It’s been a nerd debate since 1977: What ship is better, the Enterprise or the Millennium Falcon? Despite the fact that there’s an obvious winner here, based just on the fact that the Enterprise’s FTL system consistently works, Neil deGrasse Tyson has a more elaborate answer.
And he’s Enterprise all the way. His point is twofold: One, the Enterprise is a better-run ship, with a staff overseeing its systems and repairing any problems, as opposed to the Falcon’s system of “making the walking carpet fix it.” And secondly, that the Enterprise is a vessel built for scientific discovery, not as a glorified space bus or a weapons platform for killing any new life and new civilizations we happen to run into. He argues that in fact it’s the first ship in science fiction built specifically for that purpose.
Of course, this is somewhat mitigated by the important fact that the Millennium Falcon is smaller, more nimble, and better able to handle atmosphere. On the other hand, the Enterprise is run by people who’d actually use the targeting computer on the Death Star, thus saving many Rebel lives. Also, we could totally see Leia and Picard hitting it off, so really Han should just be grateful there’s never going to be a crossover outside of fanfic.
(Via YouTube)