Planet Express Ship

The Planet Express Ship is a fictional anthropomorphic spaceship in the animated series Futurama, which bears the official designation U.S.S. Planet Express Ship. The ship was designed and built by Professor Hubert Farnsworth and is the sole delivery ship of Planet Express, a delivery service owned by the Professor. The ship is typically treated as an inanimate object, though Bender refers to the ship's autopilot as "him" (and laments being defeated in a martini-drinking contest by same) in "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back". The later episode "Love and Rocket" shows the ship to have an artificial intelligence, voiced originally by Maurice LaMarche and then (after installation of "new improved ship's personality software" including "adjustable voice") by special guest Sigourney Weaver. The ship is shown to travel at a speed of about 16,000,000,000,000,000 C, thus why in Fry Am The Egg Man, the ship can travel to The Andromeda Galaxy in less than a minute.
Production
The Planet Express Ship is usually rendered in highly stylized 3D along with many of Futurama's other special effects. This was done to give the ship a "convincing dimensionality" as it moves through space. Futurama's creator Matt Groening consulted with Syd Mead ("visual futurist" for Blade Runner) when working on the designs, but like many of Groening's other characters, the ship maintains its pronounced overbite and is easily identifiable as an element of a Matt Groening comic.
Personality
In the episode "Love and Rocket" the Planet Express Ship is equipped with a personality unit which allows it to speak and interact with the crew. The ship is voiced by Sigourney Weaver in what executive producer David X. Cohen described as "a pretty abstract role." During the episode the Planet Express Ship and Bender begin dating. This situation presented many challenges for the production staff, particularly a difficulty in portraying emotions between the two beings because they were so different in size. Even with this concern, Cohen jokes that Weaver's performance as a spaceship was "moving."
Crew
Leela is the captain and pilot of the ship. Although Leela has only one eye, and therefore no depth perception, the sheer distance between objects in space makes human-level depth perception of limited use. Fry and Bender serve as crewmembers. Fry's official position is delivery boy, and he also operates the ship's laser cannon in combat. Bender was originally the ship's cook, despite the lethality of his dishes, and is occasionally seen performing various odd jobs.
Hermes and Amy can both fly the ship, though they do not usually accompany the crew on missions. Although Fry flies the ship with no problems (albeit wildly) in "The Cryonic Woman" episode, he later flies it with some difficulty in "Amazon Women in the Mood" and "Birdbot of Ice-Catraz" (where Bender demonstrates his own questionable piloting skills while under the effects of a sobriety binge); by the time of "Time Keeps On Slippin'", Fry can (once again) fly the ship with a reasonable degree of skill. In the episodes "The Series Has Landed", "Parasites Lost", and "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch", Amy Wong flies the ship without problem.
Dr Zoidberg serves as the ship's doctor and, on occasion, the ship steward. He occasionally joins the crew on missions but not on a regular basis. Professor Farnsworth flies the ship in the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" and "Into the Wild Green Yonder." In "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles," Farnsworth flies the ship to find his lost pet gargoyle, Pazuzu. However, in stereotypical senior citizen style, he flies the ship at only 35 MPH, blocks lanes in space traffic, and turns the ship's "high beams" on, destroying a navigation sign and Deep Space Nine.
Ship features
As the Professor prefers to send the crew on dangerous missions in favor of higher profit margins, the ship is well armed and quite fast. The ship is capable of travel faster than the current speed of light, by shifting the entire universe. The ship can actually travel at 97% of the new light speed. Its speed also makes it an efficient courier, a round trip to the edge of the universe and many other activities were accomplished during a "morning off" in "I Dated a Robot". In "The Series Has Landed," a journey from Earth to the Moon takes under two seconds.
In addition to its speed, the Planet Express Ship is very durable. In the episode "The Deep South," the ship is dragged underwater and survives being subjected to hundreds of atmospheres of water pressure, despite being rated for "between zero and one" atmosphere, according to the professor. Additionally, the ship has survived numerous crashes that ostensibly would have destroyed similar aircraft, but the ship usually sustains only quickly-repaired dents. It is unclear whether all vehicles in Futurama have this durability or if it is a special property of that particular ship.
In addition, certain episodes indicate that the ship has an automobile-style manual transmission.
The current ship is not the first Planet Express Ship, as at least one was lost with its crew on a mission to collect space honey. The current ship is first seen in "Space Pilot 3000," where the current crew signs on. Other versions of the ship include a miniature one used to travel inside of Fry's body to counter an infection of worms.
Design
The front of the ship was intentionally designed to resemble an overbite, similar to many of Matt Groening's character designs. It has tripodal landing gear, the front one doubling as a stair, and the two rear ones notable for large traction pads, in the style of Leela's boots. The hull is roughly teardrop-shaped with three fins at the rear. A laser cannon turret is situated on the top side. Torpedo tubes are located to either side of the forward landing gear. The tubes also house the "primary lasers." The cargo bay has a bomb bay-style loading door on the bottom of the ship. Cargo too large for the cargo bay is either tethered to the top of the hull, or towed. The dark matter engines are at the rear on a gymbal, and steering is achieved through directional thrust. Supposedly the engines achieve 200% fuel efficiency (apparently violating the law of conservation of mass) by moving the entire universe around the ship, rather than moving the ship itself, a parody/homage to the "warp drive" technology of Star Trek,

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