What exactly is an aesthetic appearance?

Question

For a project : 'Will the aesthetic appearance of your rocket help with the flight distance? Explain your answer in detail'

(we are making a small model rocket)

Answer 1

Its physical beauty, that which is completely detached from its function. Its like you have the choice between painting a smiley face on your rocket, or nothing. As long as the paint is flush to the body, and there is negligible mass, it has no effect on performance.

Answer 2

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy called value theory or axiology, which is the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment or taste. Thus, aesthetics is what your find attractive at a sensory level.

In your case, I would consider aesthetic appearance of a rocket as having qualities such as smoothness, shininess/reflectivity, texture, pattern, curviness, color, simplicity, usability, velocity, symmetry, naturalness, and modernism.

Depending on the appearance or design of your rocket, it MAY or MAY NOT contribute to the flight distance. You have to experiment and consider the aesthetic qualities that I mentioned: smoothness, shininess/reflectivity, texture, curviness, simplicity, usability, velocity, symmetry, etc.

Aesthetics is not just about being "pretty".

Answer 3

Aesthetics is the appearance, or beauty of something. How nice something looks. So you need to answer the question, depending on your design, if the appearance makes a difference, which it may, or may not.

Answer 4

Aesthetic means appearance (as a noun) or pertaining to looks, especially beauty (as an adjective).

So what your question means is, "Will it fly better if it's pretty?".

In other words, your manual is giving you the advice to go for function & aerodynamics and who cares what it looks like!