The Apollo Lunar Lander. The only real space ship we ever built. (I guess we built another one for the next trip now, though, so I'll go with "ever flown")
People can say it's ugly all they want, but, as an engineer, it's exquisitely designed for its purpose. That's true beauty to me.
Ha! I literally never thought of that until I read your comment.
I always hoped in the end that it would grow some giant wings but I moved out to work in another city and didn't have cable so I never saw the end of the show.
I guess I could download it and find out.
Being capable of both time and space travel honestly makes it less implausible than a ship that just goes FTL. The whole "is infinite" thing is pretty speculative even if it's cool, though.
Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath
Not sure in what context you're asking this question, but my answer is the International Space Station. I love how it's possible to see it at random sometimes at night, and the way it crosses the sky just looks different compared to a regular airplane flying at night.
Pedantic question! Does the ISS count as a spaceship? I feel like something that travels in an orbit is kind of the equivalent of something stationary on a planet… so it feels like more of a, uh, station, than a ship to me. It’s a good answer, though!
Feels like a tomato fruit situation. It's technically a ship, but we know it as a station?
A marine equivalent might be a floating structure with its own propulsion system. Technically a boat, but it doesn't move around that often and it let's other boats dock/undock from it.
The Kestrel Cruiser from FTL. Even though it's not even the coolest ship in the game, The Kestrel is still the most nostalgic for me.
It brings me back to when I first played FTL a decade ago. I was a kid back then and loved the game so much, I even built and painted a cardboard Kestrel model.
When it comes to FTL, The Lanius Cruiser is my favorite, but Kestrel was fun to play too. I remember going back to it several times, after unlocking new ships.
Enterprise refit. Loved the original Enterprise and the Enterprise D when TNG came out, but there was something magical about seeing the refit on the big screen.
GW: Visually, which is your favorite episode of Atlantis so far?
MB: “The Eye.” The Rainmaker team created their own CG software to create the stormy water for the ocean. The level of detail and control has never been seen in TV effects before. Dan and Jose at Rainmaker pulled out all the stops and created mind-blowing shots. I think we went about 3.5 times over budget on that one — but you can’t get away with crap. You guys can spot that a mile away, and nothing kills a show quicker than cheap looking effects.
The Prometheus may have been ugly, but it was my favorite because it was Earth's first. It was kinda janky and totally experimental, but it was absolutely a necessary step in our advancement of science enabling better and cooler ships like Daedalus. It was usually outgunned and outsized by everything it went up against, but still managed to leave a mark. It saved the day in the battle of Antarctica enabling the discovery of Atlantis.
Do I think it was a better ship? Of course not, it was totally inferior (and ugly). But it made for a better story. For a good portion of the show it was all we had and it was barely enough, but it became more of a character than a tool. The moment the Prometheus was blasted in half was just as serious as any character death (and not just because of Pendergast). It was a huge blow to us and let the viewers know the Ori were a real threat.
It did, for very short periods of time. And from that, we got the epic scene where they opened a window through a ship's shield for a Death Star run shot at Anubis.
Well the 303 worked!
Sure, with a salvage hyperdrive from an Al'kesh. At least until that broke down and they had to upend an entire planet's beliefs to get home. The original hyperdrive had the same problem as the one from the 302. And the working one came from the Asgard.
Idk. I just couldn't get over the captain doing his best James Carrey Kirk impression.
Earth: Give us things!
Asgard: lol no
Earth: Give us things!
Asgard: Give back the things you stole!
Earth: sudo We saved your skinny butts from the Replicators! Give us thing!
The Hail Mary currently. Just such a cool ship from a fun book. To think about what would go into building it and what that means to humanity is humbling.
Other notables:
Enterprise E from First Contact because it looks cool.
Cygnus from The Black Hole
Sulaco from Aliens
Trimaxion Drone Ship from Flight of the Navigator
The Abominator-class Offensive Unit Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints (my usual favourite lol)
While I know it's easy to hate on everything MCU these days, I do still absolutely love the Milano from Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2. The design doesn't feel practical at all, but it's still a really fun to look at and agile ship, which is something a lot of sci fi doesn't really depict very well.
The one from The Fountain was kinda similar. It was unique enough to stick with me over the years anyway.
I don't know if Ringworld really counts as a ship but I loved that too. The Out Of Band 2 from A Fire Upon The Deep seemed like it would be pretty baddass. Or the alien ship from Rendezvous with Rama.
There's a lot of ships I like in sci-fi, but the one that comes to mind at the moment is the garfish-class cruiser in robotech
Or if we're talking about real spacecraft here, I like the soyuz (and really the whole r-7 derived rocket family to be honest), as I like the look of it's side boosters and the four engine bells on each engine
“I’ll take the Lewis and Clark to a safe distance, and then I will launch TAC missiles at the Event Horizon until I'm satisfied she's vaporized. Fuck this ship!”
