In this quick production diary, I introduce you to my efforts at building Kip Kinnison’s Britainnia starship. Here are the two public domain illustrations of what the ship was supposed to look like according to the magazine artists who originally published their work alongside the EE ‘Doc’ Smith serials.
However, an anime adaptation from the 1980s completely disregarded the idea of a spaceship that looked like a light bulb and instead opted for something mimicking the Reagan-era emphasis on militarist aesthetics of stealth air combat.
The further issue is that “lightbulb” is not the same as “teardrop-shaped,” the original phrasing in the original novel, and the distinction is the way that “stealth≠girth” in terms of basic aerodynamics and propulsion science. This approaches more closely that definition were one to shave off the wings and tuck the back into a rounded angle.
So what is it like to build your own spaceship?🚀
