How Much Would it Cost to Build an ENTERPRISE? | Star Trek

In todays video we are working out what it would cost to build an ENTERPRISE Star ship in real life. A lot of the information in this video comes from the book Science of Star Trek. A book that I can recommend checking out if you're interested this type of stuff!

#startrek #enterprise #reallifeenterprise

[federationoutpost]

If you could have anything from Star Trek in real life, what would you have?

[paulk.dicostanzo]

I haven’t looked up 1701-D’s schematics and blueprints in an age, so I cannot speak from that. But I am surprised that there would need to be as many berthings (rooms for living space) as there is a full crew and passenger compliment for such a vessel. Junior enlisted and junior officers on most military naval vessels live in shared berthing.

Very engaging and fun video! You’ve got yourself a new subscriber.

[anthonylowder]

Interesting video however you forgot one vital factor…..the Federation is composed of hundreds of membership worlds each contributing to the financial ability for Starfleet to be able to design, construct, and maintain a fleet of hundreds of vessels of different configuration and mission capabilities…..so financing just one starship wouldn’t be a problem at all.

[jamesbeemer]

And we could build 4 of them ?!
That is a bargain !
A whole lot cheaper than 20 years of war !
I think that congress needs to see this peace time ultimate project .
Some of the Star Trek technology doesn’t exist yet, but we can compensate with what we have now .

[chrisharknessdcfan]

Loving this new channel of yours you make really good videos

[CtrlOptDel]

An old reference book listed the original Enterprise as costing 20 billion credits to construct. While there’s obviously no actual conversion rate, if we arbitrarily assume the intent of the author was for one Federation credit to equal the value of a US dollar at the time (the 1960s), then that would translate to approximately 200 billion dollars in contemporary money.

[allenr]

To be fair, the crew quarters on the Enterprise D always looked EXTREMELY extravagant for a quasi-militaristic vessel. I would personally think that something between Capt Archer's and Capt Kirk's Enterprise would be more realistic. If you chose to still permit individual quarters, then something akin to a very small studio apartment (bed, desk, a relaxing chair, and small attached bathroom) would be most reasonable, and would reduce cost and materials required to be brought into space. Of course, I suppose how luxurious of a ship you're building depends on how long we've been traveling in space by this point. :)

[ChancreSaurusRex]

A WW2 Yorktown class carrier displaced only 26, 000 tons.

Do you always multiply your mass estimates by a factor of four?

[peterzimmerman]

Future construction and manufacturing methods probably cuts down on production costs considerably, probably a lot of drones and automation involved and other ways of producing materials cost efficiently.

[gatehouseauthor]

I'm thinking adding in the cost of getting stuff from Earth's surface to outer space isn't really relevant. The ships are built in space, using materials mined in space. That cost would be considerably lower than launching millions of tons of material from the surface. But even if that wasn't the case, Starfleet has two major advantages that we don't: transporters and industrial replicators. With cargo transporters, they can transport things as large as a small building from the surface to space with almost zero cost. With industrial replicators, they can materialize almost anything, including parts of the ship's superstructure, with energy to matter conversion, for again almost zero cost. There are a few technobabble things that can't be transported or replicated, but you gotta figure at least 80% of the ship's material can be handled that way, meaning the cost of building the ship is mostly in labor.
Plus, they don't use money, so they don't care how much it costs. ;)

[jamesbeemer]

Surprise ! Someone asked the right question ?
How much would it cost in reality to build such a magnificent ship ?

[PeacelordApropos]

What about the cost of setting up "earth spacedock"? Would the price of that have any effects on our "enterprise"?
Also, for those of us who haven't read the tech manual in a few decades (sigh) what size is the comparison? More of the first or leaning towards the d?

[mtheory]

Well, 94% of the final figure is just the cost of shipping all of the material to space by today's metrics. But, assuming that we have inertialess drives (else why build an Enterprise?), then presumably this cost would be orders of magnitude less. So, assuming that everyone is still using money, the final cost would be about 30 billion, which is the price of a handful of aircraft carriers.

[neoshadowdukeofgames]

I appreciated the comparison of the Iraqi war to the cost of the enterprise.

[applejuicejunkie]

The Abrams Enterprise ship looked incredible!

[phillipwalters]

Hello there Federation Outpost 1-11. I have to admit that this video was absolutely amazing and very interesting as well. The idea of actually building a Starfleet starship, like the Enterprise never really came to my mind, but that is what made this video so enjoyable.
Anyways thank you so much for this video. It was interesting and entertaining with some great information. Hope that you have a wonderful day and can't wait to see more Star Trek related videos from you soon. Peace out to you and 🖖 too, Federation Outpost 1-11.
P.S. I would like to ask if you would recommend the book that you mentioned in this video to fellow Star Trek fans?

[everettjohnson]

So what you're saying is...we need to have space elves show up and this will all be a lot easier!

[miker]

A similar ship will be built once we develop a high speed propulsion system.

[dogwalker]

100 bricks of gold pressed latinum, Don't forget most parts are replicated.