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A rather witty or incredibly depressing guide to stereotypical sf spacecraft. The stereotyping of design is part of the reliance on formula I mention above. The depressing bit is that given vast creative possibilities, they always default to 'what would happen if a tank and an aircraft carrier had a baby that then grew really, really big?'

[URL unfurl="true"]https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StandardHumanSpaceship[/URL]

The guidelines in use by countless engineers in multiple fictional continuities seem to roughly converge on the following:

1. Human spaceships should be grey. While some important parts may be coloured, the majority of the spaceship should be the colour of unpainted metal (Truth in Television, as a coat of paint is surprisingly heavy: a Boeing 747 takes about half a tonne). In saturated anime palettes, said color may be rendered as blue or green. In American works, military ships may also be painted olive-drab in utter defiance of common sense. More post-modern, Cyberpunk-influenced works can cover them in gratuitous, dazzling and obtrusive advertising and massive corporate logos instead; a Space Station is particularly prone to getting this "truck stop in space" visual treatment.
2. While not required, visibly being constructed from riveted metal plates is encouraged, as are Borg cube-like details called greebles or nurnies. Bonus points for including actual space station equipment such as airlocks, solar batteries, and external manipulators. Note that fictional vessels tend to use enormous amounts of energy yet typically lack thermal radiators to shed waste heat (no air-cooling in space). Although that could explain all the so-called wings...
3. Since Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future, larger spaceships must be angular too; the standard human spaceship will be mostly rectangular with engines on one end and weapons on the other.