Poll of the Day > Sciency question:Does the shape/profile/envelope whatever of a space ship matter

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean, once it's in space there's no, like, aerodynamics to worry about so I would think the only important details of ship shape are either for gravitational rotation or for more storage space (for like computers and stuff)

No

Yes

Aerodynamics no, but probably inertia requirements that are different than earth. I feel like gravity lets you ignore some things you couldnt in space.

A significant portion of the difficulty with space travel is getting the ship into space to begin with, so it would matter immensely.

Blightzkrieg posted...

A significant portion of the difficulty with space travel is getting the ship into space to begin with, so it would matter immensely.

Unless it was built in space.

Depends on the intended use of the ship.

A ship designed to exit or enter atmosphere in any way would absolutely benefit immensely from being as aerodynamic as possible (to the point of it likely being necessary). A ship designed to stay in space 100% of the time wouldn't need to worry about that, but would still need to avoid being built in an entirely ridiculous design because as DrPrimemaster pointed out, inertia and stress points are also a factor. The last thing you want is for your primary engine to fire and just rip straight away from the rest of your ship because you hired an art student to design it.



Firewood18 posted...

Unless it was built in space.

But then it would also need to be able to dock in space.

It's the Star Trek problem. When you make the Enterprise too large to feasibly enter atmosphere and land on a planet, you need teleporters or transport shuttles to explain how the crew get on and off when visiting planets.

In a realistic scenario, you'd either need orbiting spaceports at both ends of the trip or some other means of entering atmosphere (like transport shuttles with docking capability) if you build a ship that can fly in space but not in air. Or it would need to have a function where it never needs to enter atmosphere (ie, mining airless asteroids for minerals, then transporting them to another airless factory world for processing).

Otherwise your ship is mostly useless if it can't actually interact with any planet that has atmosphere of any kind.

There are a few ways it matters in space, but of course the biggest difference is when you are within an atmosphere.

In space, you could have a solar sail for instance, which gets propulsion by solar energy/atoms hitting a sail and slowly increasing the acceleration of a ship. It also can have an effect on how much space junk you might hit while traveling, and what it does to your ship when you do hit it.

Finally it can have an effect on your propulsion system (however you move forward) and your ability to rotate the ship to create artificial gravity etc. The propulsion system needs to be even and able to alter the direction fairly easily, so a weird shaped ship with engines in strange spots would be hard to navigate.

wolfy42 posted...

It also can have an effect on how much space junk you might hit while traveling, and what it does to your ship when you do hit it.

This is why the optimum design of spacecraft is basically a giant cylinder with a massive cowcatcher at the front.

aka, the Space Train.

ya, i meant specifically for space exclusive - no need for landing on any planets or moons or anything

There are random meteorites and other things floating around in space; so I believe that you'd want a ship that could withstand as much physical damage as possible. Also with the existence of solar winds, you might want a ship that's aerodynamically designed in order to use the solar winds slipstream in order to propel your ship to where you want it to go.

It also depends on what it's for, if it's a warship then you still need to worry about glancing blows. So imagine two tanks tread-to-tread with some maneuverability thrusters to re-aim quickly.

shadowsword87 posted...

It also depends on what it's for, if it's a warship then you still need to worry about glancing blows. So imagine two tanks tread-to-tread with some maneuverability thrusters to re-aim quickly.

speaking of...

Mass Effect 1 did a pretty good job explaining the relative futility of space born combat, since anything within light-second range or so would be obliterated by lasers and anything futher than that would be impossible to aim...

And then they tank that idea completely for the sequels :/

Lokarin posted...

speaking of...

Mass Effect 1 did a pretty good job explaining the relative futility of space born combat, since anything within light-second range or so would be obliterated by lasers and anything futher than that would be impossible to aim...

And then they tank that idea completely for the sequels :/

I think people don't think far enough when they're talking about space combat, imagine a ship hiding out behind Neptune firing a laser at someone behind Mars. The laser takes minutes to get to the hidden ship, during which the other ship can do sort of wiggle-movements to dodge the firing laser. Plus the ship doing the wiggle-movements reactions take time for the attacking ship to register what it's doing. It's a guessing game with a laser pointer for where the other person will go with a delay on both ends.

Then you can have what are effectively heatseaking missiles with the same sort of wiggle-movement to dodge defensive lasers, and even if the missile is hit, it breaks apart and rams into the opposing ship, causing big 'ol damage. The missiles will take a while to get to the other ship as well, so it's a fun time.

Anything poking out of the ship runs the risk of getting knocked off the ship. Think coms tower vs asteroid.

Ships need a fairly large surface area that has no function other than withstanding impacts. If something is going to hit you it's better that you get hit somewhere that it doesn't hurt.

Structural stress and propulsion are a big concern. Those round ships with the outer ring connected to the inner core puts a lot of stress of the spokes. Star Trek ships only look that way because of warp drives and structural integrity force fields, otherwise the nacelles would wrench themselves off the ship as it turns.

You'd want a ship that is as flat as possible to minimize the probably of impacts with meteoroids in space. At high speeds, the ship would cover a great amount of distance (and thus a large amount of space) over a specified period of time, greatly increasing the chances of encountering a meteoroid. The edges of this ship would need to be specially designed to both withstand an impact at ultra high speeds, but also deflect the particle above or below the rest of the ship to reduce further damage.

Basically, we need flying saucers.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Structural stress and propulsion are a big concern. Those round ships with the outer ring connected to the inner core puts a lot of stress of the spokes.

With how ships tend to be done in space, it's not that big a concern. With no atmosphere there's nothing but the ship to stress it, and travel is done by doing a burn for a long ass time to get up to speed. The less strong the craft is, the longer you do your acceleration/deceleration burns for. We're talking minutes to hours of burn over several months or more of actual travel in the solar system, you can spend a ridiculous amount of time accelerating if you need to, there's a lot of leeway.

If space was devoid of friction, we would all just slip and slide endlessly.

There's a small atmosphere of gas in space but idk if it really makes a difference, which is probably why space stations tend to look like they would fall apart immediately on Earth.

SunWuKung420 posted...

If space was devoid of friction, we would all just slip and slide endlessly.

You mean like orbit? Yeah that would be crazy.

SunWuKung420 posted...

If space was devoid of friction, we would all just slip and slide endlessly.

Sounds like a fun party

ParanoidObsessive posted...

aka, the Space Train.

https://tokinowa.fandom.com/wiki/999

The comic book Albedo probably had some of the most scientifically accurate spaceships and space combat. The ships are basically cylinders with the decks perpendicular to the thrust axis so that gravity is generated during acceleration/deceleration.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/0/3/AAQwHjAADLMv.jpg

Combat is done entirely through kinetic weapons, simple robotic projectiles accelerated to a fraction of light speed. Because of the incredible speeds weapon guidance and defensive interceptors are handled entirely by computer. Lasers are useless because of the relative speeds and explosives/nuclear weapons are basically pointless since even rocks can do just as much damage (or more) at relativistic speeds.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/0/4/AAQwHjAADLMw.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/0/5/AAQwHjAADLMx.jpg

Would make for a pretty boring movie, however.

captpackrat posted...

Would make for a pretty boring movie, however.

They are sitting in front of 20 flat-screen TVs in their spacesuits, though.

Revelation34 posted...

https://tokinowa.fandom.com/wiki/999

Ahh, a man of culture I see.