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Comment by dudul | Hacker News Reader

What other shape do you suggest for a vehicle meant to escape Earth's gravity and reach space?

I know it's not your main point, but every time I hear the "oh look at these nerdy space men playing with their phallic toys!" comment I get curious about the alternative.

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Have you seen the Blue Origin rocket? There's rocket-shaped, and then there's... that.

You know, cylindrical and with more thickness at the bottom / fins is basically part of the game. It's intrinsic.

But Blue Origin has an aspect ratio that really makes the comparison more obvious... and then the top looks like a glans. Making it that penis-like is not mandatory.

> about the alternative

A vulva, of course.

https://whatisfeminism.today/spaceship/

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/vulva-shaped-spaceshi...

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/03/03/vulva-spaceship-design-aim...

That actually could be viable. First stage could fully envelop the second stage and eject it at the top of its arc before gliding back down for recovery and reuse.

A weird design, sure, but there have been weirder ones.

Yeah, though I'm pretty sure that this "design fiction" (1) has more of a cultural point than an aerodynamic one.

but IMHO "lets make it it look _another sex organ_" doesn't really either break out of the existing cultural framing, or design primarily around the extreme engineering needs, which have to come before the cultural ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_fiction

> What other shape do you suggest for a vehicle meant to escape Earth's gravity and reach space?

Have you not watched 1950s sci-fi? Clearly a flying saucer would be optimal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar

Nevermind the service ceiling (actual).

Look at wikipedia's top picture of the space shuttle. Far more respectable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

What are those things it's attached to, and what purpose do they serve relative to the shuttle itself?

The space shuttle was great, but it was retired for a reason.

Additionally, when taking off it did essentially look like a rocket. The shuttle is small compared to the tank/boosters combination. And these are the ones making sure it can take off.

Hooking it to the side of the main tank is now seen as a design flaw. The X-37 and the Starship being on top of a stack isn't an engineering accident.

Fine then, look at Artemis 1. It looks roughly like the Discovery rockets might have looked without the shuttle attached. You can stack your payload without making it overtly glans-shaped. We have the technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_1

get rid of the overly pointy LES and it pretty much looks like a dildo with SRBs to me.

> I get curious about the alternative

Perhaps it's less about the shape of the rockets, and more about the unnecessary (space) travel?

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