The table of contents will include sections on the following topics (subject to revision and reshuffling):

What Does It Do?

Just as there are cars, boats, ships and aircraft that are designed to fulfill specific roles, and those that are designed to be generic and utilitarian, there can be spaceships for either specific or generic roles. This chapter will help the author to decide what their spaceships are supposed to do. Freighter? Explorer? Warship? Something else?

Getting to Space

Step one for a spaceship is getting to space. Current launch vehicles need a lot of energy to get from the surface of the Earth to low Earth orbit; this chapter will explain what is needed in terrms of propulsion and trajectory.

Standard Orbit

Kepler figured out the basics of orbits; and this chapter will explain them. Conic section orbits (hyperbolic, parabolic, elliptical, circular) and how to get from one to another will be described. Travel through space is quite different from travel by sea or air.

Propulsion

Probably the biggest section of the book. A spaceship just isn't a spaceship without a propulsion system. And there are a vast array of propulsion systems to choose from, dependign on the technological level that the author is assuming. This chapter will describe every propulsion system remotely applicable for science fiction (or, for that matter, science fact) spaceships, and provide all the data needed to properly incorporate them, with performance data and external power requirements. Additionally, it will have the largest set of basic chemical propulsion system performance tables of any readily available book. And not only will these systems be described with raw data and equations, their use, appearance and sound will also be described. No point in having a well-thought-out space engine if it is shown incorrectly!

Controls

It's not just enough to have a powerful rocket o the spaceship. The ship also needs the ability and means to turn, and the rocket needs to be properly oriented with respect to the center of gravity of the ship. A proper engine improperly located can be a disaster. This chapter will help the author avoid this mistake.

Structures

The concepts of structural design and the proper materials for the job at hand will be described.

Sensors

Flying blind is never a good idea. Spacecraft will need to see where they are going, and what is coming at them; they may also have purely scientific interests in examining unknown objects or places, or may have devious or military interests. Radar, lidar, optical telescopes, radio telescopes, X-Ray telescopes, infra-red scanners, gravity detectors, Geiger counters, neutron detectors and others will be described.

Communications

Radio, lasers, even semaphore and Aldis lamps can be used. However, communications though space is not a simple matter of flipping a switch and saying "howdy;" the size of the transmitting antennae and the power behind it tell you what the bit-rate can be, for instance. This chapter will cover the basic principles behind communications, and will present the options available.

Re-entry and Atmospheric Flight

Some spacecraft will never enter an atmosphere. But in science fiction as in real life, many will. Re-entry and cruising, aircraft-like flight have their own unique requirements that are often at odds with other design requirements for spacecraft. This chapter will cover the basics of aircraft design, and how to incorporate this into a spacecraft. This chapter will also cover the issues behind and answers for aerothermal heating due to hypersonic flight an atmospheric re-entry.

Landing Systems

Landing gear is all too often forgotten when it comes to spacecraft design. What is best? Fixed or retractable? Wheels, skids, pads, posts, airbags or something quite different? This chapter will help the spaceship designer decide based on the role and environment of the spaceship.

Power

Lights don't power themselves. Or do they? There are many power sources available for spaceship designers... and there are many power-hungry systems as well. Solar cells to electrodynamic tethers, radiothermionic generators to fission reactors, fusion to antimatter, all have options, requirements, issues and advantages.

Weapons

Let's face it: space battles can be fun. But science fiction movies almost always get them dead wrong. The wrong weapons, the wrong effects, the wrong physics. What weapons would actually work? And what would they look like? Guns, missiles, lasers, nukes and beyond will be described. Surface batteries for taking out spacecraft, ship to ship engagements with weapons ranging from World War II tech to unbelievably advanced, planetary bombardments and the weaponry and energies required to actually blow up a world will be examined.

Environmental Requirements and Control

Space itself is neither hot nor cold, it's just a vacuum. However, a spacecraft will need to maintain certain temperature limits... the engines can't get too hot, and of course the crew won't like being cooked, frozen, nuked, meteorite bombarded, zapped with cosmic rays or any of the myriad ways in which the environment of space can cause trouble for a ship and it's crew.

Radiation protection methods will be described, as well as multiple means of thermal radiators, from simple paint to droplet radiators to Maxwell's Demons-based heat pump lasers.

Examples

Many advanced spacecraft have been designed, both in the aerospace industry and in the entertainment industry. A number of them will be presented and critiqued. HATV to "Luna," Orion to Discovery, Nova to "Lucky Linda," many designs are available to inspire and instruct.