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.
27While not exactly a space ship, I'd say Thunderbird 2
17The 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.
15The Swordfish from Cowboy Bebop. I recently bought a rather expensive model of it. Totally worth it though.
13Daedalus.
13I am mildly obsessed with the Saturn V. It's just such a feat of engineering and human cooperation.
13BC-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
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.
13A-wing Interceptor from Star Wars.
11The 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)
10Definitely the Soyuz, it's hard to beat the safest and most reliable spacecraft
If we're talking fictional I'd say Serenity, I love what's essentially a tramp steamer in space with little nooks and crannies for less than legitimate cargo
10Oldie but a goodie: the Star Fury fighter from Babylon 5.
9Imperial star destroyer
9While 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.
9The USS Defiant. Coolest ship in Starfleet.
9The Intrepid class of star ships.
8There'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
7The Yamato!
7Space Battleship Yamato, original model
Serenity. Just the nicest "home" you can keep flying.
Penny Royal, from Neal Asher's Technician and Dark Intelligence.
7Hard sci-fi: The Rocinante
Floppy sci-f: The A-Wing
7The 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.
7Definitely the Enterprise-E absolutely perfect.
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/enterprise-e-c68e0b0a794446a1ae04ebf564b41b16
Honourable mention to the Roci though
7The Rocinante is an obvious pick.
I also really like the ships in Starfield, mainly because I'm a cassette futurism shill.
6I'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.
6The Ebon Hawk
5Despite the many, many problems with the show, I'd say The Lexx.
4Odyssee class!
4Swims Against the Current in a Stream Reflecting the Sun
4The Phalanx
4I always liked the Nostromo's design.
4Francisco Franco's PM, Luis Carrero Blanco's car turning him into a Good Fascist™ and Spain's first astronaut
4I have real soft spots for the Ghost from Star Wars Rebels and the Normandy from Mass Effect.
For the Ghost though, I really love its strange shape, the WW2 bomber tail gun, and the attached shuttle. It's both so typically Star Wars and yet still new.
4Discovery (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.
4The Nomandy from Mass Effect
4The lexx of course it's the most powerful ship in both universes.
3The 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.
3SDF1
3The USS Crawlspace!
3Mega maid. Commence suction.
3Lambda-class T-4a shuttle
I remember seeing it for the first time and falling in love with sci-fi forever
2Rama
2I've always had a strange affinity for Dark Star.
2Le Romano Fafard
2It'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)
1the Far Star
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