History Main / ISOStandardHumanSpaceship

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/RScreen0045_502.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:It's a flying brick. [[MoreDakka With guns]].]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' with the exception of the Mothership.

** It was also stated at one point to be about 5 miles long, 3 miles wide, and clearly had a roughly hexagonal cross-section. And apparently a crew of only 169 (or [[Retcon 1,169]]).

On the other hand, the products of the emerging private spaceflight industry often feature curvilinear quasi-retro stylings which bear a close resemblance to [[RetroRocket early sci-fi rockets]] of the zeerust school. Contrast the lines of the [=Scaled Composites SpaceShip=] series with those of the Soyuz capsules, or even with the Space Shuttle. (Mind you, the [=SpaceShip=] series are just pop-up suborbitals, and reentry from Mach 3 ([=SpaceShipOne=]) or 4 ([=SpaceShipTwo=]) is between 40 and 70 times less energetic (and thus easier) than reentry from orbital velocity. [=SpaceX=]'s [[http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php Dragon]] is orbital, and quite chunky-looking. On the other hand, an [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stage-to-orbit SSTO]] usually has enough empty space inside to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_coefficient#Satellites_and_reentry_vehicles greatly ease the pain of reentry]], and while you can still get [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X fairly]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VentureStar blunt]] designs, you can also get [[http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/skylon.html this]]...)

** [[FridgeLogic Despite the fact]] they only ever seem to carry one small box, or large crate at best, per delivery (except when they carried several barrels of candy hearts to Omicron Persei VIII).
*** [[FridgeBrilliance Of course]], they're never depicted as being a particularly ''competent'' delivery company.
**** One episode gives their takings from the year as 1/3 from their deliveries, and 2/3 from an $8 bank error in their favour.
*** They specialize in shipping things to dangerous or hazardous areas where the demand is high and supply is low, and presumably Hermes keeps the professor from shipping too much to keep up the recurring business.

* The mile-long ''[=ISV=] Venture Star'' from ''{{Film/Avatar}}'' is designed to be realistic from a presently envisaged engineering standpoint, as a pure starship, never intended to enter an atmosphere. It's optimized for minimal mass, and thus has a wiry hollow look focused around the pair of giant front-mounted antimatter annihilation engines, with huge radiator panels glowing visibly to dissipate the engines' heat produced, and massive spherical fuel tanks carrying fuel and reaction mass for the relativistic ship. The relatively tiny habitation and cargo modules, pair of ''Valkyrie'' shuttles and even tinier artificial-gravity crew compartments are all dragged along behind. The Valkyries themselves are [=SSTO=]s, designed for atmospheric flight, and are thus fairly sleek winged designs.

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]

* ''d20 Future'' (ScienceFiction expansion to ''{{d20 Modern}}'') generally presents this as the “default” look for spaceships.

* In [[{{Warhammer 40000}} Battle Fleet Gothic]], the trope is inverted in that the ships of the Tau fit this trope. The Tau have "only just" started traveling between worlds, compared to other races, so their ships have that same early utilitarian feel that a lot of current space vehicles and those from [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 20 minutes into the future]] have. Human ships, on the other hand, are space cathedrals.

* ''{{Infinite Space}}'': mostly averted, especially in Adis, where the ships are both extremely funky-looking and pink, but it does happen: the Freedom and Nebula in particular are both grey, flying bricks.

[[AC: Webcomics]]

[[AC: Western Animation]]

* Played straight for the Colonials in ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaOnline''. Cylons, on the other hand, tend to use more sleek lines and curves. It is lampshaded with the Wraith, which is a MightyGlacier Cylon craft described InUniverse as resembling human design principles.

* Played straight for the Colonials in ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaOnline''. Cylons, on the other hand, tend to use more sleek lines and curves.

#While not required, visibly being constructed from riveted metal plates is encouraged, as is [[StarTrek Borg cube]]-like details called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble greebles or nurnies]].

* The rectangular aspect is averted in ''StarTrek'', but they're definitely grey metal plates.

* The Terrans in ''GalacticCivilizations'' by default have a ship aesthetic midway between ''StarTrek'' and ''{{Babylon 5}}'', with mainly rectangular shapes and stuff taken from this trope's catalogue with bluntly triangular wings, chunky radar dishes, large and blocky externals. Unless you reset the colour scheme, Terran vehicles come painted white and blue. When [[DesignItYourselfEquipment building your own]], you can use far weirder-looking alien components to make them less blocky.

Despite living in several unrelated continuities, it seems that human engineers in science fiction have managed to agree on two standards for ship designs.

#Human spaceships should be grey. While some important parts may be coloured, the majority of the spaceship should be the colour of unpainted metal.
** Ships in anime may be painted blue instead.

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 [[SpacePlane intended to work in atmosphere as well]] (like [[BattlestarGalactica 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 [[SpaceIsCold staying cool,]] similar to the way that skyscrapers in the southern USA and other hot places tend to be designed with reflective glass exteriors.

