Alistair Young @cerebrate@schelling.pt

@michaelgemar @SkipHuffman @nyrath @JeremyMallin

Or aircraft, for that matter.

But also, not all optimizations are orthogonal. You can optimize for mass by making a nice aerogel outer hull that is also near-optimal as Whipple shielding, and then using patterned variants of it in your company livery need not add more'n a few grams here and there (molecular weight of dye may vary, but probably not *that* much).

@SkipHuffman @nyrath @JeremyMallin

So I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that not-all-that-far-into-the-future Interplanetary Express will happily eat the resulting fuel costs of shaping their Whipple shields into a fastest-rocket-in-space look and painting racing stripes on them _if_ it makes them stand out to people looking out hab windows, standing in boarding galleries, shipspotters, people looking at their brag sheets, etc., etc.

Branders gonna brand.

@SkipHuffman @nyrath @JeremyMallin

On the one hand, in the near-future with current-type drives, that's certainly true; on the other hand, as drives get more and more SFnal, it becomes less of a consideration.

On the gripping hand, though, I observe that _even though_ painting an airliner imposes real additional fuel costs to operations, airlines don't choose to save money by flying naked hulls. Even freight-only lines like Amazon Air. Evidently branding gains outweigh fuel costs.

@SkipHuffman @nyrath @JeremyMallin

(Sadly for those of us who prefer spheres to cylinders in spaceship designs. Teardrops are right out!)

@SkipHuffman @nyrath @JeremyMallin

Same with steel ships. I believe the current standard is to try to keep the percentage of curved hull plates required down to 15% of the total or less; and within that percentage, to strongly prefer simple curves (i.e., those which can be made through line heating and rolling) over complex, multi-dimensional curves, which are much harder technically to achieve.

@isaackuo @nyrath @JeremyMallin

It's so nice when technical requirements also give you a great opportunity for branding! 😊

@nyrath @JeremyMallin

Side note: one factor in naval architecture is trying to minimize the number of curved hull plates needed, because they're more expensive than flat, and increasing the number of curve dimensions increases the cost disproportionately.

In the #eldraeverse, the IN uses sweepingly curved hulls and elaborate brightwork to make a deliberate statement of "If we had budget to spare for *this*, just imagine what the working parts are like."

Naked frames and greebles look cheap.

@nyrath @JeremyMallin

Today, for example, we put curved, as anti-industrial/functional-as-possible-looking cases on all manner of things that aren't intended to ever move, because good-looking can sell a million units.

Apple spent _decades_ beating the entire market and turning Everything Is An iPod In The Future into a trope by turning "humans are basically magpies where sleek, shiny things are concerned" into their core marketing strategy.

@nyrath @JeremyMallin

Theory: aerodynamic-appearing is strongly correlated with "visually attractive".

It's visual language for "we can spend money on excitingly curved hull plates and unnecessary fairings, etc., just so we don't have to look at a starship that looks like a boiler factory had a terrible accident when attempting to mate with a steamroller".

(Which in turn is symbolic language for "we are rich and have a high culture, unlike you primitive savages from beyond the Marches".)