Futuristic-retro Spacecraft development!

We decided that in terms of an overall look of the spacecraft, the Skylon looked the most suited, as it had a sleek contemporary look but also with some of the curves seen in retro space crafts:



We began looking for some other retro looking spacecrafts that we could implement design elements from:






Looking at some of the more modern ships, they came across as boxy and more technical, so we wanted to get the right balance between modern and retro ships:




However, we soon realised that the Skylon design was too long, and came across as more of a commercial people carrier, so we wanted to play with the size more to accommodate the 4 crew members, so as to make them look like they are part of a research mission and not on holiday. As a result, we decided to implement size restricting forms from space pod concepts such as this:



In the end, we decided that the balance lied in concepts such as these flying vehicles, where they could accommodate 4 crew members whilst maintaining a compact look, this would gel well with our contemporary spacecraft that pays homage to 50s retro designs: