Comments on: How big is your starship

By: Dr.L

Dr.L — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:55:27 +0000

what about the ori & wraith hive ships & other ships of the stargate universe! who are the largest ships of all.

if the wraith hive ships is 13times larger then the Odyssey? there the second largest then who is the biggest?

By: Itsomi

Itsomi — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:29:50 +0000

ok, for Pat Harris, the galactica would kick ass.
for Magnum, burn in hell.
as for everyone else, you all seem to be complainign about whats NOT on the poster, as to what is.
i know barely 1/5th of the ships on that chart, namely the starwars, independence day, firefly, battlestar galactica, starship troopers and 2001: a space odesy.
but this chart is a work of art, i soo want a wall sized one 4 my room.

and as everyone is saying whats not on, wheres the deadaelus, prometheus, daniel jackson-class, o’niel-class, alkesh, F-302 and deathgliders? in actual fact, more stargate ships flat!

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:57:14 +0000

Oops, I missed the post near the top of the comments.

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:48:39 +0000

This site has a whole heap: http://www.merzo.net/

By: Tracy

Tracy — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:52:05 +0000

I must be half asleep…

I meant: an interior dimensional size that is essentially near-infinite.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:49:54 +0000

>>I donâ€™t think thatâ€™s how the TARDIS works. More like that it moves along dimensions, though in an odd manner.

Actually the TARDIS is a Transdimensional Construct, with a default gray-cabinet exterior, and an exterior dimensional size that is essentially near-inifite. It is in many respects, a microuniverse of its own. Technologically wise, it is near-indestructable; you need technological equivalents (something that can effect it on its level,) to do any sort of damage to it. The way the Original Series suggests, you’d probably need a supernova typer explosion (with the TARDIS at the center,) to destroy it.

As for movement, this is accomplished via access into the 5th Dimension (or as the show calls it, the Spacio-Temporal Vortex, Space-Time Vortex, or just simply, the Vortex.) A TARDIS dematerializes into the Vortex, traverses through it, and rematerializes into another spacio-temporal point.

By: Pat Harris

Pat Harris — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:38:29 +0000

Years ago…I got in trouble at high school debating too loudly in the library on whether the Battle Star Galatica could beat the USS Enterprise in a stand up fight!

The debate was unresolved and we all got 2 days detention!

Yes….too geeky by far!

By: jess tauber

jess tauber — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:08:05 +0000

Votes to the bad guy’s Worldship in Andromeda (with its own SUN in the center), and the bad guy’s ship in Independence Day (a quarter the mass of the moon…?).

And by the way, when they blow up the alien mothership in the latter with a simple nuclear device (I guess it just triggered their atmosphere or something), isn’t all that crap hitting the earth the equivalent of massive planetary bombardment? Aren’t we all going to roast, not to mention asphyxiate should we survive the heat?

But I think the biggest ships out there will turn out to be the Magellanic Clouds, which obviously are under their own power. Beat that.

By: Smacklug

Smacklug — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:31:37 +0000

Freespace should be in there

By: DennyMo

DennyMo — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:49:40 +0000

I once saw a chart like this that included ships from the “Honorverse”, I’ll have to dig around to see if I can find it…

By: NelC

NelC — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:18:58 +0000

Nigel, the situation you described does apply to the Ringworld, so I understand. Which is why Niven had to retcon attitude jets on the thing.

By: icemith

icemith — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:43:09 +0000

To Jack Hagety re comment to Thomas Siefert, (hi both), not ‘only in England’, but to the contrary, only in America, or more precisely, USA, is it spelt without the second ‘i’. The rest of the world follows the longer version, though I’m sure the Canadians could be excused if they are ambivalent.

Ivan.

By: DrNathaniel

DrNathaniel — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:44:46 +0000

> Dr.Goulu Says:
>January 17th, 2007 at 10:57 pm

>Well, â€œeverything is relativeâ€ according to a famous swiss physicist.
>So what does â€œlengthâ€ mean when those ships travel at light speed ? Zero length. And most >of those ships can travel fater than lightâ€¦ negative length ?

Cool. They all appear to be travel backwards!

Actually, they would all glow like mad things due to the Cherenkov radiation. Never thought of that before.

By: msmith40

msmith40 — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:33:36 +0000

What? No mothership from ‘Close Encounters’?

Infidels!!!

And how about the ship from ‘Childhood’s End’? That would be cool to see.

I have to go now.
Staples is having a sale on pocket protectors.

