Searching ideas and concept art for a spaceship for a Novel

[Appolinetheclouds]

Hi everyone, i'm hopping i'm in the good post section to ask those questions.

I'm currently writing a novel about space exploration and i'm searching advice and concepts for the idea of a ship. I'm trying to write a kind of Hard Science Fiction Novel and i know barely nothing in astrophysics etc. 

The pitch is that in 2400 humanity as left earth and live on mars, Titan, Europa and in giant stations around Titan. They launched simultaneously a few dozen of expeditions around the universe to find a new livable planet where to install. It's not with a precise plan it's more like a bottle to the sea, last hope of mankind. Those exoplanet expeditions are constituted of four Astronaut with different purpose, the commander is also the main scientist, an exobiologist, there is a geologist, an other scientist / Payload Specialist / Doctor and an Engineer and Security member. The planet they are send to is Tau Eridani, approximately 16 Light years from our solar system. They are put in cryo sleep for a few millenniums during the voyage across the galaxy so the ship don't need rotating structures to simulate gravity. Their orders are to find if life is possible on the planet and to explore Tau Eridani c to plain a new settlement for mankind. They are not the only ones, all over the galaxy other dozens of expedition similar to them are sent to explore other worlds, so it's not a unique mission, more like a mass produce ship. The ship in the story or more like the shuttle as land on the planet and their are starting a settlement. The atmosphere of the planet is nearly the same than earth so it's breathable and the planet is solid and livable. And in the story they are not in space, the story begins on the ground of the planet after the spaceflight and concentrate most on exploration and stuff but i search to make the spaceship, the shuttle and the settlement kind of realistic so this is why i need you. If you have any examples of ships you built, realistic ships in movies or even real life projects that resembles the needs for my story feel free to post whatever you want.

[tater]

So the backstory is that they have determined the target worlds are broadly speaking habitable before they leave our solar system? It's a 1-way mission, they all know they die on these other worlds, then radio back? Or if they can go back to sleep for however many years I suppose they do that.

Do they leave a ship in orbit around the target worlds? This could be to relay radio back home, or to return with crew.

In the latter case, the lander (winged or not) has to also be able to get them back to orbit—making it a far more complex vehicle.

If they don't want to simply radio home after a short while, then off themselves, they need to at least bring the sort of supplies they might want to live until they die naturally, or perhaps more people come join them after a few decades.

A winged vehicle has some advantages if the goal was to leave after exploring assuming it was a hydrolox (hydrogen/oxygen) SSTO, since they could create propellant out of water assuming they brought equipment to do so. The problem with this is where do they land. There are no runways, this would require finding a salt flat to even make an attempt, and if the surface is not hard, they likely all die in the landing attempt.

This really leans towards a vertical lander with legs—something like the SpaceX Starship—since this allows them to land in a much smaller area.

I would assume that a ship (nuclear thermal propulsion?) is left in orbit, and they spend a lot of time in orbit studying potential landing sites. At that point, they might as well have some parachute landers with instruments to measure conditions on the surface before they land (this would also help with characterizing the conditions for entry, descent, and landing).

So I tend to think a vertical lander is the most likely.

[DDE]

42 minutes ago, tater said:

I would assume that a ship (nuclear thermal propulsion?) is left in orbit, and they spend a lot of time in orbit studying potential landing sites. At that point, they might as well have some parachute landers with instruments to measure conditions on the surface before they land (this would also help with characterizing the conditions for entry, descent, and landing)

That's actually a question I've also had. Would interstellar expeditions in a future where spaceflight is casual but sensors aren't stupidly good necessarily need probes? I've trended towards yes, but by gut feeling.

If only to check if the planet and the entire system aren't made of antimatter 

Edited Monday at 02:24 PM by DDE

[Appolinetheclouds]

Thanks for your respond man. I'm sorry for the lack of precision, there is so much to said that i wasn't able to be as precise that i wanted. Yes you understand right, they have determined a few possible livable planet via Telescopes and astrophysics, and they send few missions to those planets counting on one of them to be the best suitable to move humanity and contact humanity wich may decide or not their planet. Their mission are not meant to go back when they accepted the mission they know they will basically have 99 chance to die or don't be successful. Humanity is like slowly dying in space so they are like bottle to the sea launched across the galaxy. 

