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Star Trek Full-Scale USS Enterprise Almost Built in Las Vegas in '92

11 points by evo_9 4y ago

cs702 4y ago
It would have been -- and still could be -- hugely successful as a hotel + casino + entertainment + retail + amusement-park complex.
abudabi123 4y ago
International Fight Week MMA fighters wearing the Star Trek costume as model citizens of the future on Mars's Federation Academy could be a perennial event.
trynewideas 4y ago
> THIS – this is different. If this doesn’t work – if this is not a success – it’s there, forever … I don’t want to be the guy that approved this and then it’s a flop and sitting out there in Vegas forever. Disney's Galactic Starcruiser flop makes him sound less wrong than the article tries to make him sound.
- warning26 4y ago
  The $5000 price tag probably doesn't help on the Disney one...
8jef 4y ago
Come on folks, this last millenium vision totally lacks ambition. How about building a full-scale Enterprise in Earth's orbit, in space? Now that we have low orbit on-demand and scheduled transportion services available, we'd get the first legit space destination for a new age in mass tourism. Which leads to more questions: does so-called intellectual properties laws apply in orbit? Would we need to solve artificial gravity, or floating around in a fake spaceship fine for tourism purposes? Etc.
- aquarium87 4y ago
  Too much carbon footprint. Gonna need better battery tech
peter_d_sherman 4y ago
This would have been a good idea... Maybe spending $150 Million would have been too much, and maybe you couldn't really build this on the Las Vegas strip because land would cost too much there. But, maybe it could have been built a few miles out in the Las Vegas desert -- where land would have been much more affordable. Also -- the developers could have started with a much cheaper Star Trek museum, and worked their way up to building a full-scale Enterprise replica once the revenues started trickling in. Then, make a joint-venture deal with Paramount (or whoever owns the rights to Star Trek) that this will become an additional filming location; an additional studio -- for all things Star Trek... That would have been a win-win. Anyway, it is (and was) a good idea! (Then again, perhaps somewhere in, around, or near -- Starbase Texas -- would be a better place for something like this in the future...)
joezydeco 4y ago
The counter argument was simple, but nobody in the room would probably have used it. Stuff in Vegas gets built at enormous expense and then torn down just as quickly when the property isn't making money anymore. And then it's just an empty parking lot in the desert and it's forgotten. Imploding skyscrapers is a pastime there. You also have the example of The Harmon, a $400 million dollar development that had to be dismantled piece-by-piece because it was structurally unsound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harmon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harmon Does anyone even remember that name anymore? No way.

11 points by evo_9 4y ago

It would have been -- and still could be -- hugely successful as a hotel + casino + entertainment + retail + amusement-park complex.

abudabi123 4y ago

International Fight Week MMA fighters wearing the Star Trek costume as model citizens of the future on Mars's Federation Academy could be a perennial event.

trynewideas 4y ago

> THIS – this is different. If this doesn’t work – if this is not a success – it’s there, forever … I don’t want to be the guy that approved this and then it’s a flop and sitting out there in Vegas forever. Disney's Galactic Starcruiser flop makes him sound less wrong than the article tries to make him sound.

warning26 4y ago
The $5000 price tag probably doesn't help on the Disney one...

8jef 4y ago

Come on folks, this last millenium vision totally lacks ambition. How about building a full-scale Enterprise in Earth's orbit, in space? Now that we have low orbit on-demand and scheduled transportion services available, we'd get the first legit space destination for a new age in mass tourism. Which leads to more questions: does so-called intellectual properties laws apply in orbit? Would we need to solve artificial gravity, or floating around in a fake spaceship fine for tourism purposes? Etc.

aquarium87 4y ago
Too much carbon footprint. Gonna need better battery tech

peter_d_sherman 4y ago

This would have been a good idea... Maybe spending $150 Million would have been too much, and maybe you couldn't really build this on the Las Vegas strip because land would cost too much there. But, maybe it could have been built a few miles out in the Las Vegas desert -- where land would have been much more affordable. Also -- the developers could have started with a much cheaper Star Trek museum, and worked their way up to building a full-scale Enterprise replica once the revenues started trickling in. Then, make a joint-venture deal with Paramount (or whoever owns the rights to Star Trek) that this will become an additional filming location; an additional studio -- for all things Star Trek... That would have been a win-win. Anyway, it is (and was) a good idea! (Then again, perhaps somewhere in, around, or near -- Starbase Texas -- would be a better place for something like this in the future...)

joezydeco 4y ago

The counter argument was simple, but nobody in the room would probably have used it. Stuff in Vegas gets built at enormous expense and then torn down just as quickly when the property isn't making money anymore. And then it's just an empty parking lot in the desert and it's forgotten. Imploding skyscrapers is a pastime there. You also have the example of The Harmon, a $400 million dollar development that had to be dismantled piece-by-piece because it was structurally unsound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harmon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harmon Does anyone even remember that name anymore? No way.