Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Fusion Powered Spacecraft

Fantasy is great, but what will real spaceships look like? That’s what I was aiming for when producing these images – the proverbial "serious spaceship" design…

If we ever want to go anywhere farther than our own moon, we’re going to have to get serious about propulsion! A nuclear fusion powered craft is what you really want for traveling around the solar system in a reasonable amount of time (weeks as opposed to years).



Dumping excess heat and shielding the crew from the exhaust radiation are key challenges inherent in a fusion drive – hence the large shield/radiator at the rear of the craft…


“2001”: a Space Odyssey” was a major influence on the “look” of the ship, particularly the crew module at the front.


For those of you interested in such details, the 3D model is about 900,000 polygons...

8 comments:

Ian said...

Breath-taking work Steve. Your "More Mechs..." series is my favorite.

Alex06 said...

Woah, I'm impressed!
This looks really nice and well thought out.

Steve B said...

Thanks - I enjoy the fast sketches, but it's also fun to take something to a much more developed state. It takes a lot longer, but it's very satisfying in a different kind of way!

Justin said...

Steve, just found your blog. Love this stuff, very fresh image making! :)

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Really superb design and model !!

Anonymous said...

as always, awsome steve!

Danny Gardner said...

I love your work Steve, especially the more abstract ships and structures. You're an inspiration!

Steve B said...

Thanks, it's encouraging to hear positive reaction on the more abstract painterly stuff - I'll have to get back to doing more of that!