Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Contact    |    RSS icon Twitter icon Facebook icon  
Unexplained Mysteries
You are viewing: Home > News > Science & Technology > News story
Welcome Guest ( Login or Register )  
All ▾
Search Submit

Science & Technology

How much would the Enterprise cost to run ?

By T.K. Randall
July 30, 2016 · Comment icon 23 comments

How much do dilithium crystals cost anyway ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Julo
An engineering firm has attempted to calculate how much Captain Kirk's ship would actually cost to run.
Monetary considerations might have been far from the minds of the Enterprise crew as they boldly explored strange new worlds and sought out new life and new civilizations, but if the iconic starship existed in today's real-world economy, how expensive would it be to keep going ?

To work this out, Derby-based firm SGS Engineering decided to break the costs down in to several categories such as general maintenance, crew salaries, performance upgrades and repairs.

They then took a real-world analogue of the Enterprise - the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford - and used its running costs to work out the expenses for a ship of approximately twice that size.
Taking everything in to account and basing the calculation on today's money, they determined that the Enterprise would cost approximately £10,342,817.36 per year to run.

Based on these same calculations the Millennium Falcon of Star Wars fame, being much smaller than the Enterprise, would only cost around £2 million per year to maintain.

Given that the International Space Station costs billions of dollars every year to run however it's likely that the cost of running a real-life interstellar starship would be exponentially higher.

Source: Huffington Post | Comments (23)




Other news and articles
Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #14 Posted by danielost 8 years ago
the star trek personal had all their needs meet while in service.  but the normal people needed money or credits to pay for things.  remember in the first episode of the next gen. the good docter bought a role of fabric and told the clerk to credit to her on the enterprise.
Comment icon #15 Posted by paperdyer 8 years ago
A good point on the replicators, but think about it, how did the Federation pay for all the dilithium crystals Scottie went through?  What did we trade and how were the trades good obtained?  The first ST:TNG, Farpoint, shows Dr. Crusher purchasing items in an outside market.  Since she has no money, how did she pay for the fabric she bought? Even Captain Kirk stated that precious gems are worthless as "We can as many as we want."  The Federation must of had some type of pay/exchange rate as not to upset the economy of the planets they visited.
Comment icon #16 Posted by OverSword 8 years ago
They were traded for beautiful women.         (the brunette is the one I've always had a thing for) And they were obtained through Harcourt Fenton Mudd
Comment icon #17 Posted by Noteverythingisaconspiracy 8 years ago
I think a much more important question is how much did it cost to run the Death Star ? Speaking of the Death Star, did Luke ever think of the close to 2 million crew members and their families before he killed them ?   http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star  
Comment icon #18 Posted by BiffSplitkins 8 years ago
Comment icon #19 Posted by OverSword 8 years ago
They were mainly clones anyway so who cares?
Comment icon #20 Posted by TripGun 8 years ago
Based on today's tech, the enterprise would be as large as the sun and cost the lives of everyone on board.
Comment icon #21 Posted by danielost 8 years ago
they also couldn't afford the energy to run the replucaters as a normal operation.
Comment icon #22 Posted by Eldorado 8 years ago
If Gov funded it would cost ten times the original figure given to the public.  Same as everything else.
Comment icon #23 Posted by NCC1701 3 years ago
If it 's the Enterprise in the picture above then it wouldn't cost too much to run it.


Please Login or Register to post a comment.


Our new book is out now!
Book cover

The Unexplained Mysteries
Book of Weird News

 AVAILABLE NOW 

Take a walk on the weird side with this compilation of some of the weirdest stories ever to grace the pages of a newspaper.

Click here to learn more

We need your help!
Patreon logo

Support us on Patreon

 BONUS CONTENT 

For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, you can gain access to a wide range of exclusive perks including our popular 'Lost Ghost Stories' series.

Click here to learn more

Recent news and articles