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Artist's conception of the British Interplanetary Society design for Project Daedalus, a real-world concept.

A starship is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel.

The term is mostly found in science fiction, as humanity has not yet constructed such vehicles - while the Voyager and Pioneer probes have traveled into local interstellar space, they are not generally considered starships, mainly because they are both unpowered and unmanned. However, exploratory engineering has been undertaken on several preliminary designs and feasibility studies for starships that could be built with modern technology or technology thought to be available in the near future. For examples of such studies, see Project Daedalus, Project Orion, and Project Longshot.

A common literary device is to posit a faster-than-light propulsion system (such as warp drive) or travel through hyperspace, although some starships may be outfitted for centuries-long journeys of slower-than-light travel. Other designs posit a way to boost the ship to near-lightspeed, allowing relatively "quick" travel (i.e. decades, not centuries) to nearer stars. This results in a general categorization of the kinds of starships:

• Sleeper ships, which put their passengers into stasis during a long trip.
• Generation ships, where the destination will be reached by descendants of the original passengers.
• Relativistic ships, taking advantage of time dilation at close-to-light-speeds, so long trips will seem much shorter (but still take the same amount of time for outside observers).
• Faster-than light ships, which can move between places very quickly (transcending current understanding of physics or using interdimensional 'shortcuts').

Different authors and different stories will, of course, imagine different kinds of starships. Certain common elements are found in most fiction that discusses starships.

Main article: Generation ship

• Fiction that discusses slower-than-light starships is relatively rare, since the time scales are so long. Instead of describing the interaction with the outside world, those fictions tend to focus on setting the whole story within the world of the (often very large) starship during its long travels. Sometimes the starship is a world, in perception or reality.

Main article: Faster-than-light

• Such starships are typically large, multi-passenger vehicles (compared to starfighters). They range in size from small personal yachts and courier ships, up to vast bulk containers (used for intersystem shipping) and enormous warships.

• Starships are usually depicted as operating under laws and guidelines similar to real-world seagoing vessels. The primary reason for this concept (beyond artistic license) is that deep space is an even more hazardous environment than the open sea, and so extreme caution would have to be taken in all starship operations. A side effect of this is that spacegoing fleets, especially space militaries, are usually described as being organized similar to modern Earth navies.

• A starship may be fitted with a wide variety of engines, weapons, equipment, and internal compartments. Small freighters used for smuggling are typically fast, modified to avoid detection, are often heavily armed, and may have secret holds for hiding contraband cargo. Large container ships usually have little in the way of shielding or weaponry, but have huge, powerful engines necessary for moving vast quantities of cargo through (or between) star systems.

• Passenger vessels, are often described as being similar to modern ocean liners, containing luxurious passenger cabins, gambling halls, showrooms, restaurants, and lounges. Warships contain crew quarters, extensive weaponry and shielding, massive engines, sophisticated sensor and communications arrays, and usually a detachment of non-naval Marine-like soldiers trained in assaulting and capturing enemy spacecraft, targets on planetary surfaces, or both.

• Exceedingly large spacegoing craft (for example the Death Star of the Star Wars universe) are typically not referred to as 'starships' (but see 'slower-than-light ships' above). Terms like (artificial) planetoid may be considered to be more accurate.
• Space stations and other structures intended to orbit a celestial body or serve as a point of contact / maintanance / docking station for other ships are not usually called starships, even if they can move under their own power.

The following is a listing of some of the most widely known vessels in various science fiction franchises:

• Bioship
• Intergalactic travel
• Interstellar travel
• List of fictional spaceships
• Space battleship
• Space shuttle
• Spacecraft propulsion
• Spacecraft
• Unidentified flying object (UFO)

• CineSpaceships (database of spaceships in movies)
• Starship Dimensions (to-scale size comparisons)
  • Starship Size Comparison Chart 1 (Dan Carlson, 13 July 2003)
  • Starship Size Comparison Chart 2 (Dan Carlson, 30 October 2003)
• Atomic Rockets (SF spacecraft fan site)
• Starship Names (a Sci-Fi wiki article, outside of Wikipedia)
• Starship Blueprints (blueprints of Star Trek spaceships)
• The Invid Connection (information on Robotech and Macross starships)