On May 18, 5:11 pm, thepursuit wrote:
For obvious reasons I can understand most of the ISS countries aren't
too concerned with aesthetics, but wouldn't it help the public image and
legitimacy of it among non-space people if it didn't look like a bunch
of pipes and solar panels?

If it was a solid structure with the modules internal, and a big
readable (at least from space) "International Space Station" on it,
people would be more inclined to believe we're much more into space than
it may seem (since it's mostly research stations for now, regular people
won't give a ****).

Cover it with a giant shell which is also covered in solar panels, and
we'd have an awesome space station going.

Seems to me that the ISS design is strictly utilitarian. There is not
wieght allocation to make it "pretty"

It wil lbe up the the commercial ventures like Bigelow to make their
space hotels more visually appealing. There will be a whole new branch
of architecture...space architecture.