This is actually elaborated on in one of the Star Trek novels, and I mostly agree with it. The root cause for aerodynamic shapes in most cases is that the fictional creators have imagination. The Federation ships have that swept, nose-forward look to embody ‘boldly going where no one has gone before’. A cube is boring, even if it’s more logical; there’s simply no aesthetic quality. Naturally, the Borg don’t care about aesthetics, as they’re soulless hive-mind creatures.
It may very well be a rationalization made up after the fact, but it makes sense and explains why many ships, even ones that don’t enter atmo, have ‘aerodynamic’ shapes. Naturally, warships would need to sacrifice aesthetics for utility, but not explorers, freighters, science ships, etc.
If you want an interesting case of designing and rationalizing ship designs, read the essay by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle “Designing the Mote in God’s Eye” (Originally in Analog, but later anthologized in one of their books). They designed a lot of the book logically, but at one point they used a sdpace ship model from Niven’s youth, and came up with rationalizations about why it turned out that way.
By the way, although I love Niven’s fiction and the hard science that surrounds it, I never found his General Products ship hulls convincing.
Yes, but the use is inconsistant; the gravity continues to work even though they don’t have power to maintain life support or keep computers running, which is very silly. There also seems to be very little concern about shielding against high energy radiation in most cinematic and televised science fiction. I guess there’s just the assumption that there is some kind of mystical shielding that blocks ionizing radiants, but it’s rarely considered when they make a close approach to a star or black hole or somesuch that radiation levels are elevated. And if you could control radiation sufficiently to generate planar fields at will, why would you design a ship that is flat and stacked, like a saucer, with a lot of surface to volume, rather than configure the ship with decks oriented in whatever direction would make the most compact design?
Most cinematic spaceships are designed like someone took an ocean liner, sealed it as a pressure hull, and launched it into space. It looks neat but makes about as much sense as sails on a motorcar. The reality is likely to be something more like Discovery (the 2001 version) or Space:1999’s Eagles. (Nice call on that one, by the way.)
Agreed. You have to realize, too, that this kind of thing has a long history in SF illustration. When Verne wrote his Robur the Conqueror/Clipper of the Clouds, the illustrators took him serriously, and depicted his aeronef as a literal ocean-going ship, complete with keel, only with propellors and suspended in the air. The same kinds of illustrations continued to be used for years – look in Peter Nicholls’ first editionn of his science Fiction Encyclopedia for examples.
Even earlier, in From the Earth to the Moon, Verne described chains of projectiles headed for the moon, and the illustrator depicted a 19th century locomotive and cars to illustrate it (although sealed to keep in the air).
Space ships on science fiction magazine covers in the 20s and 30s often looked like xsealed-in ocean liners .
None of this makes a lick o’sense, but people draw and comprehend what they’re familiar with. That, I suspectm, is why the aerodynamic sopace ship stayed around so long. Writers and artists got better in the 1950s and 1960s, but the idea took a long time to filter through.
The same sort of expectation and inertia kept aliens in "flying saucers’ for a long time. I’ve noted elsewhere that, in the original stories, the aliens in The Thing, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and This Island Earth did not use Flying Saucers – but that’s the way they were depicted on film, because that’s what was expected. Forbidden Planet gets marks for originality from me for putting earth people in a flying saucer.
Just now checking in. Good points, I have to concede that I didn’t consider the cost of fuel in solid-walled and floored and ceilinged spaceships. In that context, I’ll give you that. It’s valid.
As for a vauum being an excellent insulator, I’m not sure about that. The ambient temperature in deep space is dauntingly cold. A vacuum on EARTH may be an excellent insulator but that’s only because a Thermos brand beverage container is usually held in one’s hand on the planet Earth. Out in space, it’s wicked-assed cold. In fact, lacking heat-absorbing materials nearby, being in the upper thin reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere is wicked-assed cold. This cite makes 40 Kelvin seem very darned cold.
So, again, I say that while it makes spaceships lighter to push around, the lack of solid walls makes it incredibly difficult to insulate the outer walls ( which would be amazingly efficient heatsinks, and freezing cold to the touch ).
No, in actuality space has no temperature at all. Temperature is a quality of matter, not vacuum. Vacuum is a good insulator because there is nothing to conduct heat; all heat transfer in a vacuum is by radiation.
In fact, a more likely problem of space travel is overheating, not cold. You have human body heat, heat from various machines, plus heat from the reactor/drive ( if any ).
One of the most realistic things I’ve seen in movie scifi about space travel is the use of hibernation for space travel in the Alien movies and 2001. The technology is probably possible IMHO, and realistically, if you have it you would use it. Most of real world space travel will consist of long, long periods going from Point A to Point B.
Just to back up Der Trihs and Mangetout, here’s a cite from noted astronomer and former doper, Phil Plait, about the insulating properties of vacuum, and the difference between temperature and heat.
Incidentally, I can’t recommend Phil Plait’s website highly enough. I first got to the Dope thanks to a link from Bad Astronomy, and his movie reviews and debunkings of pseudo-scientists are as entertaining as they are informative.
Stranger’s Abbreviated Survey Course On Heat Transfer (1st Edition):
There are three forms of heat transfer, in order of general precidence:
[ol]
[li]Convection–transfer from a continuous medium to a dynamic fluid medium; this is why a strong wind causes “windchill”[/li][li]Conduction–transfer between to mechanically continuous mediums; this is why a metal chair (which has a high thermal conductivity) feels so much hotter or colder than a wooden bench when both are outside at the same ambient temperature[/li][li]Radiation–emission of energy via energetic photons, primarily in the infrared range–this is the slight warming you feel in sunshine when the wind isn’t chilling you to the bone[/ol][/li]
Now, it’s true that the background temperature of open space is about 2.7K, which is as cold as anything gets without elaborate apparatus. However, in a vacuum there are virtually no fluid mediums (air, water), and assuming that your spaceship isn’t in contact with some other body, no other reservoir to conduct to. This leaves radiation as the only option to bleed off excess heat, and this is a function of surface area and emissivity of the surface in question, and the actual amount of heat you lose is quite low in comparison to the other two methods, and in fact, radiating away waste heat, both that produced by the power source of the craft and that absorbed from the Sun (in the inner Solar System) is a significant problem in satellite and spacecraft design.
So, eliminating excess heat is a genuine problem for spacecraft, especially for one that has to run a presumably enormous powerplant to power its life systems, sensors, weapon systems, gravity generators, mystical inertia-less drives, hyperdrives, whatever.
Trivia note: in 2001, Clarke actually specified that Discovery would have large, heat-radiating fins to cool it. Kubrick, however, thought that these looked too much like wings and deleted them from the design of the model for fear that people would think he didn’t know that there’s no need for wings in space. Such a pedant.
Meanwhile, George Lucas sits in the back of 8th grade physical science class and makes “Vroom…skow-zhwew-queee” noises while zipping pencils past each other. “The targeting computer won’t lock!” “Use the Force, Gi-Org Lucobi.” “Lining up for a run…ching-zweing-BOOM!..yeah! Death to the Emporer!”
“George, would you care to share your story with the rest of the class?”
I’ve not seen Serenity so I can’t comment on the ship there.
However, my complaint is that every other spaceship I’ve ever seen has been immaculate on the inside. With the exception of craft, like the Apollo 13 module, we’re talking ships that have been in use for months or even years. And there’s no creeping gunk on any of the seals. There’s no dirt anywhere.
Materials in motion against each other need lubrication. And sealed bearings are not perfect. Where there aren’t sealed bearings it’s even more obvious.
Even 2001 didn’t have any of the one thing that I consider absolutely necessary for realism, above and beyond dirt: The low pipe, corner, hatch, etc… that eats crewmember’s heads. Or shins. This may be me suffereing from my experience with naval architects in the past, but I tend to believe that it is physical law that no craft can be made without at least one edge that goes hunting for crewmembers. It just can’t happen.
Stranger, minor nitpick - I agree heat is a major problem for space craft, but you left out another source, and one I think is important to consider: If the space craft is in close proximity to a star radiation from that will prove both a signifigant source of heat to craft, and an impediment to radiating enough heat to remain in a useful equilibrium, too.
Though Lucas at least gets credit for knowing that “not everything is brand-new and shiny in the future”. The earth - moon parts of 2001 mostly look like they’re being used for the first time.
I think we need more creative ship designs, maybe like a Japanese WWII-era battleship launched into space.
Yeah, but he’s not the first. Dark Star (1973) is, AFAIK, the first movie to feature a spaceship with that “lived-in” look.
A for paceships in the form of Japanse
battleship, see my earlier post. Airplanes and spaceships that look like misplaced battlecruisers long predate Yamato.
Not to harp on this, but that’s not a valid nitpick - who’s to say the gravitics don’t need just a d-cell to keep running? We don’t know because it’s [del]magic[/del] super-science. The kind of super-science that can give a range of different-sized planets and moonlets a uniform 1G grav field, by all observation of the series.
