Discovery from 2001 (XD-1)

The Discovery spacecraft from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 changed science fiction cinema forever. Nearly all movie spaceships up to that point took their visual language from aircraft; they were smooth and aerodynamic and assumed a gravitational up and down.

The Discovery deliberately ignored that convention. It was designed first and foremost as a vessel for deep space, and its form followed this function. Its long, slender shape would crack under the slightest gravity, but was ideal for keeping the spherical pressure hull of the crew module away from the radioactive power plant and engine. Far from being streamlined, the surface of the Discovery was absolutely covered in panels, pipes, and other mechanical elements that marked it as a complex, working machine.

This revolution in form language has been with us ever since. Even though real spacecraft are actually covered in heat-reflecting mylar and micrometeorite absorbing blankets, film spaceships all have the coating of "greebl