Engineer: Star Trek's Enterprise ship could be built in 20 years at acost of $1 trillion

In sci.space.policy message , Fri, 25
May 2012 13:43:17, Sylvia Else posted:

On 25/05/2012 4:47 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:
Sylvia Else wrote:
Dr J R Stockton wrote:

In the 1800's, Canada turned from being largely a wilderness society to
largely a civilised society in 100 years.

Why, then, should not a society arriving on a reasonably Earth-line
planet with the knowledge-base needed to build and run an 0.1c starship
be able to build another without undue effort after 200 years?

The majority of the cost is in the development phase in many
transportation systems. Building to a known design costs far less.

Perhaps, if the design is capable of being reused in that way. One
might think it should be, but, for example, the USA couldn't even reuse
the Saturn V design now.

Falcon 9 is fundamentally the same design as Saturn - several engines,
tanks above that, smaller second stage, pointy payload on top. The rest
is detail.

Also : Saturn was designed and manufactured when computers were feeble.
And the only parts of the system intended to be reusable were the crew;
almost all of the rest was abandoned before re-entry.

An 0.1c craft intended for colonisation will carry its entire design,
and designs for the machinery needed to make its specialised parts, and
self-replicating replicators, etc.; with corresponding for making new
crew (that only needs air, food, water, and time).

Given the resources of a habitable planet, ship and crew will know how
to bootstrap their successors.

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