Have you ever dreamt of comfortably sitting in Han Solo’s or Chewbacca’s pilot chair for a bit of a trip through the galaxy? Thanks to a bunch of Star Wars’ fanatics currently building a replica of the famous Millennium Falcon, your wish might just be about to come true.

Most fans would happily settle for a LEGO replica or another plastic lightsaber but not Chris Lee, the (rather crazy) man at the origin of the Full Scale Falcon Project. Fan to the core, this resident of East Nashville started to dream about his own Falcon from the age of 12 after first seeing Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. But how, will you ask, such a massive project can be achieved?

Well, Mr. Lee wasn’t completely inexperienced when he decided to take on the challenge. Prior to the Falcon, Lee had also play around a bit in his garage and built his own R2-D2 robot along with a few “disco stormtrooper” outfits with LED panels. And as you’d expect, other  geeks and Star Wars devoted fans have joined the venture thanks to the power of the Internet and are helping as they can by building some parts of the life size interior, exterior, weapons (don’t get too excited, these won’t be firing anything) and more.

The final piece of art should come in at 144-foot long and between 24.9 feet and 30.9 feet high. Sounds quite enough to host a big intergalactic party, no?

Coming together slowly, the vessel is not likely to be ready just yet and certainly not in time for the seventh episode of the Star Wars saga. Cost wise, construction price is already estimated between $200,000 and $800,000. For this price, it’d better have a few iPads built in! But as Chris Lee and the other main contributors to the project mention, “the journey is the reward. The excitement of the build, and of friends and fans working together on a group project is what we are going for.”

Once finished, the Falcon will sit on a 35-hectare plot of land bought by Lee in Tennessee and might be turned into a workshop for students, a museum or who knows, perhaps a set for the Disney Studios, which recently bought over Lucasfilm.

Whatever it becomes, there’s only one thing to wish to all these hard core fans recreating what Luke Skywalker himself once called a ‘piece of junk’…  May the force be with them.

Faster than light travel has long been a staple of science fiction – and science fiction is where many assumed it would remain. NASA scientists however are now working on such a technology, and yes it really is inspired by Star Trek.

The speed of light is the cosmic speed limit. Absolutely nothing can go faster than it, according to the understanding of physics that we currently have. Even travelling at a fraction of light speed it would take a very long time to reach another star – though such a mission  has been proposed.

In 1994 physicist Miguel Alcubierre published a paper called ‘The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel Within General Relativity’. The title inspired by the ‘Warp Drives’ of Star Trek that allow interstellar travel.

If a lot of the cosmological maths is correct there is a certain odd thing to the way that the universe works. It is possible to ‘expand’ and ‘contract’ space-time. A so-called Alcubierre drive would work by creating a bubble around a craft by creating space behind. The ship would experience motion but not acceleration. It would travel faster than light without having to travel faster than light.

According to the calculations made back in 1994 a mindblowing amount of energy would be needed to bend space-time sufficiently for such a thing to work. This was worked out to be somewhere in the order of magnitude of the mass energy of Jupiter. A more recent re-jigging of the plans indicates it may be much more practical.

By changing the shape of the space time ‘bubble’ the drive would create from a sphere to a ring there is a dramatic drop in the amount of energy required. The mass energy required could be as little as a couple of thousand pounds.

Work is now under way at NASA to create an experimental device to prove (or potentially disprove if it fails) that this  approach could work. A device known as a Michelson-Morley interferometer is able to measure disturbances to space-time. Lasers will be fired in order to wobble space time by a tiny amount – the legs of the device should seem to be different lengths when this happens.

According to speculation from Harold White, the scientist leading the NASA team, a space ship boasting a warp drive of this type could potentially reach the nearest stars in a mere matter of weeks. Things are at a very early stage, but technology can advance at a fast pace once proof of concept has been established.

Star Trek Technology We Already Have

It is difficult to overstate the impact that Star Trek has had on the development of technology. By inspiring a generation it has had a big role in shaping the world that we now live in.

Automatic doors that open with a swooshing sound? First seen on the USS Enterprise automatic doors are now found everywhere from supermarkets and convenience stores to your local library.

The communicators on Star Trek were definitely an influence on the development of mobile phones. The clam shell design that was popular before smart phones was seen decades before in the hands of Kirk and the others. Of course tablet style phones are now fairly ubiquitous – and where else did tablet technology first emerge other than Star Trek.

‘Replicators’ are now partially a reality, thanks to 3D printers. Recent developments involving printing electronics show that these have a great deal of potential.

Again, it looks like the barriers between science fiction and real world science are blurring. I’ve just been reading up on several news stories about 3D printers being used to create, wait for it… human body parts.

Yep in a few years’ time your doctor might not be printing you a prescription for joint pain medication, he might just print you a new joint instead. Ok, creating a whole joint might be a long way off, but replacement cartilage could be here pretty soon.

Researchers have just published details of a method using a modified ink-jet printer with a special spinning machine to create artificial cartilage.

The system builds the cartilage up with a chemical polymer spun into very fine fibres. These fibres are then coated with live cartilage cells. The major benefit of the process is that it can produce porous artificial cartilage which is capable of merging with the surrounding tissue. Human trials are still quite a long way off, but the technology does show promise.

While the cartilage might not be ready for use in humans, doctors have used 3D printing technology to create a titanium jaw bone for a Dutch woman. Is anyone else thinking X-Men here?

