How Las Vegas missed out on a life-sized Starship Enterprise

[Fabio]

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/how_...hip_enterprise

[Mikala]

Imagine the upkeep on the old girl had she been approved.
Imagine it's eventual demolition as all buildings in Vegas seem to end up undergoing!
That would no doubt rate an episode on Nat Geo!

[3D_CG]

IMHO - This would not have been a flop.. But A total Success..

Ya Think..

The final go-ahead had to come from Stanley Jaffe, the president and COO of Paramount Communications. Jaffe wasn't as keen on a life-sized Enterprise as the rest of the world. He told the Goddard crew:

I would have made it a Goal to go and see it once a year.. on the Harley of course..

Mike

[Rigel]

I have often thought it would be very cool to build a full size Enterprise monument. I just as frequently wondered how it could be pulled off. Let's start with the fact that the shape is not meant to be subjected to Earth's gravity - not without technology to nullify the gravity either partially or completely. Supporting a structure like that would be an engineering nightmare. Now, there are probably engineers in the world who could pull it off, but for how many billions of dollars?

Still, it would be something to see!

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by Rigel

I have often thought it would be very cool to build a full size Enterprise monument. I just as frequently wondered how it could be pulled off. Let's start with the fact that the shape is not meant to be subjected to Earth's gravity - not without technology to nullify the gravity either partially or completely. Supporting a structure like that would be an engineering nightmare. Now, there are probably engineers in the world who could pull it off, but for how many billions of dollars?

Still, it would be something to see!

I'd say you could do it in a hanger without too much fuss, suspend the top bits and rest the bottom on the ground!

[bmckain]

It really amazes me how great ideas get killed by small minded people. The only ones who would have been responsible it if was a flop would have been the business group that built it.

[JimCrafton]

Rigel, according to the full blog posting, the guy claims they hired some folks to look into the engineering aspects of building it and, from what I understood, it seems like they had worked out the kinks, at least as far as they could without actually building something.

[Mikala]

Originally Posted by Starbase1

I'd say you could do it in a hanger without too much fuss, suspend the top bits and rest the bottom on the ground!

That would not be in the Las Vegas tradition. It has to be big and in your face there.
So a hangar would be out of the question. Too storage, not enough flash.

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by Mikala

That would not be in the Las Vegas tradition. It has to be big and in your face there.
So a hangar would be out of the question. Too storage, not enough flash.

I see what you mean - but suspended from overhead metal frame could still be done outdoors...

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by Starbase1

I see what you mean - but suspended from overhead metal frame could still be done outdoors...

It would make for an even larger display with even more "in your face" flash; build a life size space dock over it to help support the life sized ship!

[Vendigo]

It was to be a drydock setting, the saucer section and warp nacelles would've had trussed pylons for support.

It really angers me to see how a little self-absorbed punk in a suit can kill great projects with a wave of a hand. This guy wasn't afraid to do movies though; it seems the suits of hollywood today are.

[Mikala]

"This is not the Starship you were looking to build" wave of hand.....

[Kerem]

Wow that's amazing! We could have a Foundation3D tour to Vegas... Even I would join!

And I can't believe how small that Paramount guy thinking. He has fear failure! How come he successful so far with that mind state? Unbelievable!

[DaveK]

I've wondered it the built the interiors in a hotel. You could stay the the TOS, STNG, Voyager, or DS9 "Capitan's Cabin". You could gamble at Quark's. Maybe an updated version of the Star Trek experience with other attractions that could be rotated. I wonder if there are enough fans to support that.

[bmckain]

I personally don't think we're forgetting anything. The desert and Las Vegas would have been a perfect location. Perhaps we should just stick to enjoying a thread for what its worth rather than insert national security into it. Sorry to be so blunt but I think we're all sick to death of constantly looking over our shoulders.

[JackN]

Originally Posted by Vendigo

It really angers me to see how a little self-absorbed punk in a suit can kill great projects with a wave of a hand...

After all the times I've seen it happen in a company now in my lifetime, it doesn't amaze me at all anymore...

I look at it with the same thought as Rigel's Signature...

[tobian]

Oh come on this is ridiculous. That thing could never have been built in the early 90's, it couldn't be built today, definitely not as a free-standing structure, and even with support (which would spoil the look of it), it would be almost impossible.

The Enterprise was designed SPECIFICALLY to look impossible to build, in the vein of the 60's modernist cantilevered architecture style (which architects use to build impossible-to-build (conventionally) structures, but that would be ludicrous. You cannot cantilever structures that huge, using current technology. Period. No debate. Even in StarTrek, which is set 300+ years in the future, the structures were built with advanced alloys, operated principally in micro or zero gravity, and had forcefields to reinforce the structures when they were stressed.. Did people in Las Vegas invent polyduranium alloy and forcefields, in the 90's?

