Pre-ENT era warpship

I was inspired a while back by the ship we barely see just before the Enterprise in the opening credits. All you can tell as it streaks by is that there is a saucer attached to the front of a lifting body-type aft section. I started to try to recreate it, but I decided to go my own way, mostly because there are way to many greeblies on the underside of that ship!

Anyway, my ship exists before ENT, in the time when efficient SSTO engines weren't quite small enough for a shuttle. So, this ship is a compromise between warp capabilities (the saucer section) and aerodynamic capabilities (lifting body shape). Even the saucer section gives some lift. This ship would travel mostly between planets with atmospheres, especially between Earth and Mars at any point in their orbits.

For now, I've stolen the nacelles from my Aldrin since I suck at nacelles. It needs some other details and refinements, but let me know what you guys think!
ent-spaceplane1.jpg

B.J.

[skyhawk223]

Nice work. Looks about the size of the current shuttle. Any room for cargo, or is it only a people carrier?

[Thomas P]

Nice lines and looks right for the period (based on the opening sequence from ENT).

One comment:
The ship appears to have thermal protection on the hull and wings but the warp nacells are exposed.

[Chris B]

Originally posted by Thomas P

One comment:
The ship appears to have thermal protection on the hull and wings but the warp nacells are exposed.

i completely agree, with these nacelles it looks kinda kitbahsed. other than that it's fine

I like it a lot. I didn't notice that ship on the credits had a lifting body. I tried to figure it out, but I guess my head wasn't thinking in that direction.

Since it's so small, try imagining the internals at this stage so you can refine the exterior...otherwise once it's all done you have to make things fit in less than ideal circumstances.

TP: True, they don't have any protection, but neither did the nacelles on Archer's model in Broken Bow. But....

X: I did infer that the nacelles are temporary, until I come up with something better.

B: I've thought about what the interior would look like, but I usually end up agreeing with myself that it's more work than I want to put into this. In real life I have to define hardware, so I like to take the artistic route in my personal time. As for less than ideal circumstances, that's what real aerospace design is all about. You have to compromise to get something to integrate with everything else.* And I do believe someone once said "a compromise is a solution nobody is happy with."

* Real life example: I was part of a team that had to redesign the F/A-18E/F flaps and ailerons for buffet loads. This required a much beefier design than before, but it still had to fit within the same envelope.

B.J.

I can't argue with that BJ_0, but then you end up with things like the TOS Enterprise shuttle interior is bigger than the exterior. Or the interior of the Millenium Falcon doesn't fit inside the exterior...etc, etc.

[General Phoenix]

Perhaps the ship is just "dimensionally transcendental" like the Doctor's TARDIS.

If you went that route, you could give the crew a football stadium...

Small update:
ent-spaceplane2.jpg
Added the landing gear and a person for scale. Also gave it new nacelles, as well as various other details. The ship is about 74 meters in length, just about the size of a 747 (71 meters).

B.J.

[Commodore-SirJohn]

So, what, a crew of 3 and about 50 passengers? That would leave plenty of room for engines, fuel, and consumables...

Love the design. A great blend of the space shuttle and the NX-01. :thumbsup:
I was wondering if the nacelles would be designed somewhat closer the Phenoix's nacelles. Just a thought. Keep up the excellent work!

Final update here. I like how it is now, so I pretty much just added a front view. I'm posting a link instead of an image because the final image size is 1600 pixels wide. I needed it that wide to get a decent amount of detail to show.
ent-spaceplane3.gif

B.J.

[Thomas P]

Looks great. Nice size comp, the front view looks like a RBoP .

[General Phoenix]

Hell, that even makes a good desktop!