[Hypothetical] It's the year 2160...

manwiththegun

I pose the following question merely out of curiosity.

It's the year 2160 in a generic real life future timeline. You are in a decision making role in charge of a shipyard operations with a special interest in starship structural design. To celebrate a generic milestone in starship evolution you are given a generous allotment of resources to design and build a starship from any science fiction franchise from our history. Said starship would not have to completely replicate all the functions of the original, just the form.

What ship do you build?

biotech

Discovery.

BolianAdmiral

If I were confined to the state-of-the-art technology of the specified time period, I'd go with the Omega-Class destroyer from Babylon 5.

Helius

The Daedalus class from Stargate for practicality and utility.

Daedalus_class_battlecruiser_orbits_Atlantis.jpg

evil_genius_180

C-57D, of course. You can't beat a classic.

Jafit

I would build a cylinder with a rocket engine on one end. If I'm feeling frivolous the cylinder would taper, and possibly have a point at the 'front' end. I may even indulge myself with a snazzy blue paint job, go faster stripes, maybe even some stylistic heat sinks that look like fins. 75% of the ship's volume and mass would be devoted to propulsion with reaction mass and engines. If it has a wide enough diameter it can rotate for artificial gravity when not under acceleration.

As the administrator of a respected shipyard, is it my job to produce spaceships that work, and wanton indulgement in novelty creations of fantasy based on flawed and outdated concepts, and funded by an apparent madman, would inevitably harm the reputation of my shipyard among prospective clients. I'm not going to feed my competitors business by trying to build an old fictional starship designed by somebody who thought that spaceships would be like boats in space.

Of course I enjoy the quaint science fiction of those times like I enjoy Gulliver's Travels or Jules Verne, but I'm not about to tie up a scaffold and man/AI power for such a silly project. Starship building is SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Now if you'll excuse me I have a meeting with the Space Defense Overmind AI of the Amexican Empire. Good day Sir/Madam/Other!

alonzo11208

Galactica, Merrimack, or a Manticorian Cruiser.

Aresius

Depends on the tech available. I mean it's pointless to design a ship that is designed for artificial gravity when there is no such system.

L2K

i go for a death star

spacefighter

in a best case(semi realistic) scenario where most people can afford small spacecraft(surface to orbit shuttles possibly interplanetary capabilities, fusion power probably) as we use cars nowadays i still think that large ships like most of the famous ones from scifi are going to be very impractical. now if you have an orbital shipyard maybe you can build something big, but why would you want to unless it is a warship or heavy cargo carrier. now if there are shipyards as you suggest building "starships" i assume ftl technology has been developed otherwise starships would be few and far between( why would anyone want to spend at least 4.5 years (for them near the speed of light somewhat less) travelling to alpha centauri other than for research). so with a shipyard building ftl craft i think it would be far more useful and profitable to scale down the ftl drives( if they are not already small enough) to fit onboard some type of personal craft, then perhaps something like a thunderbolt starfury(babylon 5) could be built with the capability of interstellar travel. perhaps such a design could even be a popular personal ship if it's capabilities were good enough, building anything massive or illogically designed would be quite pointless. remember that unless you are mining the asteroid belt(probable if you already have ftl) all the material for a massive ship must be lifted up from earth into orbit, you are likely to need special and expensive materials to build a strong enough hull to survive in space when impacted by thousands of pieces of microscopic debris( a large ship makes the cost of these materials prohibitively expensive, the cost would increase with the square of the length providing the shape remained the sameshape and the hull a consytant thickness). and if you are building a "classic" design it will be as a publicity stunt but even if personal space travel is commonplace it is unlikely to be seen unless it can land on the ground( you can't have tourists cluttering up low earth orbit, that space will be strict no stopping), compared to the vastness of space it would be very hard to find and few people would pass it as you could not put it on a common "flight" trajectory for fear of collision. if you must build a sci fi ship a fighter or shuttle is the only realistic option, the thunderbolt is probably the most practical of these and the most likely to fly reasonably well (and if you could build it cheaply enough there must be plenty of people including myself who would like an atmosphere capable spacecraft of that size and design(ftl capabilility would be evn better).
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