Starlight-space-autistic - Space Autistic

northern lights photographed from space

In the Future, Starships WILL be Spheres

In scifi, a lot of starships are spheres. The first person to ever have a sphere ship was probably E.E. Smith in the Skylark series (started around 1928), though he believed spaceships would have to be streamlined to get less resistance when traveling through space. In the 1920s, space was believed to be a lot “thicker” with H+ atoms (essentially, a loose proton). In reality, space only has a proton in 10^28 cubic centimeters, so streamlining in space is unnecessary. This was also why the Bussard Ramscoop, a particle collector at one point seen as the solution to the issue of energy in space travel in the 70s, was ultimately unworkable, as space is a lot “thinner” than we all thought.

The person most associated with popularizing spherical starships is Larry Niven, who made a pretty airtight argument for why spaceships would be spheres: if you remember your high school geometry, you know that a sphere is the shape with the lowest ratio of volume to minimal surface area. For this reason, hot air balloons are also spheres, to use the least amount of fabric possible. Because geometry is exactly the same all over the universe, Niven argued that any alien race we encounter would have spherical starships as well. 

The Mermaid Nebula Supernova Remnant Image Credit: Neil Corke

Ohio Total Solar Eclipse

Futurama, Godfellas

"Now, when I'm found in a million years, people will know what the score was." - Bender

The plaque affixed to the side of the sides of the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecrafts in 1972 & 1973. The Pioneer spacecrafts were the first anythings of human origin to be destined to leave our solar system. Both probes did a lot of research within our solar system before skedaddling off into infinity.

NASA’s new images of Uranus captured by James Webb Space Telescope (2024)

Star trail. Old French fairy tales. c.1920. Spot illustration.

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