AMT's Startrek 3 Piece USS Enterprise Set #6618

Hey gang, need help: I've had a model of AMT's Startrek for three years that I'm now thinking of building and I'v e been going over the specs and the suggested paint scheme but I'm a bit stumped, not only by the pieces themselves (three ships, one large, two smaller. Also, the suggested paint color for the overall ship is light gray for the larger ship, semi-gloss white for the smaller ships.) My problem is that I wonder how ships hurtleing through space at thousands of miles per hour could possibly be those colors. Would it be possible to instead do them in chrome Barefoil, maybe the muted chrome color and paint in the other detailed parts which call for colors such as black, orange-red, blue-gray, red, etc. Another thing: does anyone have any ideas about how to mask such a thing? I have just about every kind of masking material including the masking gel from Micro-Mark tools.