As the JH strip developed over the years , Sydney began to change the appearance of the spacecraft in the strip. The classic cigar-shaped craft that we see  in SPACERIDER , DREAM PEDLARS and other early stories gave way to more modern and realistic depictions   that reflected to some extent the satellites and spacecraft that increasing filled our newspapers and tv screens at the time ,as the real space race got

underway.

We first see this new type of craft in OVERLORD where Hawke leads mankind’s first expedition to Jupiter in a fleet of five large ships , the Xenophon, the Bacchus, the Aristides, the Plotinus and his command ship the Aristarchus. All are of the same design and each consists of two spheres joined together with an array of scaffolding.

They owe something to the inspiration of Chesley Bonestell’s later designs but all-in-all have a more contemporary look. The first sphere houses the crew , living quarters communications etc while the other houses the nuclear motor. These ships are strikingly similar in concept and design to the Discovery , the spacecraft from 2001 a space Odyssey , also on a mission to Jupiter, though OVERLORD appeared eight years before the release of Kubrik’s great movie. Like the Aristarchus the Discovery comprised a large sphere which acted as living quarters, control and communications. Also, like the Aristarchus its nuclear reactor was housed in a separate structure which was connected to the command sphere

by a thin spine , along which were arrayed tanks of extra payload. The main difference between the two craft is that in the case of the Discovery the spine and attached tankage extended for 84 metres whereas the Aristarchus contained a more modest array of ten tanks , six large and two small.   Skipper Prossit