Live long, and prosper.

msmith40

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:24:51 +0000

I didn’t think Thunderbird 1 was a spaceship either?

And surely there should be Pixel or two for the infinitely improbable Heart Of Gold?

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:32:38 +0000

John Powell said:
“Uh, right that it is unstable, wrong about the positive feedback. The gravitational attraction of the hollow sphere balances at every point – the part you are closest too attracts stronger, but it is always exactly balanced by the greater proportion of the shell that is farther away. The reason that this is unstable is that once in motion, there is nothing to *stop* the star from colliding with the shell.”

I stand corrected.

By: Jack Hagerty

Jack Hagerty — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:03:23 +0000

Blake Stacey Says: “They make a serious error in saying that the USS Discovery of 2001: A Space Odyssey is 98.75 meters long”

and

Grand Lunar Says: “IIRC, in the novel, Discovery is supposed to be slender and 100 meters long.”

and

Rob Says: “A great site!! What about Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds 3 & 5 though? Indeed Iâ€™d love to see all the Gerry Anderson ships included.”

If you will permit me a shameless commercial plug, there is a reference book for all of these (and about 70 more). It’s called “Spaceship Handbook” and it is now back in print after a year away. For more info, click on my name at the top.

To answer the question on Discovery, in the movie the length was 363 feet long (110 meters), which is, coincidentally, the same length as the Saturn V moon rocket. In some of the early versions, the length was listed as long as 700 feet (213 meters). For the book, we scaled the ship length off of the image of a Pod emerging from the Pod bay. There are plenty of shots of those with people standing next to them for scale.

BTW, the drawings in the book are some of the most complete and detailed of the ship. They were done with the review and approval of Fred Ordway and Simon Atkinson.

And for Rob, Thunderbirds 1, 3 and 5 are detailed with drawings. TB 2 and 4 are described, but they are not spaceships.

- Jack

By: Jack Hagerty

Jack Hagerty — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:45:02 +0000

Thomas Siefert Says: “To antaresrichard: I thought it was called Muin Imula.”

Only in England.

- Jack

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:38:11 +0000

Mine is bigger than yours…combined

Star Wars
Galactic Empire
Executor Class
17484 meters

Battlestar Galactica
12 Colonies of Man
Columbia Class
1265 meters

Battlestar Galactica
Cylon Empire
Base Star
1768 meters (approximate)

By: Tim G

Tim G — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:29:25 +0000

If I recall correctly, the giant cylindrical ship in Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Rama, was 50km long and 20km in diameter. Since 1999, there has been an ongoing speculation that a movie based on the novel is about to be produced with Morgan Freeman in the cast. According to IMDB.com, such a movie will not be out until at least 2009.

By: ABR

ABR — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:21:06 +0000

Thanks, Ozprof, for verifying that I wasn’t the only one thinking about Quark’s ship (not the Ferengi, the other one).

Plus, someone mentioned Perry Rhodan a while back…why not E.E. Doc Smith’s ships as well?

For that matter….Dark Star anyone?

Oh, what the heck, Salvage 1!

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:54:01 +0000

A great site!! What about Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds 3 & 5 though? Indeed I’d love to see all the Gerry Anderson ships included.

Thanks for the heads up Phil.

By: Ozprof

Ozprof — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:41:46 +0000

What about the United Galaxies Sanitation Patrol cruiser? How could something that important be left out?????

http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/quark/galery1/quark21.jpg

By: Nick Greene

Nick Greene — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:35:12 +0000

You’re my hero. I mean, I’m already a fan of your logical thinking and no BS writing, but anyone who references Firefly, one of the coolest shows ever destroyed by a clueless network, is definitely alright in my book.

Maybe if Joss had made a few references to the legendary “President George Bush” or explained the fallacy of global warming, Fox would have appreciated the show more.

By: John Powell

John Powell — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:23:38 +0000

“Nigel Depledge Says:
January 18th, 2007 at 5:22 am
A Dyson sphere, as a rigid entity, is intrinsically unstable. Think about it – one tiny little movement off-centre, and the gravitational attraction to the star becomes stronger on one side than the other. This starts a positive feedback loop that ends when the sphere contacts the star and is destroyed.”

Uh, right that it is unstable, wrong about the positive feedback. The gravitational attraction of the hollow sphere balances at every point – the part you are closest too attracts stronger, but it is always exactly balanced by the greater proportion of the shell that is farther away. The reason that this is unstable is that once in motion, there is nothing to *stop* the star from colliding with the shell.