The Team we follow on Tau Eridani c find a almost perfectly suitable planet and contact the rest of humanity sending them a message with they discovery. There is few possibility for them, if humanity have a better option than their planet they stay and die on that planet searching ans studying as much as they can to bring knowledge to they posterity and die naturally. If their planet is chosen as a colony they are charge to prepare this planet and extend the colony for the arrival of the rest of humanity. 

For the ship i already have write the first chapter and i wasn't paying pretty much attention to the design of the ship and write it without describing it from the outside and giving just few rooms inside. Mostly on the same level. But i was researching and most of what i found and what is realistic is a vertical lander. Their installation on the planet is not meant to take of again, So they basically castaway on the planet with no way to get out of it. I have written my story as they are slowly scavenging the ship pieces to build other stuffs, disassembling some hubs and modules to build a more permanent settlement. I was researching inflatable domes that are pretty realistic but it isn't the vibe i'm searching for.

I was paying attention to those very longs ships like the one in avatar. They will be pretty fitted for the 16 light-years spaceflight but not for the grounding on the planet so i was thinking letting the big part in orbit of the planet, mostly acting like satellite for them and relay signal to contact humanity.  When they are able to contact the command center they are notified by an IA that mankind as already died and they are the only humans left to her knowledge.

For studying the planet from orbit is an excellent idea, i didnt think of that before. I may change the story to make the crew waking up in space instead of directly on the planet after the landing.

As Propulsion i don't really know, yeah nuclear i think it does not matter for the story. The Expedition was launched in 2400 and mankind live in space for a few centuries and mastered the space travel. They are not supper advanced either, not antimatter or magic propulsion, warping time or kind of excrements. The Tau Eridani crew 16 light years Flight has take them 6000 years in cryosleep to arrived to their destination. I those big longs spaceships i assume the big tail at the end is to separate the reactor from the livable parts ?  Hope i answers most of your questions. Thanks for the answers guys

Edited Monday at 02:42 PM by Appolinetheclouds

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

That's actually a question I've also had. Would interstellar expeditions in a future where spaceflight is casual but sensors aren't stupidly good necessarily need probes? I've trended towards yes, but by gut feeling.

If only to check if the planet and the entire system aren't made of antimatter 

 

The knowledge required for casual spaceflight, let alone casual interstellar system travel, would mean they would know more and guess less... at least about things they already know or have experienced.

I think important questions to ask are:

1. For whatever kind of technology your races have and use, what does that imply about what they know and understand to allow them to make it in the first place?

2. For whatever they have already done on an interplanetary or interstellar scale, same question.

Casual interstellar travel implies you already explored and or colonized your home solar system. Which means you will already have old planetary records of data that allow you to compare what you know with new planetary data.

As for sensors, I would just go with super good cameras and regular EM sensors to complement them. Hard to screw up there unless you are literally landing on a death trap where everything is disguised to look safe but really is'nt.

If that is so then you have bigger problems than your sensors alone can solve anyways.

For that you need weapons... unless you can also make your sensors weapons.

Probes still seem like a great idea to test said death trap.

Edited Monday at 05:23 PM by Spacescifi

[tater]

For actually landing with humans, unless the lander system is fairly "jack of all trades" would require a pretty accurate characterization of the atmosphere for EDL. There's a lot that can be done from orbit (vs telescopically from Earth).The idea of sending people implies that people are needed to assess the conditions on the spot, vs just sending a probe, and letting the raw probe data head home (which seems more sensible, honestly).

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

That's actually a question I've also had. Would interstellar expeditions in a future where spaceflight is casual but sensors aren't stupidly good necessarily need probes? I've trended towards yes, but by gut feeling.

