davis.html

The thing on the left is the RAP, the thing on the right is a hand geometry unit.

If you scroll down, you can see some parts of the system I maintain.

[Malsua]

That looks very old school. heh.

[American Patriot]

The equipment?

Was built originally in the 1980s, late 80s. So yeah, it's "old school" in appearance. I've just recently upgraded all the guts of the couple hundred access panels I take care of, and all the Field Panels (the computers they connect to) - which in turn tie into the host machines in my Lab area. All that stuff is being upgraded in a couple weeks in fact.

But yeah the shells are old. There are newer ones with nice touch screens, fingerprint biometrics, proxy readers and a lot of similar stuff. But, the Gov guys decided to "upgrade" and keep the old ugly stuff instead of speed the money on new stuff.

All I have to do now is get retired before the shit starts breaking again. (I can't get display units any more, I'm having to physically repair switches, and it cost me 29,000 USD to get 100 each key pads....).

Bits and pieces of the system is pretty much obsolete - and I can't do shit about it anymore. I've been maintaining it now for going on 16 years and I've run out of parts and a lot of the stuff I can't get any more.

/shrug.

Now, after having said all that, the system is actually (aside from the shells you see) very state of the art and we've converted it all over from serial communications to fiber optics and ethernet stuff. It's all encrypted. It's all very, very fast now and we control the areas much better, data bases keep information on who can and can't access, clearances and whatever else we need to know.

[Malsua]

I wouldn't like working in such a secure environment. Not because I couldn't, but because it's such an impediment to productivity.

Any time you need to get something done, they are 10 layers of security to get through.

I've dealt with it as a technician over the years and it's a royal pain in the ass.

[American Patriot]

Funny, I don't have that issue

[American Patriot]

In all seriousness, there are various places that do different jobs here. Each area that has a need for security has a way to let in the personnel that need to be there.

If you're a sysadmin here, you might be put in the doors by security managers - or you might not. If you are called to do a job, you might have to be escorted in.

There's nothing inconvenient about it - and security isn't about convenience anyway!

Some of the Rocket Scientists are the WORST in the world for whining about it too.

[American Patriot]

This is technically not related to this thread in the same way as the other stuff in the thread, but it is RELATED in that someone else has the idea of going to distant stars as well:

100-Year Starship Project, Led By Ex-Astronaut Mae Jemison, Sets Sights On Distant Stars

Posted: 05/22/2012 8:07 am Updated: 05/22/2012 8:07 am














By: Jeremy Hsu, InnovationNewsDaily Senior Writer

Published: 05/21/2012 05:34 PM EDT on InnovationNewsDaily
Star Trek's bold vision of the starship Enterprise manned by a diverse crew may no longer just be science fiction — especially with the first woman astronaut of color heading the real-life project. The U.S. military has chosen Mae Jemison's nonprofit foundation to receive half a million dollars in seed funding to help turn the 100-Year Starship into reality.


The 100-Year Starship project faces the challenge of transforming the $500,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) into an organization that does more than merely survive the next century. It must also spur the technological revolutions needed for human space travelers to survive the long journey to distant stars.


"We don't have to be the ones to actually send a starship out," said Mae Jemison, head of the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. "Our task, our mission, is to make sure all the capabilities needed to mount a human interstellar mission exist."


Jemison became the first woman of color to travel in space during a 1992 mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, and has training as both an engineer and a physician. She named actress Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhara, as both a personal inspiration and as a supporter of 100 Year Starship.


100-Year Starship is expected to become its own organization separate from Jemison's nonprofit, the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, within six to nine months. Jemison also has plans for a scientific research institute within 100-Year Starship, called The Way, to study speculative, long-term science and technology suitable for starships.


Making leaps in technology

The technologies created by 100-Year Starship have the potential to transform life on Earth as well as space exploration. For instance, humans must come up with much better sources of power to enable a starship that either maintains steady power for a slow, 1,000-year voyage or uses an incredible burst of energy to travel faster than the speed of light.


"Any solution we come up with requires understanding of how to generate and control huge amounts of energy," Jemison told InnovationNewsDaily. "It could also transform energy here on Earth."


Futuristic starships must also produce enough food, water and air to sustain their crews for possibly hundreds of years during the journey and when humans reach their interstellar outposts or colonies. Similar self-sustaining technologies could allow humans to live more comfortably and sustainably here on planet Earth.


The crew members may spend the journey awake, hibernating in suspended animation, or as "DNA slush" that gets remixed and grown into full human beings at the journey's end. But they'll still need to grapple with the psychological issues of space travel or life far away from Earth.


"It'd be unfortunate if the crew didn't make it because they couldn't get along with each other," Jemison said. [Why 'Space Madness' Fears Haunted NASA's Past]


Surviving the next century

Still, survival for the 100-Year Starship project means much more than just building life support technologies for future starship crews. The organization must first figure out a business plan for sticking around the next 100 years — a balance between turning a profit and staying focused on the mission of enabling a starship.


