What is your term for a vessel that goes into space?

[Nuke]

Explodey Death Machine

[Limited Infinity]

I name mine after animals. My heavy tug is a Mule ( fairly common in sci-fi ). My light tug is a Pony. My mobile fueler is a Camel. My heavy fueler designed to bring tanks to my station is a Bactrian. I'm calling my stations a Hive, but I'm not sold on it. My probes will either be humming birds or bats. I'm leaning toward bats since there's some similarity between sonar and radar.

[StainX]

Bumblebee->Hornet->Wesp->Bee->Fly

But most of the time: "Damnit, you stupid *****!!!"

[CptNuts]

When I talk to others I tend to call them Rockets, when alone in the VAB I give them alot of different names, dependant on Function, Target, my mood, a lot of things, for example my first Jool Mission was named Julia

I tend to give my spaceships female names, for ships are always female, and spaceships they are (and Rockets, and orbiter, and stations, and drones, and catastrophees and ... well I like to refer to them as space ships and give them fancy names )

[Kerbface]

I call them spacecraft. If they're designed to remain in orbit I also call them sattelites and if they're designed to act as some sort of hub, laboratory or habitat I also call them a station. If they're designed to move from place to place I will call them spaceships.

Sorry if that makes me unoriginal.

[Xiphos]

"Coffins".

Haha! That is the harsh truth. And to answer your question I like to think of names that sound cool. Sometimes having something to do with what it's designed for so I don't forget what I've built. I built a duna return rocket and called it Outrider, and later forgot what I named it so I had to go through each one haha.

[Callmedave]

I called a Minmus attempt lander 'discovery' because i knew i would learn a lot when undertaking its objective,

But that makes me think, i might call them after cars, 'mustang' 'cobra' 'gti' etc would be kinda cool. (petrolhead)

[Tw1]

I avoid the word boat or yacht for anything that is not intended for water.

Ship, I don't mind though.

Vessel or craft are my go to words for talking about something that goes to space.

Rover-probe is an unmanned, robotic rover, Rover is for something that's a simple exploration vehicle. I don't use it for craft that can drive, but are primarily intended for spaceflight. They are vessels or landers, or even vehicles.

Vehicle the word I use for anything that's more complex than a rover, like my crane thing I use to move stuff on the Mun.

I call the things that remain in orbit to take my kerbals home return modules, or recovery modules, in the case that they were sent as a rescue package.

But only if they don't have any command pods or habitation of their own. That would make them ships or stations, depending on the size.

Stations are bigger, more complex, and less mobile than ships.

Bases are there for good, rather than temporary landers.

I think that's about it.

[Unistrut]

I call most of them bastards.

It's part of the naming scheme even. My current science armada being dispatched towards Jool consists of two TYLO LANDER BASTARD BAKERs, two LAYTHE BASTARD BAKERs, two LAYTHE RETURN BASTARD ABLEs and the City of Fresno which, as a reusable craft, is named after a backwater California town.

[SoldierHair]

I call them "Katyusha".Mostly because my first successful orbit was in a ship that was making a very loud "Shoooosh" sound on take off.What can i say , i used a lot of solid boosters.So many i am impressed now that it didn't blew up on engine startup...

[cypher_00]

In tend to call anything interplanetary "Cruiser" and large multiple module ships "Destroyer".

[PDCWolf]

Vessel, spacecraft, and some times "YOU DAMNED PIECE OF CR*P"

As naming schemes goes, I call them according to what they perform, unless its a manned mission. For example, my GILLY/EVE LANDER was simply called GEL, but my Duna manned landing vehicle was called Conqueror-1 'cause when I was building it I was listening to "The Faceless" and a song that says "The immense conqueror hides the sun" came right in.

[lyndonguitar]

Space Vehicle = manned

Space Probe = unmanned

[LeonG17]

One way ticket to pain.

[BeefTenderloin]

1-Man Tin Can.

[Scotius]

If there is organic component present on board i call them Spam-in-a-can. Also Miner, Explorer, Tug, Shuttle etc. Unimaginative, but saves a lot of time and nerves while scrolling down the list of active flights.

[Doc Anderson]

Unexploded ordnance.

To quote Ron White:

Q: How far do you think we'll get on one engine?

A: All the way to the scene of the crash.

[admiralducksauce]

My naming scheme mostly is inspired by Iain M Banks.

Disaster Sandwich

WTF Express

Cargo Cult

Muns Over My Hammy

Skyline Butcher

Look Out Below

Dare To Be Stupid

Hot Dog

[1001sd]

"Raket", "rumraket" or "rumskib". (Danish for rocket, (spacerocket, nonexisting english word ) or spaceship ). The names i use in game however, is for what they are used for, followed by a version number. As an example, my moonlanders is called moonlander v1, moonlander v2 and so on. (For some reason i don't have moonlander v3, but i have v2 and v4).

When i'm not lazy, i tend to give the flights a mission number to see how many times i've used the rocket, and to see if i used my rocket to go to Duna before i used it to get to the Mun and such. Very few of my rockets have a mission number, though (the format would be "moonlander v1 mission 1".

For my space station thing (currently two parts docked in orbit), i've called them "space station part 1" and "space station part 2".

Not very creative, but practically.

Maybe I'll start a new save in 0.20 where i give my missions cool names and badges so i can use them on the flags and flag-name-plates.

Edited May 8, 2013 by 1001sd