Since the spectacular Apollo moon landing in 1969 we have lost our way when it comes to big projects for putting humans into space. Some let down was inevitable. After all, the moon landing was one of the greatest achievements in human history. It’s just awfully hard to top that. After the Apollo missions we built the space shuttle, which was impressive, but in the end it was pretty much a magnificent space-truck to move people and cargo into Earth’s low orbit.
So, to move beyond the current rut we are in, let's build a fully functional interplanetary spaceship. The U.S.S. Enterprise. Dan of the BTE Blog already planned it out. Let's do it. Of the U.S.'s yearly 3600 billion budget, building the Enterprise would cost only 50.