* {{Traveller}} : There is no standard for traveller; it depends on function and aesthetic taste and there are myriads of possible ship designs(indeed some traveller fans mainly like designing ships). Ships made to actually land on and take off from a planet generally have a "needle/wedge" design which looks something like a space shuttle. However this requires sacrifice in payload and the heaviest ships are generally serviced in orbit.
** The Lightning-class ships a multipurpose merchant/scout/privateer built by the Terrans for viking like voyages into Vilani space is a handsome ship that looks like a long wedge with short stubby wings.
** One cool(but not unlikely in RealLife) gimmick on Traveller ships is a programmable surface that can be used to display a giant "screen-saver". These are available both inside and outside. Another gimmick is the Shipboard Information System which is sort of the ships internet. This means that one can picture much of the dialogue of a given Traveller story taking place online from [=PCs=] and [=NPCs=] all over the ship, which can make for an interesting plot device and one not yet familiar to SpaceOpera .

** And due to unpopularity with the fans, the new Tau fleet follows a more graceful, anime-inspired design.

** {{Justified|Trope}} because each race's ships reflect their standardized personality.

-->Minmatar: Freed slaves. So all “older” ship designs should look like junk heaps as that's all they had to work with

* ''{{Halo}}'', the UNSC ships are boxy in shape, in contrast to the curvy purple flowing aesthetics of the Covenant. Acts as a visual reference for both how far advanced the Covenant ships are compared to the clumsy human vessels, as well as their ScaryDogmaticAliens status verus the practical human military.
* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' with the exception of the Mothership.

* ''TachyonTheFringe'' has this for the [[LaResistance Bora]], whose warships are hastily-converted cargo haulers and mining ships. Some of the designs aren't so functional, though, like the ''Battleaxe''-class fighters, which prominently feature a sharpened ''blade'' on the top. Mostly averted with other ships, although freighters still have an elongated, blocky look. [[MegaCorp GalSpan]], notably, has sleek-looking ships with wings (fighters) and the blue-and-white color scheme.

* ''{{Civilization}} III'', true to its fame of having everything dead realistic, lets you build an UN Unity spaceship that more or less looks like an extremely huge rocket. This has a practical reason though: the Unity requires an aerodynamic shape in order to cut through the Earth's atmosphere.

*** They specialize in shipping things to dangerous or hazardous areas where the demand is high and supply is low, and presumably Hermes keeps the professor from shipping too much to keep up the recurring business.

* The RedDwarf is painted red, but that only serves to make it look ''more'' like a giant, flying brick.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' games, the Argon, Terran, and Teladi ships all follow this.
** In particular the Terran 'AGI Task Force' or ATF seem to have taken this trope to heart with the Tyr Destroyer, and Odin Carrier, both gunmetal grey boxes with engines.

[[quoteright:256:[[EveOnline http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/EveOnlineDrake_9460.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:256:State Certification Approved]]

Existing spacecraft have so far had a mixed record: modern rockets and atmospheric landers tend to be white and ærodynamic, but blockier than sci-fi space fighters and only sometimes winged. Craft designed solely for vacuum are totally unærodynamic, but extremely spidery and jumbled, covered in reflective foil (for heat management) and held together by networks of pipes and struts, looking much less solid than sci-fi capships.

* Pretty much averted in the first ''EscapeVelocity'', which (in part due to the simple models) had ships with ærodynamic, rather anime-like shapes. Later games (especially Terrans and Voinians in ''Override'', Federation and Aurorans in ''Nova'') conformed more and more closely to this.

* ''MassEffect'' averts this: the Normandy SR-1 and SR-2, the main ships in the series so far, are non-conventionally shaped, though vaguely reminiscent of rocket ship designs, and always brightly painted white. This is sort of justified, however, by the fact that visual recognition in space is almost impossible, so it doesn't really matter what color the ship is painted. Other ships featured in the series tend to follow the same philosophy, and the ''Destiny's Ascension'' is essentially a [[http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091227112424/masseffect/images/e/e8/DestinyAscensionFlyby.png big flying cross]] [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090207040549/masseffect/images/2/2b/MassEffect_2008-08-13_12-37-43-71.png with an oval cut out of the middle.]]

* ''{{Stargate}}'' : The [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/c/c0/F302.jpg F-302]] is essentially a forward-swept flying wing with jet and rocket engines. The [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/2/2a/X-303.jpg Prometheus]] and the [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/3/3e/ApolloOverEarth.jpg 304 deep-space carriers]] however, being built out of a naquadah/trinium alloy, fit this trope perfectly.

** Averted with ''{{Crusade}}'''s [[http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Excalibur Excalibur]], although it must be said it was a joint human/Minbari project.
* ''{{Firefly}}'' mostly averts this trope, with the majority of ships seen having either a large cylindrical design or a smaller, more agile (but still not blocky) design, such as with Serenity herself. However, the ships do tend to have very metallic appearances, and several of the ships briefly shown do fit the trope better than the larger Alliance vessels and Serenity.

* ''BabylonFive'' : Humorously lampshaded in “Legend of the Rangers” with the human design of the [[http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Valen_(ship) Valen]] looking like “a flying brick.” ([[FlyingBrick No relation]].)

** Probably the reason the later design of the new [[http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Valen_class_cruiser ''Valen'']] in ''[[Babylon5TheLostTales The Lost Tales]]'' was made to look more Minbari with their patented triple-fin look.