This question was posed by one Praxis in scifi.stackexchange.com but it raised another reality check: After 30+ years after the Apollo / Moon walk, where are we??

This question started forming when the 'shaky' design of the Enterprise caught my attention. Now, before I go into that, I must submit to Star Trek fans that I have no knowledge about the episodes & warp speeds so on. But the ship's design has an importance that we may have overlooked: since this defines future mission capabilities. So leading on with the following tiny
steps:

Flaw 1:
The Enterprise has just 2 thrusters; in other words it can turn in two dimensional space but for it to 'dip' or 'raise' it must have a minimum
of 4 thrusters? (there are some corrections here but for the moment..)



Flaw 2: As in the above view, the ship is designed in 3 parts:
1. A central conical vessel which appears to be aerodynamically designed(?)
like a plane with it's wings sheared off?? From Wikia I understand that
this is where the 'crew' of around 200 are housed.

2. A large saucer shaped unit (at the head) is the 'Command Center' or
Command Module (CM).

3. And of course the inadequate 2 thrusters. Now Wikia talks about 8 mini thrusters - so I assume they are part of the 2 'nacelles' that drove the ship - so navigation in 3 dimensions may not be an issue. Still commonsense
tells us - 4 is better than 2.

Now to the real problem
As the world knows, in the Apollo Design: there was the lunar orbiting Command Module and the Lander (LEM: Lunar Excursion Module)

So the question is: Where in the Enterprise is the Lander? And if there is one, where would it dock? On the CM's Bridge?

Design concept ready
This basic flaw is covered in the Hollywood design of Star Wars - Control Ship: The very large Toroidal design.



Given today's economy and the foreseeable depression for next 30 years;
no one would consider a ship of such size. But...

But if the ship can be scaled down, we could be seeing an ISS equivalent
perpetually in orbit around Mars or some other 'friendly' planet.

The point is..
Instead of investing in 'Mars', colonization, mining and so on; shouldn't the powers who define space missions take a page from Hollywood & build the
technology to scale up the ISS? Or does colonizing Mars make more sense?

If we look back in history, technology has generally driven the economy; the railroads, the internet and now it appears space technology could be it. So although this may initially 'amuse' some of us, if we reflect, this may be just what the economy needs.