Spaceship Design: What makes sense, and what's nonsense?

[ericthered]

Bilateral symmetry makes sense for a certain kind of warship: one in which you are typically accelerating orthogonality to the direction of the enemy... or in other words, where dodging is more important than closing the distance. You have a powerful engine that moves you "up", but you fire "forward". To change the direction you dodge the ship rolls left or right. To minimize the profile and make your spinning more efficient you end up with a long thin rod with the main engine mounted at the midpoint of the rod... at least as far as weight goes.



The job of the ship and the surrounding technology will determine a lot about the ship. Some things to watch for:

• Does it enter the atmosphere? If so, you want it streamlined, and long and thin also helps.
• Does it move at high relative speeds through space? it might need shielding, and the most efficient way to shield is to make a long skinny ship with heavy shielding at the front.
• Does it experience high acceleration, and does it experience it from more than one direction? Many "realistic" designs have large solar or magnetic sails towing a body at a slow speed, and are loosely put together, while a ship that is made to take serious thrust in one direction tends to be shaped like a rocket.
• What's providing power, and how do you shield it? some spacial and material separation between the humans and the reactor is often a good idea.

some idea of what your spaceship paradigm is would help here as well.