It's a fast ship that can flown solo, but also comfortably carry six people with their own quarters. It's fast, can cloak itself and defend itself from anything it can't outrun or hide from.
I don't want a big starship that needs a big crew to fly. But, I don't want a small ship that can't carry guests.
Rebel Blockade Runner, mostly because it's the first ship you really see in A New Hope and my first interaction with the Star Wars franchise as a kid in the early 90s.
That's how I think of it too, but apparently it's a CR-90 Corellian Corvette. I imagine that info was created later and didn't exist for the first movie.
Makes most sense that blockade runner is a description of the role it's being used for, same way you can describe any car as a taxi if that's how you're using it.
The wedge ships belonging to the Chitzas in the books from the "quantum series" by Douglas Phillips. they were bad ass ships ran by badass little porcupine dudes. They were able to travel beyond the visible universe in hours. The books were so much fun.
One of my favourite things on the Roci are the point defense cannon (PDC).
In space they make a little brrrrrt noise
In atmosphere they sound like artillery. BOOM BOOM BOOM. And they act like artillery too, all you can do is try to cover your ears.
Just fun to think how powerful those "little" PDCs need to be.
+1 for the Roci
Finished the series this week and am already suffering from withdrawal.
Read the books! There's tons more. Unless that's what you mean.
Ah that book ending though. chef’s kiss
It was pure perfection. Like if you’ve only seen the tv show, the book ending isn’t something you need to read, it’s something you deserve to read.
Yeaah, I really need to get to them! Especially since the last 3 didn't make it to the TV series, from what I've read.
I assure you you won’t regret it.
This ship inspired me to ask this question :)
Definitely the Rocinante!
Should have known I’d already find the Roci here.
Oh that’s a good ship.
I was going to say the Trimaxion Drone Ship from Flight of the Navigator. Seems lame now. lol.
Love seeing Roci up top!
ahem
Definitely not the Chetzemoka lol
Although as much as I love the Roci, I might have to go with the Donnager as my real favorite. It's just so damned intimidating.
I'm a huge Expanse fan, but come on. Compared to the Enterprise, the Roci shouldn't even be hauling garbage, it should be taken away as garbage!
Seriously? Someone named a spaceship after an old horse?
Cool.
Romulan Warbird or the Saturn 5 rocket.
Nice choices.
The Apollo Lunar Lander. The only real space ship we ever built. (I guess we built another one for the next trip now, though, so I'll go with "ever flown")
People can say it's ugly all they want, but, as an engineer, it's exquisitely designed for its purpose. That's true beauty to me.
The Heart of Gold, from The Hitchhikers Guide. Plot armour taken to its most literal extreme.
Yeah, passing though all points of the universe at the same time is so much better than mucking about in hyperspace.
I love the seriousity of a "improbability drive" shame such a banger idea is turned into a stupid joke machine.
OP ass bullshit spaceship! It is pretty cool though.
Lexx is one of my favourite ships. It was such an oddball show as well.
Given how raunchy and insane that show is, the ship being an enormous dick and balls is so fitting. And I know it's supposed to look like a dragonfly.
Ha! I literally never thought of that until I read your comment. I always hoped in the end that it would grow some giant wings but I moved out to work in another city and didn't have cable so I never saw the end of the show. I guess I could download it and find out.
Does the TARDIS count as a starship? That's kinda cheating though.
Being capable of both time and space travel honestly makes it less implausible than a ship that just goes FTL. The whole "is infinite" thing is pretty speculative even if it's cool, though.
Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath
I'm not going to say Meatfucker did nothing wrong, but I always liked A Frank Exchange of Views .
I've always liked Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
I dunno, man, their names all seem to have a lack of gravitas for some reason
Sleeper Service.
How did the quote go? Are we in danger? Nah you're looking at a slow motion replay.
Not sure in what context you're asking this question, but my answer is the International Space Station. I love how it's possible to see it at random sometimes at night, and the way it crosses the sky just looks different compared to a regular airplane flying at night.
Pedantic question! Does the ISS count as a spaceship? I feel like something that travels in an orbit is kind of the equivalent of something stationary on a planet… so it feels like more of a, uh, station, than a ship to me. It’s a good answer, though!
Feels like a tomato fruit situation. It's technically a ship, but we know it as a station?
A marine equivalent might be a floating structure with its own propulsion system. Technically a boat, but it doesn't move around that often and it let's other boats dock/undock from it.
The ISS’s propulsion is just for small orbital adjustments, right?
I think so, not sure if it can do much more.
It has boosters. If it can move, it is a spaaaceshiiip!
True but it still has to be a ship!
I’m torn between the Defiant and Serenity
Serenity as a reaver ship is hard to beat
While not exactly a space ship, I'd say Thunderbird 2
I can't decide between The Planet Express ship and the space Van from Spaceballs.
