Fictional (But Realistic) Spacecraft

[publiusr]

The Zero-X. Designed by the late Derek Meddings. It was designed as an interplanetary spacecraft that could take off and land horizontally on Earth.

As with the previous drawings I posted on this forum, the original artist ArthurTwoSheds created these of the Zero-X, and with her permission, I updated them based on material I have of the actual filming miniature.

Bow and stern pics please?

 

[Justo Miranda]

Some additional stuff here

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-2

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-3

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-4

 

[The K2]

Bow and stern pics please?

Here you go!

 

[southwestforests]

Post-4

Some additional stuff here

Thanks for all those! Are quite a number that I'd like to have models and/or game miniatures of. Especially the spherical ones.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-5

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-6

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-7

 

[southwestforests]

Ahh, recognize a couple of those from Terran Trade Authority, TTA, material.
Way back in the 1980s or 90s I scratchbuilt a game mini sized one of that exploding ship numbered F15.
I really like its shape.
Mini has since been lost, I guess in a way like its inspiration is presumed lost after events in the illustration.

 

[southwestforests]

Post-6

That 'black spider sphere' disgorging the tanks pushes a lot of the right buttons to feel threatening and dangerous.

 

[publiusr]

Ahh, recognize a couple of those from Terran Trade Authority, TTA, material.

There was a similar book called SPACE WARS: WORLDS AND WEAPONS.

Page 21 had the Stardart…which demands a physical model.

 

[southwestforests]

There was a similar book called SPACE WARS: WORLDS AND WEAPONS.

Page 21 had the Stardart…which demands a physical model.

This has Stardart on it, is this it?

StarDart – JaMeS BaKeR

Here is an old pen and marker drawing I found; a long-ago attempt to design a space ship, complete with the bogus engine specs. This was inspired by the airplan

www.james-baker.com

Don't know what that ship in the 3 view is but I can imagine it too being named Stardart,

http://www.terrantradeauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/SpaceWar002.jpg?w=863

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-8

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-9

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-10

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-11

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-12

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-13

 

[southwestforests]

Post-12

The underwater scenes in 173 and 174 are of great interest.

 

[Rhinocrates]

The Ares Mars ship from Stephen Baxter's Voyage. The premise is that in an alternate timeline, Nixon foregoes development of the shuttle and NASA launches a crewed Mars mission in the 80s. After a fatal accident with a nuclear engine test, a cut-down chemically-driven vehicle based on Apollo hardware is launched.

There are a couple of threads here, based on Baxter's own detailed descriptions and diagrams.

Air and Space Photos from Alternate Worlds.

This is a very impressive forum, and I can't believe it has taken me so long to find it! I am a fan of Turtledove and alternate space histories. On another forum dedicated to spaceflight, we created a thread as a tribute to Stephen Baxter's Voyage. I built and photographed models of the...

www.alternatehistory.com

Modelling Mars

Modelling Mars

forum.nasaspaceflight.com

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbvM5HuQRE


Indeed, a lot of people have tried their hand at building models or renders. Google "Stephen Baxter", Voyage, and Ares.

 

[Rhinocrates]

In 2004, the BBC put out a semi-dramatised documentary, Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets. A somewhat plausible (albeit ginormous and utterly unaffordable) spacecraft's journey around the solar system was used to teach viewers about the various planets. They included things like aerobraking and an active radiation shield.

Space Odyssey (TV series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bbc+voyage+to+the+planets

The Space Review: Voyages to alien worlds (page 1)

BBC press pack, featuring details and specs of the spacecraft and its landers, specialised for each planet:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/10_october/13/space_odyssey.pdf

 

[Rhinocrates]

In 2016, National Geographic released a docudrama, Mars, which lasted a couple of short seasons. A mixture of talking heads and realistic fiction, it walked through the establishment of a Mars colony from 2033. Again intended to be educational, it looked in turn at specific issues such as financing, media, radiation, psychological stresses, initial terraforming efforts, etc. NASA's later Design Reference Mission studies and Mars Direct seem to have been the main technical inspiration.

Mars (American TV series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Inside Nat Geo's Incredible Documentary Mission to Mars

The new series, Mars, mixes documentary and speculation to tell the parallel stories of fictional future explorers and the pioneers of today.

www.wired.com

Mars (American TV series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Caravellarella]

The Ares Mars ship from Stephen Baxter's Voyage. The premise is that in an alternate timeline, Nixon foregoes development of the shuttle and NASA launches a crewed Mars mission in the 80s. After a fatal accident with a nuclear engine test, a cut-down chemically-driven vehicle based on Apollo hardware is launched.

There are a couple of threads here, based on Baxter's own detailed descriptions and diagrams.

Air and Space Photos from Alternate Worlds.

This is a very impressive forum, and I can't believe it has taken me so long to find it! I am a fan of Turtledove and alternate space histories. On another forum dedicated to spaceflight, we created a thread as a tribute to Stephen Baxter's Voyage. I built and photographed models of the...

www.alternatehistory.com

Modelling Mars

Modelling Mars

forum.nasaspaceflight.com

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbvM5HuQRE


Indeed, a lot of people have tried their hand at building models or renders. Google "Stephen Baxter", Voyage, and Ares.

I love this, I used to be Stephen Baxter's literary agent's second assistant. "Voyage" is one of my favourite novels

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[publiusr]

http://www.terrantradeauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/SpaceWar002.jpg?w=863

That’s the one.

The Terra Nova

New Mini-Series, Documentary Target the Red Planet

A new mini-series and documentary chronicles humanity's first flight to Mars.

www.space.com

 

[southwestforests]

That’s the one.

The fin shapes bring to mind those 'lawn darts' from the 1970s, so that's why I considered it a candidate for a ship named Star Dart.

 

[TsrJoe]

updated X-15 with LTV. ASAT. From Stephen Baxter's 'Titan'

 

[Scott Kenny]

NO design that relies on nonexistent materials is anywhere near "realistic" - simple as that. This is about aerospace engineering, not theoretical physics. TRL = 0. Following your logic, the sphere form Wells' "First Men in the Moon" is a realistic design, since all it needs is for Cavorite to be invented! And I don't watch movies with apparently mind numbing plots just to see gravity defying CGI scenery with overgrown Smurfs float by.

Under that definition, there are ZERO fictional but realistic spaceships, because the highest TRL we have seen is TRL6. Because we don't make anything more than a single item of that type to send into space.


Again, 80-90% of the Valkyrie interstellar vehicle design is TRL4, demonstrated or in current use in laboratories. (maybe TRL5 for some parts that are used in all the experiments, like the antimatter traps, but I'll let other people argue what TRL that stuff is) Many of the lower TRL items have known characteristics and only need engineering work done to them. Basically, it's at the level of the Apollo project. We know how it works and what we need, we just need to build it.

The piece missing is materials that can actually get stronger under continuous, intense neutron bombardment. I'm certain that the Nuclear Engineering PhDs out there are looking for materials like that, if not attempting to develop them. Because those materials would be ideal for holding a nuclear reactor, either fusion or fission.

We already have engineering for materials under those conditions but most get weaker under neutron bombardment, it's a standard part of reactor design, FFS.

According to your own link about TRLs, the Valkyrie starship design is TRL2: Technology concept and/or application formulated (NASA), Technology concept formulated (EU). Concept Formulated.

 

[martinbayer]

Strictly speaking, TRLs apply to individual technologies rather than whole designs, but any design is only as realistic as the sum of all the technologies it is constituted of. If any of those technologies is currently only postulated/hoped for, but nonexistent, it's technically not even on the official TRL scale yet and therefore not *R.E.A.L.I.S.T.I.C*, which consequently applies to the whole design. Until some clever gal/guy actually changes that, I stand by my assessment. Realistic means something actually exists, so TRL 6 is plenty realistic, which is most decidedly NOT the case for Cavorite or Unobtanium. The crucial difference here is between even O.N.E single example or proof of concept and Z.E.R.O. While the differences between TRLs are quantitative and gradual, the difference between realistic and imaginary is qualitative and fundamental.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Strictly speaking, TRLs apply to individual technologies rather than whole designs, but any design is only as realistic as the sum of all the technologies it is constituted of. If any of those technologies is currently only postulated/hoped for, but nonexistent, it's technically not even on the official TRL scale yet and therefore not *R.E.A.L.I.S.T.I.C*, which consequently applies to the whole design. Until some clever gal/guy actually changes that, I stand by my assessment. Realistic means something actually exists, so TRL 6 is plenty realistic, which is most decidedly NOT the case for Cavorite or Unobtanium. The crucial difference here is between even O.N.E single example or proof of concept and Z.E.R.O. While the differences between TRLs are quantitative and gradual, the difference between realistic and imaginary is qualitative and fundamental.

