The Gadget Helpline‘s REEL TO REAL is a regular feature to the blog, aimed at tech and film fanatics, which will reveal how the sci-fi and futuristic gadgets we see on screen in movies and television are making their way into real-life. Take a seat, grab your popcorn and enjoy the show!
Have you ever been re-watching your favourite episode of Star Trek on high-density Blu-Ray format and wondered just how big the U.S.S Enterprise is in comparison to some other famous space-faring craft? We sure have, and SupernovaCondensate.net has taken this idea and made a visual chart featuring our favourite Federation Starship – showing what it would actually look like line-up next to some of its real-life predecessors – and let’s just say she’s one big bird!
Bigger in fact than the International Space Station. The inhabitable satellite orbiting our Earth and studying the planet and warning us of hostiles such as the Romulans is around 73 metres wide and 108 in length. On a clear night it can be seen as a slowly moving white dot amongst the stars but sizing up next to the I.S.S, the U.S.S Enterprise puts the orbital observatory in the shadows with its saucer section alone – not to mention the NCC-1701’s aft section and Warp nacelles!
The graphic was recently posted sans-Enterprise but fans demanded the site add the iconic sci-fi vessel and the chart that also features the recently retired Shuttle Orbiter which measures approx 37 metres in length with a wingspan of 24 metres. The NASA shuttle is joined by the Apollo from the early moon missions, and the proposed French-made shuttle Hermes which was never completed.
The model of Enterprise that appears on this graphic is unspecified but we’d guess from its perfectly round saucer that it’s the starship helmed by Kirk in the earliest adventures. It’s worth noting that the following rebuilds Captained by Jean Luc-Picard were much, much bigger than the one seen in this chart!
Sadly, the Millenium Falcon doesn’t factor into this comparison but for point of reference see if you can spot Han Solo’s ship fleeing the battle with the Borg at the beginning of Star Trek: First Contact – a nod to Star Wars thrown in by a former LucasFilm staffer working on the movie!
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