ISO Standard Human Spaceship: Difference between revisions
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Also, some of these designs actually make some sense. For example, after the first two missions [[NASA]] decided to leave the external tank of the Space Shuttle un-painted because of the extra weight that pretty white veneer added (to give you an idea, the paint on a 747 jetliner weighs hundreds of pounds), not to mention the fact that it all burned up when it fell into the atmosphere anyway. For deep probes our designs are pretty non-blocky only because they are not meant for any kind of combat. Wings may be used on craft [[Space Plane|intended to work in atmosphere as well]] (like [[Battlestar Galactica|BSGs]] Vipers), even though it wouldn't probably be very practical to make a dual-purpose craft like that given the hugely different conditions, especially when considering the different atmospheres and gravities of alien worlds. Unpainted metal or reflective exteriors may also be justified if the ship is intended to fly near stars: this would reflect the light assist the ship in [[Space Is Cold|staying cool,]] similar to the way that skyscrapers in the southern USA and other hot places tend to be designed with reflective glass exteriors.
Note that fictional vessels tend to use enormous amounts of energy yet typically lack [https://web.archive.org/web/20100619224115/http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3au.html thermal radiators] to shed waste heat (no air-cooling in space). Although that ''could'' explain all the so-called wings...
Space wings are also often used in fiction as places to put extra weapons (like [[Macross Missile Massacre|missiles]]), and to store things (extra electronic equipment or fuel) inside them, although putting those things on or in the main hull makes more sense for a nonatmospheric [[Space Fighter]], as spreading out the ship's mass makes little sense for a vessel designed to maneuver in vacuum in three dimensions—better to keep it compact, to conserve angular momentum. You ''can'' increase maneuverability by putting thrusters on the tips of them a la ''[[Babylon 5]]'' Starfuries, using the wing as essentially a big lever to rotate the ship faster, but a simple pole (especially a retractable one) would do the same job just as well and with greater shear strength (again, compactness helps here), making it less likely to bend or break off during high-thrust maneuvers whose direction is perpendicular to the broad planar surface of the wing. Internal gyroscopic flywheeels could do the same thing ''and'' be less visibly obvious tells to the enemy (no signal lights before a turn). Only [[Space Fighter]] craft [[Space Plane|designed to go both ways]] (atmosphere and deep space) actually need wings—and [[wikipedia:Lifting body|some real airplanes don't even need them]].
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