That's some cool stuff, but I was going for more of a 60's space-race vibe for this one. In some cases with but a drop of aneutronic fuel. Bell sized nozzles wouldn't be necessary as they could generate high specific impulses through ion streams. Such ships would likely have waste heat issues need rather large radiators or active cooling systems when the engines are in operation. Such a fighter was feature in the book "Storming Intrepid" by Payne HarrisonĪlso featured in certain NASA documents as the X-656Īlso featured in History Channel special of Generation 5 Aircraft.Ĭapsuled fighter craft such as your own would likely not require huge propellant stores due to the use (with luck) polywell nuclear fusion rockets. These weapons would need to be only powerful enough to damage the opponents heat tiles to force a dangerous reentry at which point they would disengage. Thus lasers are the only real weapon space fighters could have. While missiles are a possibility they and especially any kinetic weapons such as a gun, rail gun or projectile of any kind will likely result in the undesirable alteration of it's orbit. (The fuel tank is a bit small, but I'm hand-waving it by saying better rockets have been invented.)įuture space combat fighters will likely be hypersonic air breathing hybrid rockets such as a scramjet/rocket formed with lifting bodies and space ages materials to resist reentry and flight friction through the atmosphere. The engine is on gimbles, for maximum maneuverability. (It also hides the fighter from casual observation.) Said can provides a "shirtsleeves" environment, simplifying repair and re-arming work. Also, the ship can fold its wings to fit into a standard pressurized inter-modal stowage can. (I know the window and guns aren't the most realistic, but they're cool.)Įxternal stowage racks may eventually adorn the central spindle, allowing for drop-tanks, missiles, sensor packages, etc, to be hot-swapped.
A 1.75m diameter pod holds the pilot, and a large window provides visibility after radar merge. 50 caliber machine guns provide firepower. Twin radiator wings dump heat from the craft's systems, and two liquid cooled.
(It's a little low poly as I hope to animate it). Lofted into orbit atop a conventional medium-lift booster, once it broke atmo, it would never again touch it. (Mind you, I am in now way an aerospace expert, so this ship still relies on the rule-of-cool to some extent.) What would a real-world style fighter look like. After finding the stupidly fun sandbox space game Kerbal Space Program and stumbling upon this flickr thread, I got to thinking: All sci-fi space fighters seem to draw on fighter planes or jets for their inspiration.