A good near-future spaceship design?

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

How about NAUTILUS-X?

[Wjolcz]

Yeah, the Endurance had a really nice and sane design. It could be built IRL if not for those super efficient engines (probably needed a helluvalot of electricity to work).

Nautilus-X is also a very nice project. It has a ring and is modular, which comes in handy when you want to use it more than once and transport things with it.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Veeltch

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

Orion used fission and fusion, and the form of fusion it used was H-bombs, which are a form of fusion, and they are perfectly feasible. 

[ValleyTwo]

2010's The Leonov?  Center rotates to generate the feeling of gravity, large ballute to help use Jupiter's atmosphere to aerobrake into orbit, a Soviet built ship to find out what happened to Discovery One.  

 

 

[Nothalogh]

On 5/22/2016 at 0:29 PM, RenegadeRad said:

Hey there geeks!

Well, this is a serious thread. Over the years, I always searched for spaceship design (I always had an interest in building or designing stuff),  but the result was always disappointing.

See, the main point is that as a "designer" whenever I want to make something, I try to make it in a very utilizable and bold way. I really despise every single art work or "design" made by people in majority all over the Internet on spaceships. They just make whatever they want (which is totally impossible to function) or make it super sci fi and full of wierd fantasy designs. Then one day I stumbled across the "mark 2 ksp spaceplane" picture on the results of Google search, which had a legit "spaceship" design. I opened it and reached here. Then I bought KSP the next day and played it the whole day without sleep or eat. I still do. Help me.

Back to topic , the design I'm looking for has a little "spacestuff" aspect. The design which caught my eye (I know this must have been discussed for a million times here) is the Interstellar's endurance. The design of the ship shows "hey, it's made for space travel!" And is very idunnohowtoexplaininwordshelp. The design was such that it could be used dramatically. 

I don't like rocket like "long" ships. And also ships which look like planes, it doesn't have the vibe of space, it looks like it is made for the atmosphere. I want ships which cover an area in all directions is not too sci fi. Another ship I liked was the heart of gold from hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. So if anyone can show me a similar design, or is interested in making one, please post about it here. 

Another point, it can have aring  like design. Im not able to design a ship, so I need help...  

Thanks, and sorry for the trouble !

Don't you dare mention ixs enterprise. It's overrated.

Hollow out a big honkin' asteroid, bolt the mother of all orion pusher plates to it, and go for a joyride

[benjee10]

Welp, here's one I designed. Pretty realistic apart from the rotating ring which would likely be impractical (but you could spin the entire ship and keep the ring static) and I've probably been a bit generous in the size of the crew quarters. It's not particularly compact but honestly if you want a realistic design that uses existing or plausible in-development technologies (this ship uses a VASIMR engine) that can reach Pluto you're going to need something which has A LOT of a fuel and a nuclear reactor, which usually means you want the crew far away from that part. The nuclear reactor here is at the opposite end of the 'spine' truss with the crew quarters in front of the fuel tanks, allowing the fuel tanks to act as shielding. The solar arrays are also useless beyond Mars but this was designed as an all-purpose ship for exploration around the solar system (you can see it has a pair of cargo bays for transporting landers etc). 

Full size here