This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Red Shoe: On the other hand, maybe this is right; Space is fairly clean. It's not like the ship is going to be flying through a lot of mud puddles. And interstellar particulate matter isn't going to adhere to the the ship the way dust and grime adheres to things on a planet. Real space vehicles tend to only get stuff on them as a result of atmospheric flight (Burn marks, mostly)
Gus: Actually, I don't come up with an example made in the last decade. Is this really still an issue?
Red Shoe: Seems like Babylon Five was pretty clean. Andromeda too. In the Stargate universe, Daedalus and Prometheus are clean, so are Goa'uld ships, though Wraith ships seem pretty grimy. Also, Atlantis itself is pretty clean, and it's technically an intergalactic space ship.
Tzintzuntzan: I think Shiny-Looking Spaceships really are illogical; while space rarely gets the outside of a spaceship dirty, the inside of a spaceship should have at least some days where human habitation leaves its mark.
Ununnilium: Wait. Wouldn't ships flying through space suffer micrometeorite damage? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometeorite
LTR: Yes, but in a lot of cases the "weathering" on a ship doesn't accurately reflect the kind of wear it would encounter. It's just a consequnence of being familiar with how things like cars, diesel trucks and locomotives on earth collect grime and dust as they move around and just carrying that over to space ships.
Ununnilium: Yeah, but pristine-ness, even on the outside, isn't realistic either (unless the ship has some kind of anti-micrometeor forcefield, which it probably will if it has the tech level).
Susan Davis: I should point out that there are quite a few examples of real spaceships in existence. Seen any mud on 'em? The insides of the Apollo modules got fairly dusty after the astronauts had been out tracking around in the lunar regolith, but orbit-only ships tend to stay clean. Among other things, dirt on a spaceship tends to get into the equipment and make it not work so well, so great pains are taken to ensure that everything is immaculate. Furthermore, dirt and dust would get into the life support system, with even more severe consequences.
Susan Davis: That said, I disagree that "almost all" ships are Shiny-Looking Spaceships any more. The Used Future seems much more common, at least in recent series (Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Babylon 5, et al). I also disagree that Babylon 5 is an example of this trope at all — if anything, it stretched the bounds of credibility by having the station look dingy before it opened.
Unknown Troper: Just to inquire, where would a newly launched Battlestar sit? I mean, it's not used, but it's not shiny either.
