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USS Enterprise Finally Flies

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the arm-photon-torpedoes dept.

apetime writes "Found on Slashdot Japan: Model builder Kaname of Kumamoto, Japan has built a flying radio controlled model of the original Star Trek's USS Enterprise. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for a video. Or go here for an mpeg, and here for a WMV.) The ship measures from 75 cm, and only weighs 16 grams. It's a wobbly flight, but makes you think what else in Star Trek might work if it were tried."

27 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. Nice... by Punboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    But now the question is, if you transported inside of it, would you shrink?

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    1. Re:Nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You can't transport through the crystal that encloses the shrunken Enterprise. But it does conduct heat, as you can easily check by holding the pendant over a candle.

  2. uhm... by wo1verin3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I may be wrong, but I don't remember the original enterprise having a propellor. The article indicates that technology from that show may work in real life, but it's using old technology. cool to watch, but only for a slow friday night.

    1. Re:uhm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
      I may be wrong, but I don't remember the original enterprise having a propellor.

      Kirk: Ahead, warp factor 7, Scotty.

      Scotty: She given' all she got, but she can' take no more, cap'n. Aye, push'n her any more past 75 kph could rip her prop clean off!

      Spock: My calculations indicate that if we fail to improve the propulsion system, then we will not reach the Romulan Neutral Zone for another 1.343 billion years.

  3. big, fat clue: by k4rm4_p0l7c3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uhm. I'm sure the USS Enterprise was designed to fly in a vacuum; you know.. cause.. space is a vacuum.

    *ahem*

    1. Re:big, fat clue: by great+throwdini · · Score: 4, Funny
      Uhm. I'm sure the USS Enterprise was designed to fly in a vacuum; you know.. cause.. space is a vacuum.

      That's what I thought at first, too. I'm not really a Trekkie, though I must've absorbed the movies and most of TOS and TNG from TV ... which triggers memories from TOS where the Enterprise was seen flying around in the upper atmosphere on at least one episode (e.g., where the crew snaps back to Earth of the 60's and are picked up on radar; jets are scrambled, etc.).

      So, silly as this experiment is, I think there's some evidence that the Enterprise may have been designed to fly around in more than just the vaccuum of space. After all, I saw it on the TV. And TV never lies.

    2. Re:big, fat clue: by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sorry, dude, but you're plaing wrong. Space is not vacuum. In fact, quantum physics tells us there even if you wanted, you could not create a perfect vacuum as virtual particles would pop up.

      If you wanted to make a perfect vacuum, there would be other problems. First you would have to shield it from the enviroment. It's not that easy to shield, for example, neutrinos. Then the container itself will radiate photons, if it is not kept at a temperature of 0K.

      The space contais lots of plasma. For someone used to a pressure of 1 atmosphere, it really seems to be nothing. But if you are cruisig at warp 5, the pressure of the space will be considerable.

      --

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    3. Re:big, fat clue: by Surazal · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't think space is a true vacume. It is just considered one in relation to earths atmosphere. Anyways how do solar sails work? I think with the differences in gravitiy there might be enough friction material in space for this to work to some degree.

      Space ships don't fly with "lift". There's barely any gravity to lift from even taking into account the miniscule amount of gas in space. In fact, the design of the Enterprise was chosen by Roddenberry precisely because it *wasn't* aerodynamic (as a respose to all the space shows and books that depicted space ships as being such). A mile-wide cube would have also sufficed (*ahem*).

      Also, a solar sail would look nothing like the Enterprise. It would look like, er, a sail. A BIG one at that; bigger than the aforementioned mile-wide cube.

      --
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  4. wtf. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's a wobbly flight, but makes you think what else in Star Trek might work if it were tried.

    Actually, no, It doesn't.

  5. The Original Enterprise Flew by TheRedHorse · · Score: 4, Funny

    .....just with wires.

  6. movie mirror links... by AmigaAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative
    posted links to movies on the main page of slashdot, do the editors have no heart!?!?!

    Here is my local mirror on a server that won't be ./'ed...

    mpg format
    wmv format

  7. Pfff that's nothing by Roland+Piquepaille · · Score: 4, Funny

    You should see my model Borg cube...

    1. Re:Pfff that's nothing by dasmegabyte · · Score: 4, Funny

      Been hucking your Rubick's Cube at your brother again, have you?

