"Best design for a spaceship..." Topic

If real spaceship combat is more Expanse than Star Wars or Trek….

What shape of ship would work best? Rocinante, cylinder version of the Roci, or a flat saucer/disk shaped ship like the Defiant or Millenium Falcon?

Thanks for info/opinions.

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Designs from Flesh Gordon. Look at Bezos' craft. Just enlarge them.

I would think from a pragmatic sense if it is for deep space, i.e. no transit into atmo, then whatever design lets you get the most weapons in place would be the most sensible – so maybe a cube or oval; not likely a sleek looking thing

For non-warships the important factors will be minimizing mass, using fuel as radiation shielding, avoiding impacts with little rocks, and positioning thrusters efficiently. It will be a compact jumble of parts around a fuel tank with the habitat on the inside.

For warships, stealth will be the driving factor. The inside may be the same as above, but you'll have a skin designed to minimize emissions and reflections of all EMF including black body radiation.

Depends on what you mean by "spaceship."

If we're talking relatively short-term interplanetary transport of human beings using rockets, with ground-based launches and landings in atmosphere, then SpaceEx's Starship is a obviously a good design— conical at the top, streamlined, smooth sides, cylindrical shape for sturdiness and optimal cargo and fuel space. Go to the Moon and back, go to Mars and back.

If we're talking much longer term interplanetary missions with rockets for boosting, then significant travel on momentum alone, followed by end-boosting, then a sphere might work, as it gives significant interior volume and can be spun to produce "artificial" gravity of varying degrees to maintain crew health.

If the rocket technology is such that a constant level of thrust can be maintained, especially at 1G or near, and relativistic speeds are expected, then a tetrahedral or three-sided wedge shape might actually be a good idea— but keep in mind that the decks will descend from the nose, the floors perpendicular to the direction of thrust, in a layout not unlike a highly tapered pyramid skyscraper, engines at the bottom, sensors at the top. Of course, the SpaceEx conical cylinder Starship also works for this approach.

If you can make artificial gravity that ignores the ship's direction of thrust, then the horizontal saucer of Star Trek really isn't a bad approach— all locations being on concentric circles from the command center.

And, of course, if you've got some sort of technology that can deflect particles and heavy objects in your path from striking the ship at relativistic speeds, as well as artificial gravity and "inertial dampeners," then the Borg Cube is as viable as anything else, and makes for a modular ship design were cubicle sub-portions can be removed and added as necessary, and the ship has a simple interior grid structure for habitat areas and cargo, etc..

It all depends on function and capability.

A sphere is the optimum surface area to volume ratio.

Those looks good…

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Armand

I always liked the shape of a Klingon D7.

"I always liked the shape of a Klingon D7."

<facepalm />

"For warships, stealth will be the driving factor. The inside may be the same as above, but you'll have a skin designed to minimize emissions and reflections of all EMF including black body radiation."

No, no, no, no, no.

There Ain't No Stealth In Space link

"I would think from a pragmatic sense if it is for deep space, i.e. no transit into atmo, then whatever design lets you get the most weapons in place would be the most sensible – so maybe a cube or oval; not likely a sleek looking thing"

Good thoughts, but if armor is a thing, you need to consider minimizing surface area. Spheres are best if you want to armor in all directions. If you think you can keep your nose on the target, cylinders are best.

Cubes have some surprising engineering weaknesses, particularly when the surface needs to be the armor-supporting strength layer. The corners of the cube are weak points, among other things (you can get a lot of structural deflection, which is not a good thing (TM). If you have a single large drive, distributing the the thrust to the structure can be complicated. You're sacrificing the inherent strength of arcs, rings, and spheres.

It has to look cool. I second JMcCarroll's suggestion of the Klingon D7.

Here's my vote….

There Ain't No Stealth In Space

Well, not perfectly correct— a warp bubble, which is potentially a real thing, might not allow emissions from within the bubble to enter real space, while the EM spectrum would essentially "wrap around" the bubble, rendering anything inside it invisible. Of course, the bubble might cause distortions.

Or you could hide behind a really big rock. The rock would be detected, but at least for viewers looking towards the opposite side of the rock, you would not, even with the thermal emissions axiomatic in a spacecraft capable of carrying a living crew.
Of course, it might not be hard to guess that a big rock moving in one's direction might be more than just an ordinary asteroid that just "happens to be there."

So many here seem to like the sphere design.
Well someone on shapeways has perfected the sphere and teardop designs from the Lensman books. So what do you think?

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Well, not perfectly correct— a warp bubble, which is potentially a real thing, might not allow emissions from within the bubble to enter real space, while the EM spectrum would essentially "wrap around" the bubble, rendering anything inside it invisible. Of course, the bubble might cause distortions.

Though as I understand it being inside the bubble means you can't interact with or even know what's going on in real space and the theorised radiation burst from 'un-bubbling' would probably be electromagnetically very loud and potentially messy.