History Main / StandardHumanSpaceship

** The USS ''Defiant'' and her sister ships from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' is significantly closer to this trope. There's two reasons for this: InUniverse, ''Defiant'' is the first purpose-built warship Starfleet has built in a long while (as opposed to a JackOfAllStats like the other series' lead starships), a heavy corvette designed for the sole purpose of attacking Borg ships, and is stripped down to a set of guns, an armored hull, and engines. Out-of-universe, the concept art wasn't originally for a Starfleet ship at all (the ''Defiant'''s original design became the ''Nova''-class in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''), but rather concept art for the Maquis raider (flown by guerrillas revolting against the Federation and using any ship they could get).

* In the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' games, the human ships have varied between the utilitarian, blocky gray designs of ''Wing Commander III'' and onwards, and more curvy designs of the earlier games. (''Wing Commander III'' and ''IV'' used a primitive polygon UsefulNotes/GameEngine, as opposed to the first two installments' bitmap sprite graphics.) In all the games featuring the [[MegaNeko Kilrathi]], most of the designs have a base tan color with various “warm” colors used for markings, but [[AllThereInTheManual the manual notes that the color is the color of the metals used for their armor]], and their designs almost universally are shaped to suggest bladed weapons or claws.

* ''{{Film/Interstellar}}'' zig-zags this trope. The main spaceship, ''Endurance'', heavily downplays it. It has somewhat blocky rectangular modules, but they are painted white ([[ShownTheirWork just like real space stations, to reflect excessive heat and sunlight]]) and arranged in a circular [[VisualMetaphor clock face-like]] pattern to enable ArtificialGravity.
** The ''Lander'' vehicle, however, plays this trope pretty much completely straight, with a very blocky and angular silhouette ([[HandWave to create drag for slowing it down in an atmosphere]]), a generally utilitarian look, a very metallic texture, and painted a drab gray. Doesn’t mean it’s ugly, though.
** The ''Ranger'' SpacePlane [[spoiler: and its future successors seen near the ending]] averts this trope completely, with a very sleek aerodynamic wedge-like shape, reminiscent of a very flattened Space Shuttle, with a similar black-and white colour palette to boot. It still appears quite utilitarian, but in a very different way.

* Pretty much averted in the first ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'', which (in part due to the simple models) had ships with aerodynamic, rather anime-like shapes. Later games (especially humans and Voinians in ''Override'', Federation and Aurorans in ''Nova'') conformed more and more closely to this.
** Hilariously, Voinian ships conformed closer to this than the ''human'' ships -- the human ships tended to have more non-grey colours and smoother lines.

* TruthInTelevision to an extent. Real spacecraft are extremely utilitarian, for obvious reasons. Pretty much all of them consist of bare grey pieces of metal riveted together (paint is extra weight and probably wouldn't survive the conditions anyway). The shape depends on the intended function, but most satellites and probes consist of either a cuboid or cylinder, with solar panels, radio dishes, and so on attached as required. There's not much reason to think this would change if interplanetary or interstellar travel became common. After all, ships and planes are still mainly designed to work first and look good a distant second.\\\

* In the ''Literature/{{Nameless War}}'' setting Human ships are noted for their blocky appearance but given that they are neither designed for, nor capable of atmospheric flight, the additional difficulty of constructing rounded hull plates hardly seems worth the effort. Although most human warships are equipped with 'wings' to provide additional radiating surfaces and mountings for maneuvering engines which gain from the additional leverage. The author has also produced a number of separate books detailing the design and service histories of ships within the setting.
* In ''Literature/TheExpanse'' large spaceships that are never intended to land are described as looking like "office buildings", since they don't have to worry about aerodynamics and inertia is the main source of artificial gravity.

* {{Discussed}} in ''Literature/{{Aeon 14}}''. 5th millennium Sol Space Federation ships, including the colony ship ISS ''Intrepid'' around which the first series revolves, actually avert this (even in military vessels), designed with aesthetics as a secondary concern to functionality but still considered. 9th millennium characters consider their own vessels ugly and utilitarian by comparison.