If only to check if the planet and the entire system aren't made of antimatter 

You could send an good telescope out to 600 AU to get gravitational leansing from the sun, you will get an image of an exoplanet like viewing the earth from the moon as i understand.
And all the spectrum data, you don't launch the 600 AU mission unless you find something interesting like life as in an breathable atmosphere. 
Yes you can build an space habitats around it, but you can do that much easier around the sun and it will take some time filling out an dyson swarm, and at that level 
Casual interstellar flight == faster than light, else its an serious commitment even if you don't age, think elves. 

Now you could find intelligent life and you don't spot stone age hunters until you get low or land. 

Who would be the coolest thing ever but not something you go all in on. 
The serious at any cost target would be would be artifacts from previous more advanced civilizations. 

Story idea, one of the pioneer or voyager probes passed close to an asteroid with something obvious artificial on it like solar panels and / or radiators. 
So the space race don't end. 

Note that interstellar communication is not very hard for an large ship. You have an weapon grade laser on the ship, an way to modulate it very fast and the grandchild of Web as an receiver, the laser array at L3 cost way less than an million times the starship and is nicknamed the deahtstar and its an strategic weapon. 

Edited Monday at 06:34 PM by magnemoe

[AckSed]

Presumably they would have a monstrous megastructure of a space telescope that could resolve planetary details. The JWST is already discovering atmospheric compositions of large exoplanets, so the construction of a lower-tech, mass-produced cluster of 10m telescopes, with free-flying coronagraphs to block out the light of whichever star these people are being sent towards (a technique to spot any planets orbiting it), would be a neat prologue: We have found Earthlike planets all over the sky. Let's go check them out!

Concerning the spaceship, I have always been a fan of solar sails and propellantless propulsion. You have routine travel between Jupiter/Saturn and Earth, presumably ships fitted with a drive to do this in a reasonable amount of time and maybe you have a decent in-space construction industry.

The "photonic railway" is a concept I love, because it frees you from the tyranny of the rocket equation and gives you decent performance, but also requires massive lasers constructed in space or on airless moons, and brave explorers to venture out to set it up. I outline it here:

Presumably a beaming station set up in orbit around Jupiter would get these scout-ships up to speed, but they'd then have to slow down at their destination.

If that's not enough, we could go for a sun-grazing solar sail. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=58581.msg2485032#msg2485032

But maybe you don't want to fly around the Sun.

Orion's Arm is a hard SF universe with its own encyclopaedia. Its list of ships should provide inspiration. Broadly, if you have cracked reliable fusion that does not emit neutrons, or have a way to get around the radiation they emit, then you can live damn near everywhere you can find fusion fuel (deuterium, helium-3, lithium-6 and so on). If you want to slow down from high percentages of lightspeed, deploy a magnetic sail. The Barnard Banger uses the concept of the "wilderness Orion": gathering fusion fuel and light metals from icy moons or Oort cloud comets, to make small nuclear bombs that explode behind it. The ice, formed into a block in front, also serves as particle and radiation protection, since the ship accelerates to a low percentage of lightspeed and any dust particle hits with the force of a grenade at those energies.

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, tater said:

So I tend to think a vertical lander is the most likely.

Or a water landing spaceplane perhaps

[Appolinetheclouds]

Sorry for the time of responding, my post are meant to be validated by moderator for now and i'm European so sorry for the english and my difficulty to understand some of your answers.

Thank for the answers and interesting topics.
I dont want to be as realistic as real deal, just give a impression of scientific realism and not space magic like star wars.

3 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

1. For whatever kind of technology your races have and use, what does that imply about what they know and understand to allow them to make it in the first place?. For whatever they have already done on an interplanetary or interstellar scale, same question. Casual interstellar travel implies you already explored and or colonized your home solar system.

Earth was slowly dying due pollution. They scavenge last resource from it during wars, starvation and massive environmental issues, like fire ravaging whole continents. Part of humanity died on earth part of it moved to colonies on Mars, Titan Europa so they have kind of little knowledge in space travel. I was thinking that most part of the ship they uses are repurposed old spaceship used by mankind to flee earth as she was dying to travel to Titan Europa and Mars. So it's not like a brand new ship and made those crew and their ship like cheap expeditionary missions.