The bone is a pretty complex piece of engineering with moving parts and grooves for nerves and veins to grow into. It was designed on computer and then made with titanium power melted together layer-by-layer with a special 3D laser printer. As it takes 33 layers to build up 1mm, you can imagine how many layers were actually needed.

And it’s not just joints that doctors are looking to print; there are plans to use 3D printers to help make internal organs. One of the main challenges involved in constructing artificial organs is incorporating blood vessels; if you don’t get blood to the tissue it’s just going to die.

US researchers believe they may have a potential solution. The idea to use a 3D printer to build the blood vessel structure out of sugar, grow the cells around the structure, then dissolve the sugar leaving behind a vascular system capable of carrying blood throughout the organ.

These technologies obviously open up possibilities for incredible new medical treatments. However, as I’m a scaremongering technophobe terrified of a robot apocalypse, I do have to point out that it also opens the door for the possibility for an evil artificial intelligence to build a human looking cyborg army. It might call them Terminators or something… just saying…

Should a line be drawn as to what’s an acceptable level of technology to be incorporated into the human body? Or should doctors be free to push the boundaries of what’s possible? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Well not really, but nearly!

William Shatner and Wil Wheaton have been commissioned to add the voice over for NASA’s latest video that explains the Curiosity rover mission to Mars.

Come on, what better people could you have doing the voice over for a short video that explains the Curiosity rover’s imminent descent to the planet surface of Mars?

NASA’s PR department have had a stroke of genius and one can’t help thinking why hasn’t someone thought of this before.

William Shatner, the godfather of Star Trek and the original Captin Kirk, adds his weighty and iconic voice to the NASA made video entitled Grand Entrance. It makes a rather dry video seem like the teaser for a Hollywood blockbuster.

Not only have NASA managed to get William Shatner on board, but in a fantastic coup they have also managed to get another sci-fi legend Wil Wheaton (aka Wesley Crusher) to help out on voice over duties.

The actual descent of Curiosity will be broadcast live to an audience of 200 at London’s Natural History Museum at 6am on the 6th of August, 2012.

Whose voice over do you think is best?

Getting involved with tinkering and upgrading technology can be great fun. If you like cars, then it is only natural you would want to make it truly yours. The laws on customisation that runs to more than a pair of furry dice can be a bit of a minefield though. Jamie Gibbs of Confused.com (who have further advice on modified car insurance ) fills us in…

CC 'philcampbell' (Flickr)

Sometimes, having a bog standard, normal, ‘boring’ car just isn’t going to cut it, and you want to throw in some elbow grease and make it something much more unique. Modifying your car can give you a proper sense of individuality and, depending on how extravagant your modifications are, will be guaranteed to turn heads in your direction. Modified cars, however, are still a bit of a bugbear for many motorists because of the legal minefield they have to dodge to make sure their car it still roadworthy.

External modifications

CC 'lisadragon' (Flickr)

One of the most common ways that people tend to modify their cars is by tinting the windows. This might be because you want less eyestrain from the glare of daylight, because you want less UV light to tarnish your leather interior, or it might be because you want to feel like you’re a celebrity trying to dodge the paparazzi.

If you decide that you want a window tint modification, you need to make sure that it’s within the strict legal limits. The windscreen has to let in at least 75 per cent of light, and the front side windows have to let in at least 70 per cent of light in order to maintain adequate visibility. Most modern cars already have their windows slightly tinted, so adding any extra tint on top of this will in all likelihood breach the limits and it could lead to court action.

External modifications usually lead to the police taking an increased interest in you and your car. With ‘boy racer’ culture being a particular thorn in the law’s side, you might be tarred with the same brush for adding cosmetic mods to your car.

Performance modifications

For some, making the car look cool just isn’t enough, and they choose to go deeper and tinker with the insides. Lowering the suspension of the car seems to be a popular modification in order to improve handling, but lowering the car too much actually harms handling and the modified car becomes more unstable on less than perfect roads. It is recommended that the suspension is lowered no more than 30mm, otherwise you could compromise your handling.

Changing the exhaust system is also quite a popular modification, although there are strict limits regarding how much noise the exhaust makes. Any modified exhaust that emits a noise that is louder than the factory standard will be in breach of the law. It also has to be seen that your modified exhaust system is properly maintained and that it is in good working order.

(c) Tom Edge Photography - courtesy of Loxlee Loves Engines

Falling foul of your insurance

Even if your modified car is roadworthy and all the modifications are street legal, you might find yourself on the wrong side of the law because of invalidated insurance. Individual insurers can refuse to provide cover for a modified car, even if it counts as legal (engine remapping to give the car more power is an example of this). This is due to the car becoming an ‘unacceptable risk’ and so your insurance would be instantly cancelled if you have this. Bear in mind you are also obligated to inform your insurer about any modifications that you have on the car, so there’s no honest way you can dodge it.

Before you modify your car, always check with your insurer that it comes within your policy limits, and check how it will affect your premium. As a general rule, expect any modification you add to increase your car insurance premium, even cosmetic mods. Also, ensure that the modification is made by an approved body and a competent engineer. Cutting corners and allowing substandard work when pimping out your car can only lead to trouble.

What car mods do you wish you could install? Are fear over the law or insurance holding you back? Why not let us know in the comment section.