Solar Explorer V3
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A bit of a kit-bash and mash up of ideas, everything from homeworld, sunshine, avatar, Pegasus and what not. Have been playing with more illustrative styles rather than rendering. I didn't model many new components for this almost everything is re-used but cleaned up a bit. Some part's are from things as far back as 2007...!
It's going to be part of something larger once I have time.
The ship itself splits in two, the larger front section is for long haul travel and the rear part just behind those radiators (midway) is for short haul. For example it may travel to Jupiter and then split off to explore the moons before re-attaching to travel home. The other ship is a cargo transport, I am hoping to create some sort of station that they are both docking at/with?
I have tried to keep the technology within reason. The smaller ship is powered by a Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) Engine with twelve sets of radiators (only two are extended in this image). It's also powered by powerful chemical rockets for deceleration and manoeuvring, these are housed on the two booms sticking out near the crew section.
The larger section is powered by nuclear fusion, the propellant is liquid hydrogen, heated by the fusion reaction. This is stored in the four massive tanks behind the aeroshield. The aeroshield on the front is for aerobraking and duct particle protection. The shield is composed of steel, carbon fibre, and beryllium. Crew size of five and with a mission duration six years the ship holds 57 tonnes of food and 80 tonnes of oxygen.
he crew section is a centrifuge for artificial gravity. It provides 0.5 g's including a storm cellar to shelter from solar proton storms. In addition, there is an artificial magnetic field to protect against Jupiter's radiation belts.
I will post more soon if I also have tomorrow off work!
Edit: Spelling
Edit 2: added in a Sketchup line export. A lot is lost as I worked on this with the expectation it's 10*10k px.
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Wow, love the detail.
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@boofredlay said:
Wow, love the detail.
Thanks, most of it will be shaded out as I am going to use 90-100% shadow in Photoshop. You can see my (not mine) Epcot Sphere (aka Liquid Hydrogen storage tanks) in the clay renders!
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Your kit bashing is incredible!
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@bryan k said:
Your kit bashing is incredible!
Thanks, yes I look back at some of things I used to make from scratch compared to mostly just recycling my old stuff with other components as I do now (like your cool wheels!) and feel sad sometimes.
I guess I just don't have the time to make anything scifi related anymore if nobody is paying for it. Most things I make for work are quite boring
and my time is taken up with learning VR when I get free time. I guess that's the curse of going freelance, all time now = money 
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It looks great, achieving that with what amounts to a parts bin approach says a lot about your level of talent. VERY nicely done. I hope to see more like it when you have time.
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