Fusion Powered Spacecraft

Fantasy is great, but what will real spaceships look like? That’s what I was aiming for when producing these images – the proverbial "serious spaceship" design…

If we ever want to go anywhere farther than our own moon, we’re going to have to get serious about propulsion! A nuclear fusion powered craft is what you really want for traveling around the solar system in a reasonable amount of time (weeks as opposed to years).

Dumping excess heat and shielding the crew from the exhaust radiation are key challenges inherent in a fusion drive – hence the large shield/radiator at the rear of the craft…

“2001”: a Space Odyssey” was a major influence on the “look” of the ship, particularly the crew module at the front.

For those of you interested in such details, the 3D model is about 900,000 polygons...