"We know there are organizations that have intentionally or unintentionally been around for 100 years, ranging from the Catholic Church to the NAACP," Jemison explained. "The Girl Scouts turn 100 this year."


100-Year Starship may spin off for-profit companies as opportunities come up or launch crowd-funding projects, but Jemison emphasized that the organization cannot get distracted by making a profit off its technology breakthroughs. She envisions a model between a think tank and the legendary Bell Labs — an organization that famous for giving its researchers the freedom and time to pursue their work.


Survival also means giving the general public the chance to get involved with 100-Year Starship. Most ordinary people could only serve as "cheerleaders" for past NASA efforts such as the Apollo program's race to the moon, Jemison said. She hopes to broaden the scope for public participation from everyone, regardless of ethnicity, gender, geographical location or scientific field.


The first big public event for the fledgling 100-Year Starship organization will take place as a symposium in Houston from September 13-16 — a one-year follow-up to an earlier symposium held by DARPA and NASA in September 2011.


"I don't think the public lost their fascination with space at all," Jemison said. "I think they're just left out."


The 100-Year Starship team currently includes Icarus Interstellar, a nonprofit dedicated to enabling interstellar flight, and the Foundation for Enterprise Development. The SETI Institute has a permanent seat on the advisory council.


You can follow InnovationNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @ScienceHsu. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.

• 10 Sci-Fi Predictions That Came True
• Gallery: Visions of Interstellar Starship Travel
• 10 Wildest Tries to Contact Aliens

[American Patriot]

Well.....

I'm actually speechless for the moment.. but something witty will come to mind. Give me a minute.

What an Enterprise! NASA physicist, artist unveil warp-speed craft design

By Caitlin Schmidt, Special to CNN updated 11:04 AM EDT, Thu June 12, 2014 | Filed under: Innovations

NASA's warp-speed spacecraft, designed by physicist Harold White, is based loosely on drawings Matthew Jeffries' 1965 drawings of "Star Trek's" Enterprise.

What a warp-speed starship might look like













NASA's warp-speed spacecraft, designed by physicist Harold White, is based loosely on drawings Matthew Jeffries' 1965 drawings of "Star Trek's" Enterprise.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NASA physicist Harold White has been working since 2010 to develop a warp drive
• This week he unveiled images of what such a starship might look like
• Renderings are by artist Mark Rademaker, who based them on White's designs
• Warp drive would let spacecraft travel at speeds faster than light

(CNN) -- Thanks to a NASA physicist, the notion of warp speed might just travel out of sci-fi and into the real world.

NASA's Harold White has been working since 2010 to develop a warp drive that will allow spacecraft to travel at speeds faster than light -- 186,000 miles per second.

White, who heads NASA's Advanced Propulsion Team, spoke about his conceptual starship at a conference last fall. But interest in his project reached a new level this week when he unveiled images of what the craft might look like.

Created by artist Mark Rademaker, who based them on White's designs, the images show a technologically detailed spacecraft that wouldn't look out of place in a "Star Trek" movie. Rademaker says creating them took more than 1,600 hours.

For now, warp speed is only possible in TV and movies, with both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" referencing an idea that was completely speculative at the time. White has fittingly named the concept spacecraft IXS Enterprise, for the starship famously piloted by Captain James T. Kirk in the "Star Trek" TV series and movies.

At the SpaceVision 2013 Space Conference last November in Phoenix, White talked about his design, the concepts behind it and the progress that's been made in warp-drive development over the decades. He discussed the idea of a "space warp," a loophole in the theory of general relativity that would allow for massive distances to be traveled very quickly, reducing travel times from thousands of years to days.

In his speech, White described space warps as faraway galaxies that can bend light around them. They work on the principle of bending space both in front of and behind a spacecraft. This would essentially allow for the empty space behind the craft to expand, both pushing and pulling it forward at the same time. The concept is similar to that of an escalator or moving walkway.

"There's no speed limit on the expansion and contraction of space," White said at the conference. "You can actually find a way to get around what I like to call the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light."

It's the idea of space warps that inspired physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 to first theorize a mathematical model of a warp drive that would be able to bend space and time. While studying Alcubierre's equations, White decided to design his own retooled version of the Alcubierre Drive. His recently unveiled design has much less empty space than the first concept model, increasing its efficiency.

The warp drive that White's team has been working on would literally transcend space, shortening the distance between two points and allowing the craft to break the speed of light. This would be a spaceship with no speed limit.

Because travel into space has been extremely limited due to existing means of propulsion, such a technology could blow open the possibilities of space exploration. It could allow for study of the farthest reaches of space, parts that scientists once considered unimaginable.

