These are locations that love to form cracks. They create stress concentrations, which is as bad as it sounds. As the study of cracking grew, engineers learned that corners are bad for design. ![]() It was determined that cracks at square window cutouts grew large enough to cause problems. The aerospace industry found this out with the de Havilland Comet, a commercial airplane that had several crashes due to catastrophic cracks. Instead of getting irritable and needing a nap, structures tend to crack and need repairs. The varying levels of force have an effect on structure known as fatigue. Practical starships would be either spherical or cylindrical, and most likely a combination of the two shapes.Īdd in maneuvers, environmental changes, gravitational fluctuations, weight modifications, pressurization cycles at airlocks, etc., and it’s easy to see that spaceships undergo a lot of force. Aerodynamics and fluid dynamics are why the body of airplanes and submarines are cylinders. But inside a planet’s atmosphere the sphere is limiting. The best shape for pressurization is a sphere in the sphere, the pressure pushes equally in all directions. ![]() Propane tanks for the grill and helium tanks for blowing up balloons are rounded because it is the most efficient design to hold the pressure inside. In engineering terms, the structure is pressurized.Īirplanes – at least the portion with people inside – and submarines are vehicles that undergo pressurization, and in general, these craft have a rounded shape. This means that even when not moving, the ship’s structure has a certain amount of force applied to it. Logically, the hull is pressing back on the atmosphere to keep it contained. Because of the imbalance in pressure outside and inside, the ship’s atmosphere is pushing on the hull, trying to equalize. Inside the ship, the atmosphere must operate at homeworld standard pressure or, at least, a pressure that supports life. In other words, spacecraft are big balloons. The structure must be sealed tight and not leak. Outside the spacecraft is the vacuum of space. In order to support life within a starship, it must contain atmosphere for the passengers. Shape, windows, and manned fighters are the easiest and most pertinent changes to make. To make practical spacecraft, lessons from current design’s failures need to be studied. This is accomplished by having great engineers, and the discipline of engineering is based on learning from failure. Rather than having to repair poor designs, ship operators would want to get the most use possible with the least downtime. Physics would still apply to post-scarcity societies. ![]() They’re made to elicit that feeling of awe, but a ship designed from the viewpoint of economics 1 and efficiency would be rather boring. ![]() From a practical standpoint, most starships in SF are poorly designed. Really, who doesn’t? From the Minbari Sharlin to the Empire’s Star Destroyers to the Borg Cube to the Heart of Gold, aesthetics rule. Science fiction loves a beautiful starship. You can find his musings on the arts on the STL Counterpoint blog. He writes fiction about philosophers and non-fiction about martial arts. He’s already provided some great posts on realistic fighting abilities and how to ask an expert. About the ExpertĮric Primm is an engineer for Boeing and has spent the past nine years making sure the wings don’t fall off various aircraft. Please join the mailing list to be notified every time new content is posted. Each week, we tackle one of the scientific or technological concepts pervasive in sci-fi (space travel, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, etc.) with input from an expert. This article on practical spaceship design is part of the Science in Sci-fi, Fact in Fantasyblog series.
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