I sort of dislike the "realism" of some of the recent shuttles, becaus that's gonna backfire: what looks realistic to 1990s or 2000s sensibilities is gonna look utterly unrealistic in a couple of decades, and isn't a good approach to making the tech look like it could come from more than two centuries in the future.
Then again, I also dislike the unrealism of some Eaves work: shuttles that lack access doors, have windows that offer even poorer vision to important directions than the TOS original did, and have deck footprints larger than a craft of that volume or capacity would be justified in having. The TOS design and especially its practically "hatched" ST5 development strike me as the most plausibly futuristic of the craft: they feature all the useful elements (essentially, just cargo space) while minimizing all the "merely necessary" ones (such as engines or landing supports or sensors or powerplants or...) in size.
Timo Saloniemi
