I'm not sure whether to laugh or be disgusted at this. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-...modeled-his-office-bridge-starship-enterprise Still mental though!
Considering it's the hard-working taxpayer's money that was spent here, I'd vote for being disgusted.
I don't particularly have a problem with this. Showmanship is a big part of keeping government programs sold to people who don't necessarily understand the technical intricacies of them, so it makes sense to spend a few dollars on a cool facility. And while you're at it, why *not* model it after something on TV?
Touche. And all in the name of national security of course. At any rate things become ever more surreal in the USA.
This is not located at the NSA nor is it director Keith Alexander's "office." It was the "Information Dominance Center" at the US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia (The NSA is located at Ft. Meade, Maryland) during construction sometime after moving into its new HQ in 1989 (hence the outdated CRT monitors). So basically this was built when TNG was still fairly new and novel and kewl (and before we started sarcastically saying "kewl"). So, to clarify a few things, this was built long before the days of 9/11, the Patriot Act, or before the NSA domestic surveillance program on cell phone calls and emails, and it's not even located at the NSA. So the characterization in the article that this is the work of some megalomaniacal madman who thinks he's Captain Kirk or Picard is a bit over-the-top. He wouldn't even have a chance to visit the NSA and turn evil because of a transporter accident that split his personality in two until at least a couple decades later. Also, the building and IDC was under construction anyway, so there's no "wasting of taxpayer's money" in building it to these specifications unless you consider them building anything a waste of money to begin with. When you get right down to it, the basic layout of the Enterprise bridge is a pretty smart design for informational awareness, especially when you have an officer in charge overseeing the whole operation from a central position anyway. Why not place them on a raised chair surrounded by displays (including one large one directly ahead for the most important information) so they can see everyone and everything easily? The Enterprise design looks that way because it's a smart and efficient design, so there's nothing wrong with emulating it. Plus, as mentioned, his purpose was also to entertain visiting VIPs and show them how the Army was embracing the future of technology and information gathering, so what better way to display that than to mimic the design of the bridge on a hugely popular new futuristic scifi TV show from a well-known pop-culture franchise? There are plenty of things to criticize the NSA and the politicians who run them for with the domestic surveillance programs and so forth. This is not even a blip on the radar, it's going on three decades late with the criticism, it's not a waste of money, and it's not even directed at the right target.
This is not unusual. The North Korean information dominance center is modeled after the POW barracks in Hogan's Heroes, the Vietnamese IDC in Hanoi is modeled after the Professor's hut on Gilligan's Island, and the Iranian IDC looks like the inside of the lamp in I Dream of Jeannie.
Hrm... You see, the US IDC is modeled on the bridge of the starship Enterprise. So what TV shows would other countries use as a model for their own IDC's? It would be easy to write a humorous article about it with pictures taken from various shows, and you could extend the joke further with the UK's GCHQ center being a police callbox, etc.
In, I think it was the Encyclopedia, Okuda talked about "a government agency" studying the Enterprise bridge for their control centre. Did anyone ever hear where/who that was, and could it be this one? dJE
According to the book The Making of Star Trek, which came out in the early 70s, the bridge of the Enterprise was specifically designed for this kind of efficiency. It's been studied by a few government agencies over the years, including the Navy. It's not surprising that someone has decided to use the basic layout-- it's kind of surprising that more people haven't.