werdna
Astroarchitect
All right, here it is! This is the Aries 3, a spiritual successor to the much beloved spacecraft models from 2001 A Space Odyssey. Unlike my previous model, this has much more potential to become an Orbiter addon due to the much smaller size, and that also means I can implement more detail in the final mesh if the addon ends up happening. I'm still not 100 percent sure. Like last time, I'm going to post some pictures and see what you guys think. I'll also take the liberty of posting some eye-candy which describes my semi-realistic concept for the engines. We're going to assume for all intents and purposes that this thing is at least 500 years or so away from being built. Don't worry, there's no artificial gravity or anything ridiculous, but because it travels at a constant acceleration when going from one place to the next, the cabin does account for gravity-bound situations. Also, it's not quite done yet.
Lets get to it!
This first picture is a lovely shadowed shot of Aries 3 from the outside with the landing gear up.
Here is the landing gear down. It will extend 4 meters or so each time. Notice the Lunar-lander-like gear which sticks into the ground (if it becomes necessary). Who knows where you're going to travel in this thing!
This is the entrance, of course, and we're peeking into the airlock.
Okay, bear with me now. At the top is the entrance from the airlock, which we would use when leaving. We are looking in the opposite direction as in the last picture. The two rooms on either side of the main hall (with walls that bulge outwards) are for storing spacesuits. I haven't done much with these, but I plan to make shelves or something.
Now, we are looking in the original direction of that third picture- on either side are space suit storage rooms and we can see the ships control room in front of us. Now, I know you are wondering what on earth is going on with the red walls? Well, the room is lit with red lights, and since I'm not using detailed textures here the walls are red colored. Remember the movie? There were actually quite a few red-light areas: The inactive docking area on Station V, the Aries 1b cockpit, the moonbus cockpit, the interiors of Discovery's pods, the Discovery emergency airlock, and even HAL's Logic Memory Center.
Note the array of monitors, as there are no windows on the spacecraft (then how can you run Orbiter! :lol: okay, bad joke). In the center of the picture is the elevator to the lower cabin.
Here is a better view of the cockpit, the monitors, and the chair you might recognize from my Space Station. Sometimes I'll reuse things. Why not?
Now, Aries 3 is ideally designed for 3 people, when it comes to longer trips. It could be configured for more people for short trips, but either way there only needs to be three seats up here.
Here is one more view of the cockpit. Note the space under the counter for your legs and feet. This ship would likely be computer controlled, although you could control it manually if you really wanted. In real life, I would imagine that for long trips, you would set up a trajectory and leave it at that. Some situations are shorter and may require user input, like deciding where you want to land as you approach a planet. I suppose that if this ship was in Orbiter you would "be the computer" as you pilot it.
Now, we'll get into the elevator, and go down to the lower level...
...and here we are!!! First, notice the wall padding, which is good in the event of a zero-g condition. Also, note the chair, which is also from the space station, but colored to the color of the chairs on board the Aries 1b. You can also get a glimpse of a bed, which is taken from the space station, although I modified/improved it further. The blue room on the right is the temperature controlled food storage room. We will get to this later.
A view of the cabin. Notice the sliver of green, this is the bathroom. We'll get to that too.
This is a top down view of the lower level. The table is also taken from my Station, and has been modified a bit.
This is a cabinet for storing personal belongings. There are three of these, and three beds, as you have seen in the last picture.
Here is one of the beds, with a clear acrylic door that opens and shuts. I don't think this is necessarily worth animating, but it would be cool to have one animation which opens and closes all the beds and cabinet doors.
Another view of the cabin. The couch is also from my space station.
The restroom. The sink is also from the space station. I guess that hand wipes will do in zero gravity. There would be cabinets behind the mirrors.
This is a "space toilet" or at least very much resembles one. I modeled this quite some time ago for another model and thought it could be useful here. The toilet paper is kind of a joke, as they have some other way of doing it in space. I'm not an expert on space toilets, so I'll leave it at that. The lid closes too, by the way.
The outside of the shower.
Inside the shower. It would work much like a normal shower in constant-acceleration/gravity bound situations. In zero g, a powerful fan would be located beneath the drain to suck out all the water. Then, the water would be filtered out. The air would also be recycled, and new air would be pumped into the shower at the same time the water is being drained. Also, note the shower is padded. Shampoo and soap would go into the space in the center of that one wall to the right, where a small cabinet would be.