What about the one at the very beginning of Spaceballs that went on and on?
The Red Dwarf :)
It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere...
We're all alone, for all time
On my Facebook feed there was a Transformer toy in the shape of Starbug called Smegatron.
Gotta go with the Normandy SR-2
And her crew 😢
Keelah se'lai
Yamato is pretty nice, very unique and playfully design.
I'd also like to add The Mothership from Homeworld. Also awesome story, and the game had revolutionary gameplay for it's time.
The Kestrel Cruiser from FTL. Even though it's not even the coolest ship in the game, The Kestrel is still the most nostalgic for me.
It brings me back to when I first played FTL a decade ago. I was a kid back then and loved the game so much, I even built and painted a cardboard Kestrel model.
When it comes to FTL, The Lanius Cruiser is my favorite, but Kestrel was fun to play too. I remember going back to it several times, after unlocking new ships.
Moya, from Farscape
Moya's starburst has always been one of my absolute favourite VFX scenes.
It's just such a visually great kind of hyperdrive!
Enterprise refit. Loved the original Enterprise and the Enterprise D when TNG came out, but there was something magical about seeing the refit on the big screen.
This, so majestic
Daedalus.
I take one standard Culture GSV and Mind please.
I'm pretty sure the GSVs need three minds to run.
IIRC it's only the largest GSVs and Rings that need more than one Mind.
Oh come now, I won't be needing all of the bells and whistles. I'm sure they could come up with something. :)
I am mildly obsessed with the Saturn V. It's just such a feat of engineering and human cooperation.
What? No love for the Millennium Falcon?
No need for shields when you have plot armor
It probably has both.
I like my light freighters unmodified.
BC-304. The Prometheus was so ugly in comparison.
Shout-out to the basic cable show that was giving us Hollywood-level visual effects effects as early as 2004.
Atlantis gets visual effects Emmy nomination
The Atlantis Effect: An Interview With Mark Breakspear
The Prometheus may have been ugly, but it was my favorite because it was Earth's first. It was kinda janky and totally experimental, but it was absolutely a necessary step in our advancement of science enabling better and cooler ships like Daedalus. It was usually outgunned and outsized by everything it went up against, but still managed to leave a mark. It saved the day in the battle of Antarctica enabling the discovery of Atlantis.
Do I think it was a better ship? Of course not, it was totally inferior (and ugly). But it made for a better story. For a good portion of the show it was all we had and it was barely enough, but it became more of a character than a tool. The moment the Prometheus was blasted in half was just as serious as any character death (and not just because of Pendergast). It was a huge blow to us and let the viewers know the Ori were a real threat.
The 302 would like a word 😅
That doesn't count! It didn't work!
It did, for very short periods of time. And from that, we got the epic scene where they opened a window through a ship's shield for a
Death Star runshot at Anubis.Well the 303 worked!
Sure, with a salvage hyperdrive from an Al'kesh. At least until that broke down and they had to upend an entire planet's beliefs to get home. The original hyperdrive had the same problem as the one from the 302. And the working one came from the Asgard.
Idk. I just couldn't get over the captain doing his best James Carrey Kirk impression.
Earth: Give us things!
Asgard: lol no
Earth: Give us things!
Asgard: Give back the things you stole!
Earth:
sudoWe saved your skinny butts from the Replicators! Give us thing!Asgard: Okay.
Asgard: Aight imma head out. We'll leave the light on for you.
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Hollywood-level visual effects effects
2004
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A-wing Interceptor from Star Wars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-wing
The one I hope is coming back soon so I can go back to my own planet ;)
Erebus class titan from EVE Online
The Hail Mary currently. Just such a cool ship from a fun book. To think about what would go into building it and what that means to humanity is humbling.
Other notables:
Imperial star destroyer
My pick was already mentioned (Rocinante) so for second place I'm gonna mention the Galactica.
BS Galactica was so cool. It was so sad in the last season how beat up it was. Amazing show
Oldie but a goodie: the Star Fury fighter from Babylon 5.
While I know it's easy to hate on everything MCU these days, I do still absolutely love the Milano from Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2. The design doesn't feel practical at all, but it's still a really fun to look at and agile ship, which is something a lot of sci fi doesn't really depict very well.
IMO, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2 are the best movies Marvel has ever maked
Ragnarok enters the chat.
The Pat Benatar was also so much fun to look at. It just looks like a ship you would want to make your home, like Serenity.
The USS Defiant. Coolest ship in Starfleet.
The Yamato!
https://youtu.be/zNT3un2JmJU?si=t0GrB3x07IsN-5Rn
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The Yggdrasill from Hyperion.
The one from The Fountain was kinda similar. It was unique enough to stick with me over the years anyway.
