/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12161036
Matt Jeffries was trying to make the popular concept of the flying saucer actually work by giving it podded engines like an airplane that were powered by on exotic nuclear engine mounted in a pod a safe distance from the living quarters. The models even had shaded hull paneling to drive home that they were built of welded steel.

Roddenberry himself drove this home when he came up with the saucer separation concept, in which the ship reverts to being a literal flying saucer by shedding the reactor module and engine pods, for the early drafts of The Motion Picture and pushing to actually show it on screen in TNG.

NASA's obsession with avoiding shiny steel rockets in favor of matte-white hyper-optimised not-rockets probably had a lot more to do with 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was absolute post-aluminum/post-composites oldspace porn. It even had a fucking reusable space shuttle.