NASA is going to build a real life starship Enterprise.  

Look this up on the NASA websites to see for yourself!  Here's what I know so far: it's based on the one in the science fiction TV show.  If this is true NASA is getting better.  The ship is going to hold more people than it has previously done before, but NASA has made claims before about futuristic things and not followed through with their plans.  That does explain the lack of funding for NASA.

NASA has a 100 year project that is going to focus on the next step in space exploration.  According to http://www.space.com, " Kick-started by a strategic planning workshop in January, the project has brought together more than two dozen farsighted futurists, NASA specialists, science fiction writers, foundation aficionados and educators."
In my opinion, this will only happen is DARPA replaces NASA.  There is an historical precedence for NASA to be replaced, because it used to be called the Aerospace Administration.  The best scientists and engineers and top secret people need to create this in an atmosphere of secrecy so that this can become a reality....and not just another pipe-dream.
What do you think the potential for this kind of spaceship is?  Well, I think one potential benefit would be to mine outer space for minerals and colonizing planets.  We might even build secret bases in space.  THat way the government owns space...and not the private sector.  We don't want the private sector screwing up space travel, just like they screwed up the airlines industry.
Going into a time and space vortex would help us find alien life to dissect and research.  Another possibility is using up the natural resources of the universe and invading alien planets.  In other words, we can conquer the universe!  Then once the universe is conquered we can evacuate the planet Earth into outer space.  This would be the biggest undertaking since America was formed.  This would give us huge advancements in technology that would put us ahead of all foreign investors...ahead of all foreign scientists and ahead of all foreign engineers.  This would make America the dominant power so we don't lose our superpower status.