Most of what is built in Las vegas is pure cr*p, just breeze blocks covered in cement render, and pulled down after 10 years, because they are replaced by the next new hot thing. Las vegas is a seedy sideshow attraction write large, and if you go a few metres off the strip, it's just a nasty sandy seedy dust-bowl. If they had built it, after a few years it would have looked awful, so yeah it's a blessing they didn't even try! and yeah a desert would have been murder on gleaming anodised metal! Nothing in Las Vegas was built to last. Even the StarTrek experience was only around for what 10-15 years, till it fell out of popularity. That was just built in some hotel lobby, and is a massive difference between that and a massive thing bigger than the Eiffel tower, and most skyscrapers. There's also the other issue that the interior, if 'authentic' wouldn't have been much use for anything, as it's all quite small pokey rooms, and cramped inside: the interior volume of the ship is quite wasteful. and you know if it wasn't 'authentic' inside, the fans would baulk at it!

We all love to dream. I'd personally love to see a StarTrek ship, in the flesh, but it's just not possible for painfully obvious reasons. I'd love to have a 20 mile high dinosaur made out of solid gold and chocolate too, but, you know... It's ludicrously large, and would be OMG expensive to build, for a limited appeal and target audience. I can see why Paramount pulled out, and they were wise too!

and Bob, I have no idea what you are going on about, VK mentioned nothing to do with 'national security' anywhere in her post?!

[Vendigo]

If you had taken the effort to read the actual blog article, you'd had gotten this:

We learned everything we could about the Starship – its actually size and dimensions, how it would exist in “dry dock” on the planet if indeed such a situation had been possible. We imagined what it could be, and how we might achieve it. We got Ken Ball (former head of engineering at Disney’s MAPO) involved to figure out how to engineer and support it. (Ultimately we realized we would need to add some supports on the outer edge of the “disc” section due to the extremely high wind conditions in Vegas. For this we created a high tech “scaffolding structure” that gave the ship more of the appearance of being in an open-air dry dock. I have not yet located that sketch, but I’ll try to find it.)

Those engineers weren't clueless idiots.

[Madkoifish]

Link to the original blog where much of the text is lifted from:
http://www.thegoddardgroup.com/blog/

Little did we know that the idea was so powerful and compelling to so many people that it would grow to a quarter of a million hits in less than 5 days. Our small blog, started less than a month ago, was humble at 10,000 hits or so. We never dreamed it would take off like this!

I do have to say it is funny the city of all that opposes what trek is would have had this built in it. A symbol of peace understanding and anti economical values. A ship from a world/universe where material wealth is not a part of life.

Personally other than all the tech conventions that take place in places like vegas, I cannot see any reason I'd want to set foot in those places. I could care less for overpriced food, shows, and gambling. But that is sorta off topic.

[DELTA]

Turn it into a hotel.... I would spend good money to stay at the Enterprise arms hotel...

[tobian]

Yeah I didn't read the connected blog, just the article. That said, I still think they're idiots as all they mention is the 'high winds' not the extreme structural strains of just existing in neutral conditions! None of the proposed illustrations show this (conveniently) and none of the sketches explain how it will be created, they just show pretty artists impressions of it sitting in Las Vegas. I am not sure, as well, how these people intended to pay for it too. It's dozens of times bigger than most of the buildings in the strip, which are almost all just basic box constructions, with a few fancy bits stuck on the front, not the worlds most advanced building project, built for a 'tourist attraction' - competitively, the largest skyscrapers today cost over a billion (I daresay most of the buildings on the strip cost a few hundred million, without checking) and as has been mentioned they likely wouldn't have been able (contractually) to make it into a hotel, so that's a lot of volume to fill up with 'tourist attraction'). Sorry it's just not plausible.

Have any of you went to the Millennium dome / O2 Arena in London? The great white elephant of London's millennium celebrations. It's equally as massive, half empty, and an embarrassment. It cost nearly 800 million to build (pounds that is, so about $1.2 billion) and costs around 1 million a year to maintain, and it's essentially a giant tent, and was only designed to have a lifetime of about 10-20 years, not a permanent structure... It's incredibly easy to be flippant and casual about large numbers, when you don't have to pay for it, but those are massive sums to absorb on a risk as big as that. I'll also point at the trek 11 film... They used breweries and old power stations as stand-ins for the ships interior.. because they couldn't afford to build a set.. so this is a temporary structure, designed to only last a few days at most, probably without even a roof (done by digital set extensions these days) and 'fixed' by special effects, if it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.. and they are going to spent billions making that? Yeaaaah riiiiighhhht

[bmckain]

Alright, I completely misread something. I had several tabs open at the time and the only thing I can imagine is I must have read one from the wrong thread. So like they say, just take the pill and move on. Sorry for the misunderstanding and the confusion. My apology.

[3D_CG]

I think they should build it..

I want it, now...