Theory regarding future space tech possibility of star wars spaceship clones

[Mandragr]

Long title I know wanted to get the point across regarding the topic.  In 100 years or so I believe that people will be travelling the stars. Does anyone think the same and what about some engineers in the future saying hey remember those old star wars movies well how about we build a star destroyer or venator from the prequels. My friend is a civil engineer and he says that would never happen we have a totally different design aesthetic that would prevent future star wars spaceship design. Opinions??

[Pentastar Enforcer]

No one can truly say, although our technology as a whole is advancing rapidly, there are many many issues with the current cultural aspects of the world, religious issues, resource distribution, corruption in governments, etc. etc. that will slow down the Human race as a while significantly, not to mention that travelling by the speed of light (which we cannot reach) is very slow in terms of how vast space is.

I wouldn't be surprised if we had people in Mars in the next 100 years (I'm guessing 50 or less) and perhaps people back onto the Moon as well. "Travelling among the stars" is much more difficult though (which sucks to put it bluntly) that until we can make some sort of 'Hyperdrive' that can go past the speed of light by a LOT, then we aren't going anywhere too far for a while.

Alpha Centauri MAX without some sort of device that allows fast transportation through space. And that's with like a sleeper ship or something.

[Pali]

Define "travelling between the stars", please.  Technically, the Voyager 1 probe is doing just that currently, as it officially (by our reckoning) left our solar system over a year ago... but do not expect it to reach another solar system during our lifetimes (it'll be 40,000 years before it comes within 1.7 lightyears of another star).  If you expect FTL travel... well... you are expecting either new laws of physics or new types of hypothesized exotic materials that don't work the way normal matter (or antimatter, which is also pretty normal) work.  For example, the Alcubierre drive that Elite Dangerous's FTL drive is based on is a real proposed idea for FTL travel via the folding of space (contracting space in front, expanding in back, providing FTL travel relative to external frames of reference but sub-light from within), but it would require a material with negative mass to function - and we have no idea if that type of material CAN exist, let alone does exist.

Otherwise, like Beznerds, I don't see us leaving this solar system outside of sleeper or generation ships - the former remains outside of our current technology level, though I wouldn't be surprised if better cryosleep methods are developed in the near future, but the latter we could probably do NOW if we really wanted to.  Hell, if we'd really wanted to, we could've started up a Martian outpost/colony decades ago that would be close to self-sufficient by now.

As for ship designs... well, it depends on what the ship is designed for.  Aerodynamics are pointless for an asteroid miner that isn't intended to ever enter an atmosphere - all that matters are the relationships between mass, volume, structural support and thrust capacity.  For purely space-going vessels, ones designed without luxury/aesthetics in mind anyways (military/industrial/utility), I'd expect essentially skyscrapers with engines at the bottom - thrust would provide gravity, and while a sphere may be technically ideal for maximizing volume vs surface area, a rectangular box doesn't lose out much in that regard and seems to be easier for humans to work with and fill to capacity (imagine trying to figure out what part of the the hull's curvature a specific crate is supposed to fit into).

[Mandragr]

I was thinking of ftl travel but sleeper ships are an interesting point if I may reference a different scifi group they remind me of warhammer 40k necrontyr, they used sleeper ships called stasis crypts to conquer the galaxy very slowly and then they turned into pseudo cybermen (doctor who anyone??) So yeah sleeper ships are probably the most economical way to travel the stars unless we prove the bane of science fiction Mr Newton wrong regarding faster than light travel