Another look at the cabin.
The temperature controlled food room, where food supplies are stored. More complex shelving will be implemented in the future.
In the next post, I will go over the eye-candy, taking a look at the engine systems. I will also look at the landing gear again.
Lets get to it!
This first picture is a lovely shadowed shot of Aries 3 from the outside with the landing gear up.
Here is the landing gear down. It will extend 4 meters or so each time. Notice the Lunar-lander-like gear which sticks into the ground (if it becomes necessary). Who knows where you're going to travel in this thing!
This is the entrance, of course, and we're peeking into the airlock.
Okay, bear with me now. At the top is the entrance from the airlock, which we would use when leaving. We are looking in the opposite direction as in the last picture. The two rooms on either side of the main hall (with walls that bulge outwards) are for storing spacesuits. I haven't done much with these, but I plan to make shelves or something.
Now, we are looking in the original direction of that third picture- on either side are space suit storage rooms and we can see the ships control room in front of us. Now, I know you are wondering what on earth is going on with the red walls? Well, the room is lit with red lights, and since I'm not using detailed textures here the walls are red colored. Remember the movie? There were actually quite a few red-light areas: The inactive docking area on Station V, the Aries 1b cockpit, the moonbus cockpit, the interiors of Discovery's pods, the Discovery emergency airlock, and even HAL's Logic Memory Center.
Note the array of monitors, as there are no windows on the spacecraft (then how can you run Orbiter! :lol: okay, bad joke). In the center of the picture is the elevator to the lower cabin.
Here is a better view of the cockpit, the monitors, and the chair you might recognize from my Space Station. Sometimes I'll reuse things. Why not?
Now, Aries 3 is ideally designed for 3 people, when it comes to longer trips. It could be configured for more people for short trips, but either way there only needs to be three seats up here.
Here is one more view of the cockpit. Note the space under the counter for your legs and feet. This ship would likely be computer controlled, although you could control it manually if you really wanted. In real life, I would imagine that for long trips, you would set up a trajectory and leave it at that. Some situations are shorter and may require user input, like deciding where you want to land as you approach a planet. I suppose that if this ship was in Orbiter you would "be the computer" as you pilot it.
Now, we'll get into the elevator, and go down to the lower level...
...and here we are!!! First, notice the wall padding, which is good in the event of a zero-g condition. Also, note the chair, which is also from the space station, but colored to the color of the chairs on board the Aries 1b. You can also get a glimpse of a bed, which is taken from the space station, although I modified/improved it further. The blue room on the right is the temperature controlled food storage room. We will get to this later.
A view of the cabin. Notice the sliver of green, this is the bathroom. We'll get to that too.
This is a top down view of the lower level. The table is also taken from my Station, and has been modified a bit.
This is a cabinet for storing personal belongings. There are three of these, and three beds, as you have seen in the last picture.
Here is one of the beds, with a clear acrylic door that opens and shuts. I don't think this is necessarily worth animating, but it would be cool to have one animation which opens and closes all the beds and cabinet doors.
Another view of the cabin. The couch is also from my space station.
The restroom. The sink is also from the space station. I guess that hand wipes will do in zero gravity. There would be cabinets behind the mirrors.
This is a "space toilet" or at least very much resembles one. I modeled this quite some time ago for another model and thought it could be useful here. The toilet paper is kind of a joke, as they have some other way of doing it in space. I'm not an expert on space toilets, so I'll leave it at that. The lid closes too, by the way.
The outside of the shower.
Inside the shower. It would work much like a normal shower in constant-acceleration/gravity bound situations. In zero g, a powerful fan would be located beneath the drain to suck out all the water. Then, the water would be filtered out. The air would also be recycled, and new air would be pumped into the shower at the same time the water is being drained. Also, note the shower is padded. Shampoo and soap would go into the space in the center of that one wall to the right, where a small cabinet would be.
Another look at the cabin.
The temperature controlled food room, where food supplies are stored. More complex shelving will be implemented in the future.
In the next post, I will go over the eye-candy, taking a look at the engine systems. I will also look at the landing gear again.
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