This kind of thing is an absolute waste of taxpayer money and I will explain why. This amounts to nothing more than paying a LOT of money to create a Hollywood movie prop. Much more money that it would cost for some Hollywood prop company to create the same thing.
The reason this is a waste of money (and nothing approaching science, much less engineering) is because there is a very specific way that you go about developing a new aerospace vehicle. If you have a new, theoretical propulsion technology (which this entire "warp drive" concept is), then you do NOT simply run off and start designing a vehicle. No, the proper, acceptable way to proceed is to first develop a subscale model of the propulsion technology itself. You do this to PROVE THE CONCEPT behind the theory. Once you have proven the propulsion technology is viable, then and only then can you begin to design a vehicle based upon the real world data you collected on the subscale propulsion model.
What we have here is the GOV giving a bunch of money to NASA to "design a vehicle" for a propulsion technology which is still barely at the theory level. No one has even taken this theory and reduced it to a preliminary engineering design for an engine that will operate based on the theoretical principles. Let me make this clear: Not only is there NO warp drive engine in existence today to prove this concept, there are not even any engineering level equations that define the "design knobs" which engineers can utilize to design an engine that will operate within the concepts of the theory.
So NASA has taken public money and designed a vehicle which is 100% fantasy, and 0% practical because no one even has shown that Alcubierre's theory can be put into practice. This is pretty much the epitome of irresponsible spending of public money in my business (the aerospace vehicle development business).
I am sure the few people who worked on this "design" had a great deal of fun, but they were not doing engineering. At all. They were doing the same thing that Hollywood model designers have done on movies going back as far as Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
RMT