Also, in Out of Gas, which is what you seem to be referencing (better not be the movie, not without spoiler tags), AFAICR, only the propulsion and life-support systems are knocked out, the computers, lights and comms were working just fine. IOW, they have power, just some subsytems are knocked out. I agree, that’s bad engineering, but then they don’t have an engineer … they have a “genius mechanic”* - to me, that adds to the realism of the cobbled-together nature of a second-hand ship held together with duct tape and curses - the basic premise for the show
Gods, I’m such a fanboy…
*yes, I’m aware that’s not actually Kaylee, but she fits the bill better than that other dweeb
Clarke has the body of Frank Poole turn up, one thousand years after being murdered by HAL; the body was supposedly quick-frozen and remained frozen and in good condition (good enough to be revived) for the whole of the intervening time
It is a valid nitpick. We’re talking about realism, and the fact that all the spaceships and all the “moons” have earth-equivalent gravity is unrealistic to the point of being silly. I didn’t mention the terraforming thing before because I thought we were confining the discussion to ships. Frankly, I think Whedon and company got around the lightspeed restriction with a construct that’s even goofier.
Leaving the environment aside, Serenity just isn’t “realistic” as a spaceship. It’s just another spacegoing marine vessel. The artificial gravity is totally inconsistent with the level of technology demonstrated by every other thing shown. It shouldn’t be there, but it’s absolutely necessary to justify the ship design. It’s a cheat.
And I’m still waiting for somebody to explain to me how high-bypass turbofans magically turn into rockets when they hit vacuum.
The thing is, we all know that TV and movie spaceships have artificial gravity only because production companies have to contend with real gravity. The Serenity sets are artfully done, but they clearly represent an object that’s meant to operate as if it’s on the ground, not in space.
“Artificial gravity” is a big irritant with me anyway, even though I know there’s no way around it. As far as I know there’s only two ways to realistically do it: acceleration and mass. You have to use centripetal acceleration like in 2001, or constant thrust, or make your decks out of neutronium. You’d get some really sick gradients with that last option too.
I loved Firefly, but there was nothing realistic about it.
Actually, they have pretty sophisticated technology. Those gigantic alliance spaceships are pretty impressive, as are the space stations, maglev trains, and all kinds of other fancy stuff.
Gravity control is a common theme in science fiction, just as FTL travel is. Firefly was one of the only SF space shows I’ve seen that didn’t use FTL, but they have artificial gravity.
Or would you claim that every science fiction show or book that has FTL travel is ‘silly’? Sometimes you have to accept certain conventions just to make the entire premise work. Science Fiction accepts this as long as it’s plausibly explained and consistently shown.
Who says they do? Can you think of a scene in which those engines are running in space? I always thought the pod engines were for use in the atmosphere, and the firefly drive was the ‘space drive’. And there have been scenes showing exactly that - Serenity flying off a planet with the pod engines, and then you see them shut down as the ship leaves the atmosphere.
Again, I can’t think of any ship in any other popular science fiction shows that were depicted with as much realism.
And note that when the firefly drive shut down in Out of Gas, they didn’t have the option of starting up the pod drives. And also note that Kaylee didn’t magically fix a complex component by re-routing the thingamajig through the whatsis and creating a space-time rift or any of that mumbo-jumbo. “Sometimes things break, and can’t be fixed.”
Artificial gravity is possible and its not even that artificial.
all you need is some super dense material to use as your lower deck…stuff thats dense enough to generate a 1g field or so…of course then you need one friggin MONSTER of an engine to keep it moving.
Alien, personally the most realistic ships (1&2 that is) ever. all that empty space and machinery is because its a mobile ore refinery/cargo ship. its a single unit refinery that goes out to a deep space mine, purifies, loads up and heads for home. well the Nostromo anyway. of course theres going to be a ton of room when the ships in transit, its not like the refinery is a transformer refinery. as for the water dripping, why not? huge ass ship, some steam powered equipment could easily lead to a very humid environment and if that room was cooler for some reason you would get a lot of condensation.
I don’t buy it Critical1. Just up an throwing a refinery into space is as realistic as putting a Japanese battlecruiser in space. Different environments, different problems, different capabilities. Even if you put a refinery/smelter/whatever in space to refine your ore (instead of putting it on the ground, which is much more reasonable for a lotta reaasons, but let’s assume time is of the essence and you gotta process en route), you’d take advantage of vacuum to get rid of unwanted components, change triple points, etc. Heck – look at the science experiments built and packaged for the shuttle. They look nothing like ground-based counterparts.