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).

     Let's see, there is a lot of equiptment in a spaceship.  I'd use
this
"wasted space" for storage, non-essential equiptment and systems that
need
to be near the outside of the ship, ex. sensors, ECM, engines, and
weapons.

Enjoy,
Tom					thomas.granvold@eng.sun.com