What should a sci-fi spaceship REALLY look like?

Fail yourself.

If the gravity is artificially generated (I certainly don't remember Enterprise spinning rapidly around its axis in flight) then there's no reason it can't be in different directions in different parts of the ship, so there's no reason for it to be in one constant direction that could be called "up"; radially outward from the center would make as much sense.

Also, the impulse engines certainly are reaction-mass-based rockets even if the warp drive isn't.

There was some blurb as to the rational of the design of the Enterprise (justifying it after the model was made, perhaps, or this is what they thought of when designing the ship - I'm not sure and I don't have the book with the background anywhere near me.)

Warp engines were kept separate from the main body due to radiation. Most Star Trek ships kept to this design. This did change later on (The Bird of Prey from the films) but for the TV series it was mostly adhered to. The saucer of a Federation ship was intended to detach, both to operate independently, and to allow atmospheric landing. ST:NG used this quite a few times, but the original series and the films also referenced this technology. It was not unique to the Federation, either: The Klingon ships were supposed to be able to detach the front and back of their ships, too, for similar reasons.

As to why there is an 'up': In battle you need to have a clear reference as to where an enemy ship is in relation to you. So, starboard twenty degrees would be twenty degrees from your axis to the right. But up or down? Well, Positive ten degrees would tell you that, wouldn't it? And you can only do this if you have a standard reference plane to work from. And if you're doing that, why not set gravity to that standard plane? As to points where artificial gravity might intersect: You'd get Lagrange points within your ship: Points of zero gravity. These have appeared in other films and series where they have explored such concepts before (I remember seeing it, but can't remember where...)

But the main reason why all these ships look so outlandish is so people can recognise them. You need to know which are the good guys and which are the bad, and you need to know which series or film you're watching just by seeing the ship designs. I guess they learned their lessons from the old B-movies: You could watch those and see the same ships used, and the same space battle scenes used time and again (Battle Beyond the Stars, Star Chaser, Star Crash... just to name a few).

Agreed

The Star Trek designs are some of the most beautiful and inspiring examples of futuristic spacecraft platforms. There actually is an Up in free space, which is aligned to the galactic plane. That plane is what provides the coordinate system relative to the numerical vectors that are so often referred to during vessel manœuvres.

Its a bit dull for Hollywood

but the 'big sphere' pops up in various places... Battletech dropships and the Adamist ships in the Night's Dawn series (and I guess any other books that might have been set in the same universe) spring to mind.

I thought a more interesting design was the long pointy wedge of Alastair Reynold's Lighthuggers... if you're going seriously fast, streamlining is still a benefit even in the interstellar vacuum. You get to make something that looks cool and is yet still practical; what's not to like?

There have been a couple of giant spheres. The Borg Queen's ship in Star Trek: TNG and my favourite (ship that is, not film - I'll always prefer the books to the TV and film outings), the Heart of Gold from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.

Yep

Assuming that the ship has to contain an atmosphere of some sort then the sphere makes good sense. Then, if there is any sort of radiation hazard from the engines a 10KM open frame pylon with the engine at the other end...

And we are back to 2001.

Been there

EE Smith used a giant sphere for the earlier ships in the lensman stories - not on film - as did AE van Vogt whose "Scarlet Destroyer" was clearly the direct ancestor of "Alien." All in all though, spheres are boring.

Ooh! Yes, those sound effects as Blake crawled along between the outer skin and the passenger areas of the prison ship whilst a space battle raged outside. That was creepy.

I know the bloke who did the special sound on Blake's 7, BTW, worked with him for a number of years.

I'm not so sure

I find the lack of sound effects works very well in both the new BattleStar Galactica and Firefly.

Sound effects

Though it was the lack of sound effects during the sequences outside the ship that made 2001 so convincing.

That's the point that Krauss makes though

None of the saucers mentioned in the article have motherships, they're the actual deep space vehicles. It makes no sense to design a deep-space vehicle to behave well in an atmosphere.

"However, short of some magical property that allows spacecraft entering a planet's atmosphere to avoid the normal laws of aerodynamic"

There's generally so many laws of physics ignored when people get onto the topic of alien spacecraft or future spacecraft in the media, what's a few more?

If you can travel between the stars, stopping and entering an atmosphere at a speed where aerodynamics are of trivial importance should be small beer.

The only reason for being streamlined is if either a) you want to use the atmosphere to slow down with bits melting off the outside or b) if you need to travel quickly in an atmosphere and can't be arsed to generate a field to permit this (e.g. like the Theron flying houses in Dan Dare).

Prof Brian Cox offered Physics advice to the 2007 Film "Sunshine" - he noted it was mostly ignored, cinematography overriding Physical correctness.

no, that's the space tug Nostromo. The Narcissus was an escape pod and a lot smaller.

The only things I didn't like about SGU was the constant "we're not supposed to be here", almost as if it was a constant Clerks reference. Then there was bringing the damn Alucian Alliance into it - the series was meant to be a complete break from the rest of the SGU story lines.

Such a shame it wasn't given the time it needed. :(