I don't know if Ringworld really counts as a ship but I loved that too. The Out Of Band 2 from A Fire Upon The Deep seemed like it would be pretty baddass. Or the alien ship from Rendezvous with Rama.
I really like the Nostromo from Alien (1979). The Icarus II from Sunshine (2007) is pretty cool, too.
Yay! The Nostromo finally gets a mention. The attention to detail in the ship is amazing and a whole new set of warning symbols were designed for it.
The Rocinante is an obvious pick.
I also really like the ships in Starfield, mainly because I'm a cassette futurism shill.
The Slave I
Sorry I meant: Boba Fett's Ship 🙃
How the fuck could they not even give it a new name?! One of my favorites as well.
Hard sci-fi: The Rocinante
Floppy sci-f: The A-Wing
I don't have any spaceships. Thanks for reminding me. 😩
We have a number of shuttles
https://youtu.be/5mIB22tkhZE?si=XJDyAdkZGco8bndc
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Space Battleship Yamato, original model
Serenity. Just the nicest "home" you can keep flying.
Penny Royal, from Neal Asher's Technician and Dark Intelligence.
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There's a lot of ships I like in sci-fi, but the one that comes to mind at the moment is the garfish-class cruiser in robotech
Or if we're talking about real spacecraft here, I like the soyuz (and really the whole r-7 derived rocket family to be honest), as I like the look of it's side boosters and the four engine bells on each engine
Definitely the Enterprise-E absolutely perfect.
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/enterprise-e-c68e0b0a794446a1ae04ebf564b41b16
Honourable mention to the Roci though
Indeed, doesn't make me miss the D any less, though.
Eyyyy
Certainly not the Event Horizon 😈
“I’ll take the Lewis and Clark to a safe distance, and then I will launch TAC missiles at the Event Horizon until I'm satisfied she's vaporized. Fuck this ship!”
"Careful, that's not a load bearing structure!" CRUNCH "It is now."
The Kiith Somtaaw Archangel-class Dreadnought
I'll pick the Bowie from Guardians of the Galaxy.
It's a fast ship that can flown solo, but also comfortably carry six people with their own quarters. It's fast, can cloak itself and defend itself from anything it can't outrun or hide from.
I don't want a big starship that needs a big crew to fly. But, I don't want a small ship that can't carry guests.
Since Roci is everywhere...
Do Gundam count? Aerial or Quiet Zero are pretty baller
It's "favorite," not "OP," so sure. I like the ST film Birds of Prey, just for sheer awesome aesthetic.
The Nomandy from Mass Effect
Lakon Spaceways Diamondback Explorer. Hands down. Like a little cicada with huge fucking engines hanging out of it. Cozy way to map the galaxy.
Asp Explorer took me far, far along the Perseus arm of the galaxy. All my paint was worn off when I finally got back to civilization!
I never liked the shape of the Asp, but that cockpit was so much nicer for exploring.
The Thunder Road
Now that's a deep cut.
Despite the many, many problems with the show, I'd say The Lexx.
Swims Against the Current in a Stream Reflecting the Sun
Discovery (2001) and Leonov (2010).
Or, from system shock 2, the Von Braun and the Rickenbacker.
... you know what, they're spaceships, so all of them.
Odyssee class!
The Ebon Hawk
The Phalanx
Rebel Blockade Runner, mostly because it's the first ship you really see in A New Hope and my first interaction with the Star Wars franchise as a kid in the early 90s.
That's how I think of it too, but apparently it's a CR-90 Corellian Corvette. I imagine that info was created later and didn't exist for the first movie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantive_IV
Oh there you go. It was definitely called a Blockade Runner in the micro-machines set from the 90s!
Yup! Here it is:
https://figurerealm.com/actionfigure?action=actionfigure&id=88023&figure=anewhope
I had a lot of these sets, and I think this one in particular.
Makes most sense that blockade runner is a description of the role it's being used for, same way you can describe any car as a taxi if that's how you're using it.
Starship Velociraptor
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Starfury from Babylon 5
The wedge ships belonging to the Chitzas in the books from the "quantum series" by Douglas Phillips. they were bad ass ships ran by badass little porcupine dudes. They were able to travel beyond the visible universe in hours. The books were so much fun.
The Millennium Falcon ofc.
Followed closely by The Razor Crest.
The lexx of course it's the most powerful ship in both universes.
The USS Crawlspace!
SDF1
Le Romano Fafard
I've always had a strange affinity for Dark Star.
Lambda-class T-4a shuttle
I remember seeing it for the first time and falling in love with sci-fi forever
It's so hard to choose one, but I'll say that I'm a sucker for the Enterprise-E (this is just what I can think of right now)
the Far Star
Specifically, Serenity. 👍
Ever since I was a kid, I've always wanted to own one of these. I just find them extremely aesthetically appealing.
Guild Heighliner and First Light
Tennhausen from Rebel Galaxy.