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
  8. A propeller, huh? by Megane · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Not bad for a ship design that wasn't meant to operate in an atmosphere. The only reason it's aerodynamic is because that looked good on the TV screen.

    I'm not sure what he used for control surfaces (in fact, I'm not sure it has any control at all, and maybe just flies forward), but I think it says in the description that it took him four days, and he used a motor from a CD-ROM.

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  9. Propellor? by scooby111 · · Score: 5, Funny

    With the right size engine, you can make anything fly. This isn't a demonstration of how well the "Enterprise" could fly. It's a demonstration of how you can make even a brick fly with the right thrust to weight ratio.

    I like Star Trek as well as the next geek, but this is just plain silly.

    Now, where can I get one???

    1. Re:Propellor? by nacturation · · Score: 4, Funny

      No kidding. This friend of mine Igor said that with nothing more than a couple of propellors and an engine that he would someday get a big one ton cage of metal and glass to fly and carry people! Yeah, right. I wonder what ever happened to that Sikorsky guy anyway...

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    2. Re:Propellor? by Glonoinha · · Score: 4, Insightful

      -It's a demonstration of how you can make even a brick fly with the right thrust to weight ratio.

      See also : F4 Phantom. That's the joke used when talking about that plane : that it is proof that with big enough engines even a brick will fly.

      RIP the F4 Phantom. You were the most beautiful ugly plane I ever saw.

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
    3. Re:Propellor? by 56ksucks · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing is, the "REAL" Enterprise wouldn't really "fly". In many episodes when the Enterprise is getting too close to a planet's atmosphere there is a danger of crashing and burning in the atmosphere. The only reason it's "Flying" is because there is no gravity in space and no ground to fall on. So the idea that other star trek technologies might work because this works is silly because on Star Trek this wouldn't even work.

      --

      ---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"

    4. Re:Propellor? by Dr.+Cody · · Score: 4, Funny

      No kidding. This friend of mine Igor said that with nothing more than a couple of propellors and an engine that he would someday get a big one ton cage of metal and glass to fly and carry people! Yeah, right. I wonder what ever happened to that Sikorsky guy anyway...

      It's not the thrust-to-weight ratio that matters here--it's just so ugly that the earth repells it.

    5. Re:Propellor? by b-baggins · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is patently false. Anyone who has ever watched a Star Trek episode (TOS) knows that the Enterprise cannot maintain orbit unless Kirk tears off half his shirt and crawls in a Jeffries tube to repair the engines.

      --
      You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
  10. flying in the vacum by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is it real flying if it is not a function of lift versus gravity? You can't have lift in the vacum, so is it actually flying?

  11. Read the Article! by NitsujTPU · · Score: 5, Funny

    Darn you posters who don't read the article! It quite clearly says: "OEã1"NSÔÉí½ÁÄ1"ú1ñÈãSY"-OEfZ¦"Âð`FbN&#233 ;B"

  12. /..jp? by trs9000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    slashdot japan?!
    what?!
    you mean to tell me ive been reading this all this time and i couldve been the uber1337 version from the land of the rising sun?!

    sezu-sai....
    time to go learn japanese.....

  13. Hrmm by acehole · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Should'nt Star Trek have its own icon?

    Starwars does...

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  14. If only there were . . . by jdcook · · Score: 5, Funny
    "makes you think what else in Star Trek might work if it were tried"

    If only there were something like a communicator. That would be cool. A handheld walkie talkie-like thing only able to talk to almost anybody on the planet. It could maybe even open up like a clam. Sigh. I guess it will never be.

    --
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    1. Re:If only there were . . . by Shivantrill · · Score: 4, Informative
      We used to have them as children. When the original series was first run, some toy company made walkie talkies to look like communicators.
      They didn't have much range but they were pretty cool.

      Also, I read somewhere... probably here, about a company that created a wearable one like in TNG as a cummunication device. The company has sold them to hospitals. See an article here http://www.forbes.com/technology/2004/03/16/cx_ah_ 0316chips.html --- Let's see what our moderators score this one as :P

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  15. Even more amazing... by nrlightfoot · · Score: 4, Funny

    There's something here even more amazing than a flying enterprise. They've got a server hosting 4 Mb video files on slashdot's frontpage, and it hasn't crashed yet!

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