The White House’s “We the People” petition website really ought not to be taken seriously anymore, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still some good ideas floated on the platform. A petition created last Saturday that calls for the feasibility study on a major scientific and military project is garnering signatures, but is still only moving at sub-light speeds.

So far, 2,343 people have signed the petition for the National Aeronautical and Space Agency to research the construction of a new space-faring vessel with the capability for extended, long-range missions. And the ship’s design, according to the original petitioner, is both quite functional and universally recognizable:

We have within our technological reach the ability to build the 1st generation of the USS Enterprise. It ends up that this ship’s inspiring form is quite functional. This will be Earth’s first gigawatt-class interplanetary spaceship with artificial gravity. The ship can serve as a spaceship, space station, and space port all in one. In total, one thousand crew members & visitors can be on board at once. Few things could collectively inspire people on Earth more than seeing the Enterprise being built in space. And the ship could go on amazing missions, like taking the first humans to Mars while taking along a large load of base-building equipment for constructing the first permanent base there.

Yep. This petition is calling for the creation of the most famous ship ever to explore the skies. And why not? After all, with the Navy’s recent decommissioning of the aircraft carrier Enterprise, the name is available. Moreover, building a Constitution-class starship within 20 years is a lot less fantastical than the petition calling for the commencement of a Death Star by 2016. (To say nothing of the fact a Death Star would take hundreds of thousands of years to complete.)

The petition was started by an Internet user who calls himself BTE Dan, after his website BuildTheEnterprise.org, which was founded earlier this year as a earnest response to NASA’s conclusion of the Space Shuttle program. BTE Dan is obviously a big Trekkie, but he’s also a real-life engineer who has gamed out what a 21st-century Enterprise might be built from and what missions it could accomplish. Dilithium crystal reactors don’t exist yet, but nuclear turbines do, and BTE Dan even has a design for an artificial gravity well. With current and impending technologies, BTE Dan says the “Gen1” Enterprise could reach Mars within 90 days and carry enough personnel—1,000—and equipment to establish a human colony the fourth planet.

Why the petition now, though? Well, for one thing, “We the People” has really gone over the rails. But BTE Dan tells Universe Today that after months of Internet dreaming, he wants to get the input of some actual NASA scientists:

“I have been getting many offers of help from engineers outside the space industry, and that’s great,” he said via email. “But also what is needed are some experienced space engineers who adopt a can-do attitude about the concept of the Gen1 Enterprise.”

Good to see there are still people who don’t believe in the no-win scenario.

Now if only we could petition the White House to force J.J. Abrams to stop being so stingy about identifying the villain in Star Trek Into Darkness.