Quote - "not really no.. see, from a distance they just look like tubes, but get anywhere close and there's a lot of surface detail and equipment."

That could be done by texturing rather than modeling.
dph
PS: DO you really keep the NASA flight manuals under your bed??

in the tech section yup....... turn left at woodworking and keep on past architectural design.

(ok. joking about the bed part.... it's all on harddrive/DVD/SD Cards...)