Re: size of ships...

At 09:42 AM 12/17/96 +0000, you wrote:
>Having said that, the best shape as far as I can tell for a space ship
is a
>sphear. It has minimum area to volume, good pressure holding
characteristics
>etc.

Spheres have "wasted space" near the hulls. Imagine a corridor ending in
a
picture window. Now imagine that the end of the corridor was curved
because
the building was a big ball. Your head would hit the "ceiling" near the
window, but your feet would still be away from the window. That pie
shaped
area where your body and the floor make a 90 degree angle is essentially
wasted space. That's a fair amount of mass to have around doing nothing
(although a good designer could probably use it for something). You get
better space utilization if you have a square or a rectangle. Since they
aren't practical for a ship, you may prefer an ellipse. On the other
hand,
if you are talking about an alien race without a rigid skeleton, or one
that
is short and squat, a sphere becomes ideal.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage