Anchorhead said:

Bingowings said:

one is a space truck and looks dingy and older and the other is a science vessel/corporate ambassadorial/store window ship and looks flashy and new.

My car probably has the same technology as the finest limousines used to cater to diplomats and I would bet garbage trucks do as well. Technology isn't limited to dog & pony show vehicles. It's driven by cost of manufacture, cost of maintenance, and usability.

It's really not fair to compare it to the differences in cars you can buy today. The Prometheus is not a ship intended for mass production. It is a one-off, specially-designed, money-is-no-object vessel from THE most technologically-superior company on the planet, the equivalent of a top-secret aircraft built at Area 51, or a concept car several decades ahead of what can be found on the show-room-floor today. Compare that to an aging Mack truck, and now we're closer to the difference between the Prometheus and Nostromo.

Keep in mind, there is no company today that can be compared to Weyland Corp. You'd have to think of it like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, MIT, NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Area 51 were all consolidated into one company. That company would basically decide how technologically advanced our civilization is, and can hold us back while it races ahead into the future to ensure that it remains the source of all electronic, aerospace, and biotech advancements for the next hundred years. The Prometheus is the pinnacle of Weyland's capabilities, and so it looks like a car 100 years ahead of what is available for purchase by the average consumer.