Think of the house you live in. There have been plenty of idealists proposing various domed, turreted, or cylindrical building, but lack of straight walls would make it damn annoying to arrange the furniture. Similar to cargo ships: we used to have hull shaped but now the most important concern is rectangular shipping containers. Extrapolate to spaceship design, and a cube is most efficient for crew quarters cargo storage
Houses are generally cookie cutter because they are easier to build that way. Spaceships are custom made because they are the only thing keeping your insides from boiling in space.
I read this one story long ago where there was a war between two spacefaring civilization. One was technologically advanced but fewer in number. However their attempts to improve their technological edge, worked toward eventually every ship being custom, unique …… until they lost the war under the weight of unique parts and maintenance that made their ships too expensive to keep running.
Even space ships need a supply chain, parts p, service, repairs. If we do ever become a spacefaring civilization, we’ll need many copies of relatively few unique models, like we already do with aircraft, cars, ships, and houses
Think of the house you live in. There have been plenty of idealists proposing various domed, turreted, or cylindrical building, but lack of straight walls would make it damn annoying to arrange the furniture. Similar to cargo ships: we used to have hull shaped but now the most important concern is rectangular shipping containers. Extrapolate to spaceship design, and a cube is most efficient for crew quarters cargo storage
Houses are generally cookie cutter because they are easier to build that way. Spaceships are custom made because they are the only thing keeping your insides from boiling in space.
I read this one story long ago where there was a war between two spacefaring civilization. One was technologically advanced but fewer in number. However their attempts to improve their technological edge, worked toward eventually every ship being custom, unique …… until they lost the war under the weight of unique parts and maintenance that made their ships too expensive to keep running.
Even space ships need a supply chain, parts p, service, repairs. If we do ever become a spacefaring civilization, we’ll need many copies of relatively few unique models, like we already do with aircraft, cars, ships, and houses
You can trust the mass produced spaceships if you want, but I think they’ll end up like Boeing.