Oolite Bulletins

OK, here's one … name five fictional spaceships, named after real historical individuals. To prevent loads of ancient kings and emperors, and avoid any confusion about whether so-and-so is fictional/mythical or not, I'll specify that the said historical individuals should be born after 1700 CE. Meaningless bonus points on offer if they're female.

Usual rules: only one per author/universe.

Disembodied wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 2:24 pm

OK, here's one … name five fictional spaceships, named after real historical individuals.

OK, I'll throw my hat into the ring, and well clear of the toxified beaker, with the CoDominion battleship Lenin in the Mote in God's Eye. That one's antecedents seem clear (particularly since "Lenin" was a nickname not a conventional name - compare "Raygun" with "Reagan"). I'll also claim, from the same universe and book, the INSS MacArthur, named for the famous yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur.

Bradbury class Spaceships from Star Trek named after Ray Bradbury

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:48 pm

OK, I'll throw my hat into the ring, and well clear of the toxified beaker, with the CoDominion battleship Lenin in the Mote in God's Eye. That one's antecedents seem clear (particularly since "Lenin" was a nickname not a conventional name - compare "Raygun" with "Reagan"). I'll also claim, from the same universe and book, the INSS MacArthur, named for the famous yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur.

Hmmm … well, the Lenin and the MacArthur both qualify, so either would count for the first entry. But no MBP for Ellen MacArthur, as sadly she was born a year after the book was published. General Douglas of that ilk is the likely namesake! Nice try, though

cbr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 4:31 pm

Bradbury class Spaceships from Star Trek named after Ray Bradbury

The USS Bradbury makes two.

Let's specify here that we can have only one entry per historical individual, too - I suspect there may be other fictional Bradburys out there.

The TFCT Rodger Young, in Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers (not sure it's named in the films), named for a war hero

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodger_Young

Disembodied wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 4:45 pm

But no MBP for Ellen MacArthur, as sadly she was born a year after the book was published.

That just goes to show what prescient writers Niven and Pournelle were.

ffutures wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 7:01 pm

The TFCT Rodger Young, in Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers (not sure it's named in the films), named for a war hero

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodger_Young

That makes three … no MBPs yet, despite RockDoctor's best attempts!

Dan Dare had a personal spaceship, the Anastasia, though it's not clear if it was named for the real but dead Russian princess (retired with prejudice), or the fraudulent but alive (at the time of writing) imposter claiming her place.
Damn, no - it was named for Dan's aunt.
OK, try again.
Many ships have flown through stories un-named. This is an obvious reference to the innumerable, unnamed women behind every intergalactic superhero.
Hmm, even I'm less than convinced.

By the three training shoes of Zaphod, I've finally found one!

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Curie_(shuttlecraft) wrote:

The Curie was a Federation Type 6 shuttlecraft that was in service with Starfleet in the mid-24th century, attached to the USS Enterprise-D. It was shuttlecraft 03. ... The Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 172) stated this shuttlecraft was "named for physicist Marie Sklodowska Curie."

And there I was worrying that it was named for the magnetism guy. Phew!

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 9:45 pm

By the three training shoes of Zaphod, I've finally found one!

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Curie_(shuttlecraft) wrote:

The Curie was a Federation Type 6 shuttlecraft that was in service with Starfleet in the mid-24th century, attached to the USS Enterprise-D. It was shuttlecraft 03. ... The Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 172) stated this shuttlecraft was "named for physicist Marie Sklodowska Curie."

And there I was worrying that it was named for the magnetism guy. Phew!

Hurrah! A ship named after real woman. Alas, cbr has already used up the Star Trek allocation for this question:

cbr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 4:31 pm

Bradbury class Spaceships from Star Trek named after Ray Bradbury

Still two to go …

2010: Odyssey Two, the novel by Arthur C. Clarke, and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the film based on that novel, feature a Russian Spacecraft named for Alexei Leonov, the non fictional Cosmonaut who was the first person to walk in space.

Nite Owl wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 5:18 pm

2010: Odyssey Two, the novel by Arthur C. Clarke, and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the film based on that novel, feature a Russian Spacecraft named for Alexei Leonov, the non fictional Cosmonaut who was the first person to walk in space.

The Leonov definitely counts (though still no MBP). That makes four: next one wins it!

Can I have a different Marie Curie?

"SLNS Marie Curie was a Scientist-class superdreadnought of the Solarian League Navy's Battle Fleet" in the Honor Harrington universe.
https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/SLNS_Marie_Curie

Annoyingly the first two ships I thought of in the Harringtonverse turned out to be "coincidentally" the same name as historical figures, rather than being named after them, e.g. their Elizabeth I was a ruler of Manticore, not the English one.

If you don't like that one, I'll try the PNES Oliver Cromwell from the same universe: "PNES Oliver Cromwell was a battlecruiser of the People's Navy in Exile."
https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/PNES_Oliver_Cromwell

ffutures wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 2:09 pm

Can I have a different Marie Curie?

"SLNS Marie Curie was a Scientist-class superdreadnought of the Solarian League Navy's Battle Fleet" in the Honor Harrington universe.
https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/SLNS_Marie_Curie

That's fine - the previous ship named after Marie Curie was disqualified as being a second Star Trek ship. That makes five! You get the chalice plus a MBP.

ffutures wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 2:09 pm

If you don't like that one, I'll try the PNES Oliver Cromwell from the same universe: "PNES Oliver Cromwell was a battlecruiser of the People's Navy in Exile."
https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/PNES_Oliver_Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell would fail as being born (and indeed dying) before 1700. A couple of others which would have qualified for a MBP: the Madame de Pompadour, from the Doctor Who episode "The Girl in the Fireplace", and the Alice Liddell, from Take Back Plenty by Colin Greenland.

Curses! OK, let's try something different.

A while ago I asked for five SF works involving space liners - this time I want five SF works where substantial parts of the plot are set aboard space FREIGHTERS. For the purposes of this question a freighter is a ship designed primarily to transport cargo, not passengers, from one place to another and it must be actually doing this for a substantial part of the work - I'm prepared to be flexible within reason about how substantial that is. I'm NOT accepting freighters that are doing something else - for example, I wouldn't accept Q-ships (warships disguised as freighters), liners or warships which also carry a little cargo, or the ships in the film Silent Running which are basically a mothballed fleet used to store most of the earth's forests in space for reasons that make very little sense.

Meaningless bonus points for any fun facts about the ship(s).

Usual rules - no two from the same universe / creator and only one answer per comment.