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

You could send an good telescope out to 600 AU to get gravitational leansing from the sun, you will get an image of an exoplanet like viewing the earth from the moon as i understand.
And all the spectrum data, you don't launch the 600 AU mission unless you find something interesting like life as in an breathable atmosphere.

It was what i was thinking. That they use a telescope with spectromass or something, i have hear about it and vaguely remember some telescope like James Webb and Kepler being able to tell if a planet is potentially livable or not. The program selected a bunch of planets on various factors and send those team in the space flight. One of my character explain vaguely that humanity is slowly dying as humans are not suitable for spacelife and they run out of time. The travel being 6000 years long in their case, they didn't have the luxury to send a probe before as they are and expeditionary mission. They are last hope of mankind, in a hurry they are send blindly, as being sacrifice. If they dont succed, die on the way, or find a not enough suitable and livable planet it's not as bad as it is because they can learn on the environment they are in and conduct a bunch of experiments.

1 hour ago, AckSed said:

Concerning the spaceship, I have always been a fan of solar sails and propellantless propulsion. You have routine travel between Jupiter/Saturn and Earth, presumably ships fitted with a drive to do this in a reasonable amount of time and maybe you have a decent in-space construction industry.

I also like solar sails, but didnt work that much in the story as they have to cross 16 Light-Years and that they ship are repurposed old mother ships. 

6 hours ago, tater said:

 At that point, they might as well have some parachute landers with instruments to measure conditions on the surface before they land (this would also help with characterizing the conditions for entry, descent, and landing).

I'm very interested by parachute lander. I've never heard of it, do you have examples in mind ? Things capable to send complete parts of a ship from orbit to the ground of the planet without retropropulsor/ Retrotrusters ? Like station modules that can be assembled together on the planet ? It will be very cool for my story. They are build in space on a Shipyard around Titan, so they can charge with whatever charge they want and don't have to think about payload as those modules are never meant to be removed from thoses planets.

Once again Sorry guys if i dont get exactly what you meant i'l do my best. And Thanks once again for taking the time to answers me.

[DDE]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Story idea, one of the pioneer or voyager probes passed close to an asteroid with something obvious artificial on it like solar panels and / or radiators. 
So the space race don't end. 

So you know how there's a Monolith on Phobos, and the Soviet Phobos-2 had a fatal failure while in Mars orbit? Don't forget how the homogenous cannonball model of asteroids (as opposed to the "rubble pile") made Sagan's bud Shklovsky declare both moons of Mars to be hollow metal shells. The tinfoil hat brigade already did much of the writing for you... 

[tater]

5 hours ago, darthgently said:

Or a water landing spaceplane perhaps

 

4 hours ago, Appolinetheclouds said:

I dont want to be as realistic as real deal, just give a impression of scientific realism and not space magic like star wars.

This is literally a resource for writers, etc: https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

Fantastic site full of realistic ideas for you.

4 hours ago, Appolinetheclouds said:

I'm very interested by parachute lander. I've never heard of it, do you have examples in mind ? Things capable to send complete parts of a ship from orbit to the ground of the planet without retropropulsor/ Retrotrusters ? Like station modules that can be assembled together on the planet ? It will be very cool for my story. They are build in space on a Shipyard around Titan, so they can charge with whatever charge they want and don't have to think about payload as those modules are never meant to be removed from thoses planets.

You've actually seen examples: Soyuz, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Dragon, Crew Dragon, New Shepard, and Starliner are all crew or cargo capsules. Asteroid sample returns have landed with parachutes. Your premise is an Earthlike planet, so it has enough atmosphere for parachutes to work just as they do here. So a craft in orbit could easily drop probes that would splash down if they landed on water, or float down to land. Minus crew, they could take shocks that people could not and still function, so no need for special cushioning—here is the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule:

Land a small probe, and it can measure atmosphere, take pictures, and radio back to the ship in orbit. Stay a while in space, determine a safe landing spot with access to whatever they really want to see—a water source, flora/fauna, etc. Then land

Or they could use airbags as Starliner does:

 

Edited Tuesday at 01:04 AM by tater

[Appolinetheclouds]

8 hours ago, tater said:

This is literally a resource for writers, etc: https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/  Fantastic site full of realistic ideas for you.

