Guide:Cosmos
| |
| Cosmos | |
|---|---|
| Class Overview | |
| Category | Nearspace survey cruiser |
| Operational | 2080 - 2120 |
| Constructed | 21 |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 229.3 m |
| Beam | 54.0 m |
| Height | 101.2 m |
| Mass | 36,700 mt |
| Performance | |
| Cruise Speed | w 1.2 |
| Max Speed | w 1.9 |
| Endurance | 8 years |
| Complement | |
| Officers | 9 |
| Enlisted | 71 + 20 opt. research crew
|
| Tactical Systems | |
| Shields | electromagnetic shield (8 T) |
| Laboratories |
|
| Auxiliary Craft |
|
| Historical | |
| Ships of Note | UES Nirvana (SC-04) |
| Canonicity | |
| Design | Starflight Chronology |
| Name | Starflight Chronology |
| History | Starflight Chronology
|
Background: Hobbyist's Guide
Despite appearances, dislike of all things alien was not the true reason for the major design dissimilarities between Earthships and the advanced starcraft that were visiting Sol. Traditional shipbuilding techniques were rooted deep, and dictated much of the designing process as well. Thus, many of the late 21st century newbuild warp vessels still resembled spacecraft from the first half of that century. Among these was one of the most important designs for opening up near-Earth interstellar space for human exploitation, the Cosmos survey vessel. Outwardly a warp-driven sister of the Aventeur insystem explorers from the beginning of the century, the Cosmos nevertheless was a complete newbuild. After the Vulcan and Korngold-McHale approaches to warp travel were abandoned, the Cosmos model held promise of becoming the definite Earthship design. In the 2080s, it was far from obvious that this was not to be.
The Cosmos had several factors speaking for her. A sectored cylinder layout for the primary hull simplified construction, allowed for easy modular refitting for a variety of missions, and had an advantageous area/volume ratio for armoring. On the other hand, centrifugal or null gravity construction philosophies and graviton-based artificial gravity did not work well together. The engineers fought bitterly to gravitize the cylindrar hull with decks perpendicular to thrust axis, but later had to admit that simple tilting of the cylinder by 90 degrees would have created a more workable and functional gravity system while preserving the deck layout. Later Earth shipbuilding with its trademark saucer hulls owes to this concept of a tilted cylinder or pillbox, and to the gravitics work done on the configuration under the Cosmos program.
From the warp-dynamic viewpoint, the traditional shape was neither a liability nor an asset. The simple cylindrar fields of the era did not require complex hull-field interaction, as the bewildering collection of hull shapes in Earth’s commercial fleet at the time stands witness. The clumsy nacelles that provided combined warp propulsion, fuel storage and reaction thrust for the Cosmos ships were each as large alone as some of those commercial vessels. A cruise speed of warp 1.2 was more or less of commercial standard, as was the dash speed of warp 2. Eight-year endurance paralleled boomer ship and colonizer records. Considering that a Cosmos supported a mostly awake crew of a hundred, though, one should hold the design to a standard of its own.
Equipment carried aboard included a fleet of four shuttlecraft, two of them capable of acting as field laboratories or heavy-duty transports, and two as nimble liaison vehicles; spares existed for building one more of each type. An array of probes could also be sown on arrival to a research area, ranging from simple spatial monitoring buoys and mapping orbiters to penetrating geological sounders and surface- or fluid-roving seeker drones. Some twenty crew were dedicated as VR pilots to these instruments, since experiences on fully autonomous operations were still rather discouraging. No weapons or devices of defensive or offensive potential were available, nor was there armoring to boost the protective effect of electromagnetic deflector fields. Communications systems were similar to boomer gear, possessing some limited capacity of tapping into alien networks. Confidential reports to Earth would still have to be sent by slow and relatively insecure EM tightbeam.
The mission of a Cosmos entailed careful and prolonged survey of star systems for their resources, colonization potential, and strategic value of positioning in both commercial and military respects. Within the 20-lightyear radius that Earth hoped to establish as its dominion, some twenty systems were still free for taking. Few held planets of worth, yet Earth prepared a Cosmos for each. Surveys performed between 2082 and 2102 would establish the futility of Earth’s dreams of an independent ‘bubble empire’ centered on the home planet. A few survey ships would even be forcibly ousted from target systems by peoples with prior or superior claims. Yet valuable scientific knowledge of the true nature of nearby space would be gathered during these missions, and some beneficial contacts established.
In the end, the Cosmos program turned out to be a mere phase Earth had to go through, in both political and technological sense. The ships served on in general astrophysics survey duty until the 2120s, but received no upgrades or major overhauls. No direct successor design or perpetuator of lineage emerged, either. Earth’s hopes of interstellar influence lay beyond the girdle of neighboring star kingdoms, and would have to wait until the introduction of a vessel of far greater range, speed and defensive potency. During the 30-year wait, the UESF would be coping with a very different set of challenges.
Notes
- Some commissioned ship names attributed to the Cosmos class are:
- Guide:
- UES Cosmos
- UES Nirvana (SC-04)