Landers and OTVs

[garrowolf]

I'm still working on my Fusion Age setting. I got some great help with ships with rotating sections. Now I need some landers and Orbital Transfer Vehicles.

I want it to look heavy duty, different then a shuttle, but not a tall rocket. I want something that looks heavier duty then the delta shaped shuttles from Babylon 5. Maybe something like the passenger shuttle on Total Recall. It doesn't need rotating sections but it should look like it could carry alot.

Any ideas?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How about a sphere set within a 12 or 20-sided frame, with small reaction thrusters at each point of the frame, and main thrusters on one face.

 

[garrowolf]

Well something like that is going to really look like a gamer designed it but sure!

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I've always rather liked the Cheyenne drop ships from Aliens.

And, of course Firefly class ships are troop-landing vessels.

I also like the Betty from Alien Resurrection.

I have a thing for vectored thrust.

 

[garrowolf]

Yeah I'm wanting vectored thrust type ships. I want some shuttles with really heavy looking engines. Basically the idea is that once you go into the Gravitic age (next one after the Fusion Age) ships that are taking off from a planet can do so much more easily so you have fighters and small shuttles able to do it. But before you have that you still have to get things into space often but it's a lot of hard work so the engines should look big. I'm thinking of an advanced version of huge cargo planes maybe with some squared off engines. Something that could take off and get into orbit like a plane as well as land easily but still work in space.

Any ideas?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, if you believe Bova and others, the HEAVY lifting will be done by equatorial space elevators.

That leaves cargo transfer in space to ships that can be optimally designed without concern for aerodynamics.

 

[garrowolf]

Space Elevators

I have been thinking about this one and I keep on coming back to the problem of it being a really big target. Basically the only way for this to work is on a relatively peaceful world. My Fusion Age game is anything but peaceful. I like the idea but I think that it would get literally shot down.

Basically I am basing this partially on the Eugenics Wars referred to in Star Trek. Transhumanism is strong in various forms. Some people have converted themselves into a cyberbrain with various cybershell bodies. Others have gone the route of genetic augmentation. These Augments are setting up various kingdoms on Mars, under the Earth Oceans, and along the Main Belt. The Earth Alliance is trying to deal with all of this right after the Fall of Earth (basically a Nuclear Winter on Earth set off by religious fanatics causing a major space station to crash on Earth).

The Tech level is called Fusion Age because it is defined by easy Fusion energy because small table sized Fusion reactors become common. Underwater Supercavitation Submarines and Subfighters, Fusion Torch Starships, Land Mecha with Thermoptic Camoflage, and heavy cyborgs become the norm.

Earth is under a Nuclear Ice Age so that the oceans are the only safe place to be. Venus is slowly being terraformed. Mars houses the refugees from Earth and is in constant warfare over the few resources and a hundred old hatreds. Mechs fight in the deserts of Mars. The Main Belt is the home of Megacorps producing Starships for both sides of most conflicts. Babylon 5 style space stations float through the Belt as the main places to relax in the Belt.

Sound like fun?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I wouldn't be too concerned about the vulnerability of Space Elevators. The materials used to make them coupled with the sheer mass of what we're talking about would be VERY durable.

[sblock]Ben Bova beat you there. In his Grand Tour stories, there is still plenty of unrest in the world, and someone DOES attack a Space Elevator...successfully. And even after that, humanity STILL used Space Elevators.[/sblock]

 

[garrowolf]

Which Ben Bova book? I'm also looking for something to read anyway.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I forget which one, exactly- it was early in the Grand Tour novel cycle, so its PROBABLY Mars.