Then why does this thread exist at all, because every single ship shown requires something not yet developed?

 

[martinbayer]

Then why does this thread exist at all, because every single ship shown requires something not yet developed?

Because any actual engineering *development* requires basic physical proof of concept first, instead of mere conjecture. Being *realistic* is based on at the very least a single successful real world experiment that demonstrates practical feasibility in principle (TRL 1) in order to then follow established scientific and engineering principles and processes to systematically improve, build and mature from there, as opposed to idle armchair "wouldn't it be nice if" (TRL 0) speculation/postulation/wishful thinking without *any* evidentiary or heuristic backing. *Any* serious technological/engineering development is firmly rooted in fundamental real world scientific discovery, but as long as science does not indicate or support the existence of Cavorite or Unobtanium, or Dilithium for that matter, they merely remain *unrealistic* pseudoscientific technobabble, just like all the other entries at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...,_materials,_isotopes_and_subatomic_particles. Personally, I associate fictional realistic spacecraft design with the concept and philosophy of classic hard science fiction, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction.

 

[TomTom]

The Single-stage-to-orbit from Ace Combat, largely based on the VentureStar, looks both cool and plausible.

In a more distant future, spacecraft, suits and stations from The Expanse TV show are very nice.

 

[martinbayer]

The Single-stage-to-orbit from Ace Combat, largely based on the VentureStar, looks both cool and plausible.

In a more distant future, spacecraft, suits and stations from The Expanse TV show are very nice.

Is there any *plausible* reason or justification why this is a multi body configuration? *Especially* for an SSTO, having three separate but intricately connected fuselages inevitably significantly increases structural complexity, dry mass, and wetted surface, and for an apparent HTO, also resulting aerodynamic interference drag. How is that cool, really??? Are you really sure this is a *genuine* SSTO contraption, and not some expendable drop tank hybrid vehicle like the Lockheed Star Clipper? But also, this thread is NOT about looks, but realism. Your point is?

 

[publiusr]

Those look like drop tanks...but fully laden, that twin fuselage would crush the lifting body underneath in an HTOHL configuration shown--- would it not?

Now if you had heavy solids, they could bear the weight of the whole stack and keep the landing gear smaller. VTOHL only.

That's one reason I still like solids...they can serve as a spine.

 

[Arjen]

Heavy solids, Part 1.
Buried in the wiki-entry for Administratium, likely to be synthesised in a future near you:

... Bureaucratium. A commonly heard description describes it as "having a negative half-life". In other words, the more time passes, the more massive "Bureaucratium" becomes; it only grows larger and more sluggish.

 

[Arjen]

Heavy solids, Part 2.
Administratium:

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by investigators at a major U.S. research university. The element, tentatively named administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, which gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.
Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would have normally occurred in less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years, at which time it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutron sex change places. Some studies have shown that the atomic mass actually increases after each reorganization.

Research at other laboratories indicates that administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations, and universities. It can usually be found in the newest, best appointed, and best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reaction where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising.

 

[TomTom]

Is there any *plausible* reason or justification why this is a multi body configuration? *Especially* for an SSTO, having three separate but intricately connected fuselages inevitably significantly increases structural complexity, dry mass, and wetted surface, and for an apparent HTO, also resulting aerodynamic interference drag. How is that cool, really??? Are you really sure this is a *genuine* SSTO contraption, and not some expendable drop tank hybrid vehicle like the Lockheed Star Clipper? But also, this thread is NOT about looks, but realism. Your point is?

Those look like drop tanks...but fully laden, that twin fuselage would crush the lifting body underneath in an HTOHL configuration shown--- would it not?

Now if you had heavy solids, they could bear the weight of the whole stack and keep the landing gear smaller. VTOHL only.

That's one reason I still like solids...they can serve as a spine.

Yeah it's drop tank. From the game lore, the SSTO is launched by an electromagnetic catapult (Mass Driver)

 

[martinbayer]

Yeah it's drop tank. From the game lore, the SSTO is launched by an electromagnetic catapult (Mass Driver)

If it's drop tanks, it's not an SSTO, but a stage and a half concept, even without potentially considering the maglev as a fractional stage as well.

 

[publiusr]

This fictional craft doesn't look half-bad

https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/srm-columbus/2.png

Star Fleet Starship Recognition Manual: Columbus: Interstellar Sublight Explorer

Cygnus-X1.Net: A Tribute to Star Trek

www.cygnus-x1.net