Spaceship Earth

[The Rock]

You know that ride at Epcot called "Spaceship Earth"? Well, when I was a kid I had this idea in my mind that the ride was about Earth becoming its own spaceship and could travel the cosmos on its own using technology created in the far, far future.

Well, at the risk of this sounding really goofy, do you think that eventually in Star Trek, Starfleet would develop the technology to move Earth around on its own freely so it could be its own spaceship thus rendering regular Starfleet ships useless? (I imagine that by this time, transporter technology has become super advanced as well and could beam anyone in a very, very, VERY wide radius [like 1/4 a quadrant]).

 

[Captain pl1ngpl0ng]

Even if you could fly around with the planet you probably would never render regular starfleet ship useless,
i dont thing the planet earth could reach warp9 and land on another planet for a rescue mission.....
The idea of being able to propell earth is nice tho, i loved The Wandering Earth movie.

 

[Oddish]

I'd miss the sun, though.

 

[The Rock]

I'd miss the sun, though.

I figure that technology would be so advanced by this time that for each city on Earth, they could decide whether to show the actual part of space they are currently in or to mimic our Solar System like normal using holographic tech.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

I'm stunned that "Star Trek," and sci-fi in general, doesn't do this concept more often.

 

[Timo]

Wandering planets appear a dime in a dozen in Trek, and enocunter with one wasn't that big a deal even in ENT. But only Q-category folks such as Trelane seem to be able to give planets proper maneuverability. I gather mobile planets will be a hobby project for those already capable of much greater feats, akin to muscle-powered aircraft today: once you have the necessary tech, you no longer have any sort of practical use for it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[daedalus5]

in Space 1999, this is what happened to the moon.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I figure that technology would be so advanced by this time that for each city on Earth, they could decide whether to show the actual part of space they are currently in or to mimic our Solar System like normal using holographic tech.

Without the Sun, Earth would freeze.

 

[valkyrie013]

Tkon empire tried to move there Sun...

 

[MAGolding]

Without the Sun, Earth would freeze.

Then Earth movers would simply put a giagantic sun-satellite in orbit around the moving Earth with super giant fusion generators to provide gazilions of watts to power giant lamps aimed at the Earth.

So that is (relatively0 a very simple and easy solution to that problem. Anyone who could solve the many, many. many times more difficult problems of how to move a planet thorugh interstellar space would have no problem building a sun satellite to warm up the planet.

And of course humans could colonize Pluto, for example, and build inclosed self sufficient colonies on Pluto designed a lot like moonbases. And if they did that they wouldn't worry much about the enviroment outside their enclosed colonies getting even colder as they drove Pluto through interstellar space.

 

[publiusr]

There is a concept called the “shipstar” by Benford. Move the Star, the planets follow. There are what are known as Semi-relativistic Hypervelocity Stars (SHS) formed by galactic mergers. Timed just right, they can—perhaps—keep their planets despite moving at 1/10th to 1/3rd lightspeed—as per Avi Loeb, mind you.

 

[F. King Daniel]

What could possibly go wrong?

 

[publiusr]

Well, the good thing is that you don’t need to slow down when going there. A 90% NSWR will get you there.

If it were to go faster, your star system outlives the rest of the universe.