NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Spaceship

A spacecraft is a vehicle that travels through space. Spacecraft include robotic or unmanned space probes as well as manned vehicles. The term is sometimes also used to describe artificial satellites, which have similar design criteria.

Contents

1 Overview

2 A few examples of existing spacecraft

3 Proposed spacecraft

4 Fictional spacecraft

5 See also

6 External links

Overview

The term spaceship is generally applied only to spacecraft capable of transporting people.

A spacesuit has at times been called a miniature spacecraft or spaceship, emphasizing its purpose of keeping its wearer alive while traveling in the vacuum of outer space.

The spacecraft is one of the primal elements in science fiction. Numerous short stories and novels are built up around various ideas for spacecraft. Some hard science fiction books focus on the technical details of the craft, while others treat the spacecraft as a given and delve little into its actual implementation.

A few examples of existing spacecraft

Proposed spacecraft

Fictional spacecraft

There have been countless fictional spacecraft, including:-

The spacecraft in From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne (1865)
Battlestar Galactica from the television series of the same name.
C-57D (Forbidden Planet)
Fireball XL5
Galasphere 347 (Space Patrol - puppet series)
GSV, or General System Vehicle, a sentient cruiser/habitat (from The Culture series of novels)
Jupiter 2 (Lost in Space)
Lexx - a living spaceship
Liberator (Blake's 7)
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)
Moya (Farscape) - another living spaceship
Nostromo (Alien)
Red Dwarf
SDF-1 Macross (From Macross and Robotech - television series)
U.S.S. Enterprise (Star Trek)
TARDIS (Doctor Who) - an unconventional time/space vessel
White Star (Babylon 5)
Prometheus (Stargate SG-1)

External links

NASA: Space Science Spacecraft Missions (http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/)
Gunter's Space Page - Complete information on spacecraft (http://www.skyrocket.de/space/)

Categories: Spacecraft | Vehicles

Results from FactBites:

Spaceship (CA) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (277 words)
	The speed of a spaceship is often expressed in terms of c, the "speed of light", one cell per generation, which in many cellular automata is the fastest that an effect can spread.
	A pattern that, when a spaceship is input, outputs a copy of the spaceship travelling in a different direction is called a reflector.
	Spaceships are important because they can sometimes be modified to produce puffers.

Spacecraft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (213 words)
	The term spaceship is generally applied only to spacecraft capable of transporting people.
	A space suit has at times been called a miniature spacecraft or spaceship, emphasizing its purpose of keeping its wearer alive while traveling in the vacuum of outer space.
	The US Space Command, according to its "Long Range Plan", is currently planning to develop a weaponized spaceship, which has yet to be announced.

More results at FactBites »

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