Thank you so much for the website it's exactly what i was searching for. Absolutely perfect. I've discovered a few designs and further information and documentations about few ships.

I've been mostly inspirited by this project. I'm trying to recreate it on KSP but it's hard. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140013260/downloads/20140013260.pdf

8 hours ago, tater said:

You've actually seen examples: Soyuz, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Dragon, Crew Dragon, New Shepard, and Starliner are all crew or cargo capsules. Asteroid sample returns have landed with parachutes. Your premise is an Earthlike planet, so it has enough atmosphere for parachutes to work just as they do here. So a craft in orbit could easily drop probes that would splash down if they landed on water, or float down to land. Minus crew, they could take shocks that people could not and still function, so no need for special cushioning—here is the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule:

Yeah of course ! I was forgetting that my planet as an atmosphere and is not like a mars mission more like an earth atmosphere re-entry. I've completely forgot that. Thanks !

I've been trying to make a schema of the space vessel and find an idea for the deployment of the ground base on the planet. This is just a sketch feel free to tell me what it doesn't right with it. If you have any suggestions, remarks, better idea, objections.  Do you think my idea of separations and installation on the ground is coherent ?

As i was saying on the before, the ship stay in orbit, he act as a satellite for the base and a communication relay to communicate with the solar system. I face a problem about signals time travel and communications. As they are 16 light-years from the solar system, technically the signal, if it's laser will take 16years to arrives no ? And 16 more to have a response ? It's impossible for a signal to go faster than light no ? Just want to be sure. 

 

Edited Tuesday at 09:46 AM by Appolinetheclouds

[tater]

3 hours ago, Appolinetheclouds said:

As i was saying on the before, the ship stay in orbit, he act as a satellite for the base and a communication relay to communicate with the solar system. I face a problem about signals time travel and communications. As they are 16 light-years from the solar system, technically the signal, if it's laser will take 16years to arrives no ? And 16 more to have a response ? It's impossible for a signal to go faster than light no ? Just want to be sure. 

Correct. So if they send a message saying "Send the colonists!" it takes however many years (the distance in light years) for the singal to arrive, then the same for a return message. So 32 later they might get a message "we're on our way." The only way the astronauts could meet them would be to reenter their suspended animation (assuming you can do it more than once).

I suppose you visit the world, send a message that the world is good, go back to sleep for 32 years, wake up to check your mail (might take some extra time for Earth to reply, so maybe 33 years to wake up?) then decide to sleep until the expected arrival of colonists, or if they are NOT coming, perhaps wake up and make the best of their remaining lives?

3 hours ago, Appolinetheclouds said:

I've been trying to make a schema of the space vessel and find an idea for the deployment of the ground base on the planet. This is just a sketch feel free to tell me what it doesn't right with it. If you have any suggestions, remarks, better idea, objections.  Do you think my idea of separations and installation on the ground is coherent ?

I mean if it's not leaving the surface, landing a habitat with people is possible—though the heat shield is a large component added to the bottom. Heatshield drops off after reentry, chutes open at appropriate altitude. They can be sized such that the legs absorb the shock I suppose, or more likely small landing engines fire at the last second. Such a lander would need a large open area to land, however. A vertical lander (SpaceX Starship) can land precisely (they're planning on catching it like the booster, so literally within a fraction of a meter), but parachutes drift with the wind. So if it somehow lands with a parachute as the primary deceleration the homestead site needs to be wide open and flat for kilometers. It's not landing in a clearing among trees.

Other methods involve a chute, then at some altitude the chute is cut, and the lander uses landing motors. This is likely what you'd actually have, since a parachute to massively slow the descent is not huge/massive, but one to slow it to a safe landing velocity is very large—so massive that it might mass less to have engines to kill the remaining terminal velocity. This allows the thing to get into the rough landing area, then steer a little for the best spot (you want to avoid the rugged terrain in the upper left of the image above ^.

If that makes any sense. Of course you could also have the crew and habitat land separately (which give plot options if it doesn't go to plan and they have to trek to where their habitat landed I suppose). They could also land a rover.