Although the technology to create the spacecraft or the warp drive doesn't yet exist, the artistic renderings Rademaker created could potentially be a model of what's to come -- the first spacecraft to break the speed-of-light barrier and journey beyond our solar system.

In his design, White says he drew from Matthew Jeffries' 1965 sketches of the Enterprise from "Star Trek," saying parts of that ship were mathematically correct. He worked with Rademaker and graphic designer Mike Okuda to update the math and produce what he believes to be a viable spacecraft.

According to NASA, there hasn't been any proof that a warp drive can exist, but the agency is experimenting nonetheless. Although the concept doesn't violate the laws of physics, that doesn't guarantee that it will work.

"We're starting to talk about what the next chapter for human space exploration going to be," White said at SpaceVision.

[American Patriot]

NASA reveals Star Trek-like spacecraft concept

The spaceship looks a lot like the starship Enterprise.
By Brooks Hays | June 12, 2014 at 10:49 AM | 0 Comments (Leave a comment)

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NASA concept for a faster-than-light ship. (Mark Rademaker)




WASHINGTON, June 12 (UPI) --Since 2012, physicist Harold White has been working with engineers at NASA to determine whether a spacecraft could be designed to reach "warp speed" -- to travel faster than the speed of light.

White and his team call themselves and their project Advanced Propulsion Team Lead. And they're now beginning to put their ideas on paper.
White has recruited Mark Rademaker, an artist, to render their far-out concepts tangible, at least in the two-dimensional sense. Accordingly, Rademaker has produced a series of drawings of what a NASA spacecraft capable of warp speed might look like.


The product looks a lot like the starship Enterprise -- the vehicle Spock, James T. Kirk and their fellow Star Trek colleagues used to explore strange new worlds. Rademaker's drawings are available at his Flickr gallery.


And while it all sounds rather fantastical, White and his fellow scientists at NASA aren't joking.


They believe it's possible to manipulate space to travel long distances in a very short amount of time. Their hypothetical craft would not actually travel faster than light, however.


"A spheroid object would be placed between two regions of space-time," the scientists explain. These objects would create a sort of worm hole or warp bubble, which move space-time around the object, repositioning it and allowing the craft to shortcut its way through space.


Using such tactics, White surmises a spacecraft could travel to nearby stars in just a couple weeks.


Now, the scientists just have until 2063 to make it all a reality.

[American Patriot]

NASA in plans to make a faster-than-light warp drive for interstellar travel

Harold White, NASA scientist and Advanced Propulsion Team Lead, has a task that many can only imagine of. He is in charge of NASA’s efforts to determine whether a warp drive faster than light can be made possible and if yes, how can NASA create one.


Together with Mark Rademaker, an artist, they have come up with a model which attempts to illustrate our understanding of the concept that has evolved over the years. Mark designed a theoretical warp ship whose concept echoed Matt Jeffries design for the UEV-47. The new version is “chunkier, more compact” and, according to White “a better match for what the mathematics of an Alcubierre warp drive currently predict.”



The warp drive is, according to Star Trek is actually an advanced engine which by distorting space and time allows the spaceship to travel faster than light. Even though, the engine is absent in Gene Roddenberry’s “universe” until 2063 NASA wants to make the drive a reality.


It sounds like it is impossible but Harold White and his team have already come up with possible starship Enterprise designs that can be made in reality. A spaceship with the functionality of warp drive could travel near stars in a few weeks.

And this is how it works in reference to the mechanics of its engines “a spheroid object would be placed between two regions of space-time.” A ‘warp bubble’ would then be created that would move space-time around the object therefore repositioning it. The result is faster-than light speed without the spaceship moving in reference to its local frame.


In reality the spaceship will not be moving at the speed of light, it will simply bend spaces around it making distance much shorter, a hard concept to understand isn’t it? The concept sounds like a science fiction but if NASA succeeds in its attempts it will effectively push space exploration deeper into space.

[American Patriot]

NASA’s Warp Drive Ship Design

Posted by T'Bonz - 11/06/14 at 09:06 am
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A new design from NASA Physicist Harold White shows what a ship designed for faster-than-light travel might look like.
White teamed up with Artist Mark Rademaker to create a model which will look familiar to Star Trek fans.



White and his team have been working on a design for a faster-than-light ship since 2012. Their work is still in the experimental stage, but is based on real math.
The new design owes its origins to Star Trek‘s Matt Jeffries.


See more images of the model here.


The video below features White discussing the model and the potential for a warp drive ship. The pertinent part of the discussion begins at the 41:54 mark.
Source: Io9via Gizmodo



Tags: NASA, science, ship, White

Video at link: http://www.trektoday.com/content/201...e-ship-design/

[American Patriot]

Trivia...

in several episodes of Star Trek crew members (usually Scotty, Spock or Kirk) could be found wending their way through the ships innards in the "Jeffries tubes" - named AFTER the artist Matt Jeffries who designed the original ship diagrams for the Original Series in 1965.