Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

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Simon_Jester
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Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Simon_Jester »

I thought I'd start this thread as a complement to the one on "Beautiful Ugly Spaceships."

Endearingly ugly ships like Serenity are nice, and I'm all for talking about them, but... What are some ship designs that just look good? Things that look like someone put in the effort to think about form and function and have them complement each other in a beautiful way?

It's not a spaceship, but as an example of what I mean, let's take the F-104 Starfighter:

Image

This one looks like it's going just over Mach 1 when it's standing still. Some versions are even shiny- if no one paints them. But the sleek, gleaming appearance is a perfectly natural product of the logic of the design: it's a Mach 2 interceptor designed to climb to high altitudes in a hurry, so it's streamlined with big engines and no surplus weight to slow it down. And yet it manages to look good, even though the form followed the function every step of the way.

If you don't agree, fine, it's a matter of opinion. But what aesthetics do you just think work for spaceships? Function over form, fine, but it's not like you can't get both at the same time in the imagination of an artist.

What looks good? Golden Age rocketships that land on their tailfins? Big assemblies of habitat rings? Surreal multicolored stuff out of the work of Chris Foss? Alien ships that look like a complicated, graceful latticework? Something I haven't thought of?
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Batman »

The Starfighter was pretty. It was also moderately useless given the countries that used it the most (i.e. Europe) used it in a role it was particularly ill-designed for but yes, it's a pretty plane (especially with the right paintjob).

And Trek Federation ships. The Constitution refit is nothing short of beautiful.
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Simon_Jester »

The role the '104 was really suited for is one that, thank God, no one ever really needed- intercepting nuclear-armed bombers with their own nuclear air to air rockets and, if all else fails, Sidewinders.

For anything but climbing to ludicrous altitude at ludicrous speed, making one firing pass, and praying there's still an airbase left to land on when they get back to the ground... well, they leave a good deal to be desired.
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by The Romulan Republic »

The Intrepid class from Star Trek (ie Voyager), for me. The Constitution class from Star Trek. I don't know if I'd call it beautiful, but I like the look of the Venator class Star Destroyer from Star Wars too.
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Image

Image
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Skylon »

If the F-104 Starfighter is your template, than in my book, the sci-fi equivalent is the Incom T-65 X-Wing. The ship is a beauty from every angle. It's sleek, purposeful, and the four laser canons make it look like its claws are out, and it'll kick the shit out of anybody who messes with it.
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Simon_Jester »

Hmmm, the X-Wing looks a little bit off to me. I'm not saying the Starfighter is a template, it's just something that looks good without raising complaints of 'form over function' or anything silly like that.
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Batman »

Simon_Jester wrote:The role the '104 was really suited for is one that, thank God, no one ever really needed- intercepting nuclear-armed bombers with their own nuclear air to air rockets and, if all else fails, Sidewinders.
For anything but climbing to ludicrous altitude at ludicrous speed, making one firing pass, and praying there's still an airbase left to land on when they get back to the ground... well, they leave a good deal to be desired.
Not their fault the job they were originally designed for never actually manifested (and as you said, Thank Valen it didn't). But thanks to being optimized for that role they were pretty much useless for everything else. (Well technically this is not correct, I managed to use Aspide-armed Starfighters as stopgap interceptors until I managed to move some real fighters in in Harpoon).
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'Tactically we have multiple objectives. So we need to split into teams.'-'Dibs on the Amazon!'
'Hey, we both have a Martian's phone number on our speed dial. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.'
'You know, for a guy with like 50 different kinds of vision, you sure are blind.'
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Havok »

Shroomy... is that that Metabarron stuff?
Image
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Yes.
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Havok »

SR-71 styling with Star Wars technology. How can you go wrong? :D
Image
Image
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Havok »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Yes.
I've always wanted to get full stories and graphic novels of that. All I've ever seen is snippets in Heavy Metal.
Image
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Here, another better cetacyborg pic:

Image

Be sure to check Incal too, the one that came before Metabarons and had the Metabaron as a side character who later got his own series. Incal's arts is done by Moebius.
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Gunhead »

Image Image
Image

Barbarossa bitches! Just one of many good looking ships in Legend of the Galactic Heroes

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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Vympel »

Speaking of Legend of Galactic Heroes - the Supreme Flagship Brunhild:-

Very large, very nice looking:-

Image
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by VarrusTheEthical »

For pretty space ships, I'll have to go with my favorite fighter from my favorite old gaming franchise, the Excalibur Heavy Fighter, from Wing Commander 3.

Image
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Image

Image
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by ChaserGrey »

Technically, the F-104 was a spaceship, or at least a trainer for astronauts. NF-104, because sometimes the only way to make something better is to put a rocket in it.
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Shroom Man 777 »



I do not want that the man conquers space
In the ships of NASA
These concentration camps of the spirit
These gigantic freezers vomiting the imperialism
These slaughters of plundering and plunder
This arrogance of bronze and thirst
This eunuchoid science
Not the dribble of transistorised and riveted hulks
The divine one
The delirious one
The superb one
CHAOS

Image

UNIVERSAL
I want magical entities, vibrating vehicles
To prolong to be to it abyss
Like fish of a timeless ocean. I want
Jewels, mechanics as perfect as the heart
Womb-ships anterooms
Rebirth into other dimensions
I want whore-ships driven
By the sperm of passionate ejaculations
In an engine of flesh
I want rockets complex and secret,
Humming-bird ornithopters,
Sipping the thousand-year-old nectar of dwarf stars...


Image
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic
Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by VF5SS »

Image

giant blue space carrier in space
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Kingmaker »

I do not want that the man conquers space
In the ships of NASA
Image
I do.
In the event that the content of the above post is factually or logically flawed, I was Trolling All Along.

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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Knife »

I've always been fond of the Mon Cal Cruisers...

Image

They don't get the love they should and the EU on them is crap.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Knife »

I also think the Pegasus was form following function beautiful...

Image
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Skylon »

Simon_Jester wrote:Hmmm, the X-Wing looks a little bit off to me. I'm not saying the Starfighter is a template, it's just something that looks good without raising complaints of 'form over function' or anything silly like that.
Template was perhaps the wrong word, the X-Wing was always a spaceship that just looked good to me (like the F-104 starfighter looks good to you). There have been sleeker designs of spaceships since then, but the X-Wing was the spaceship I wished I could have as a kid, and for the reasons I stated I can't help but like the bird. It may be a retro-thing - like how I still have a soft spot for the Datsun 280ZX.

Adding to the Naboo Shuttle, the B-2-esque one in "Attack of the Clones" was also pretty sexy:
Image

I think the Naboo shuttles would be my outer-space pimp rides. :P
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"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence...Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." - Calvin Coolidge

"If you're falling off a cliff you may as well try to fly, you've got nothing to lose." - John Sheridan (Babylon 5)

"Sometimes you got to roll the hard six." - William Adama (Battlestar Galactica)
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Re: Just Plain Beautiful Spaceships

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Giger

Image
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on 2012-02-22 11:15am, edited 1 time in total.
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic
Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
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