>Function Stable, lightly-armored, heavily-defended weapons platform and troop transport for combat missions, including transport of AMP Suits, with massive array of weaponry for battle theater domination.
>Official Name C-21 Dragon Assault Ship
>Manfacturer Scylla Aerosystems
>Weaponry Variety of medium automatic guns, ATG and ATA missiles, plus dual and quad chain-gun systems. All gun and missile systems constrained by friendly fire avoidance codes (IFF Lockout).
>Notes Enough non-nuclear firepower to devastate several city blocks in seconds. Despite armor and multiple defensive guns, susceptible to enemy missile strike. Believed to be invulnerable to Na'vi weapons and Pandoran animals.
The Dragon was originally developed for troop insertion, close air support and battle theater coordination roles. But over the years, in several wars on Earth, the Dragon earned a reputation as an aerial weapon platform capable of inflicting heavy casualties in forward strike operations. It has been hardened for use in Pandora's fierce electromagnetic fields. The assembled firepower makes the Dragon a near-perfect killing machine, especially on Pandora, where the enemy uses such crude weapons. The sentry guns were adapted from automated perimeter defense stations to lock onto oncoming enemy missiles/rockets, or any other object not coded and recognized as friendly, and then the targeting computer punches them out of the sky.
The unit's four massive prop rotor systems produce lift sufficient for the Dragon to climb and maneuver rapidly, despite its blunt airframe. This climb performance is even more impressive in Pandora’s dense air and low gravity. Each of the four ducts contains two co-axial counter-rotating prop-rotors, with three blades each. Each of these prop-rotors can vary pitch collectively, but does not have cyclic pitch control. Flight maneuvers are performed by angling the ducts independently and by controlling the collective pitch of each coaxial rotor system independently of the others. These complex coordinated rotations and pitch changes are controlled by the flight computer based on inputs from the pilot’s conventional flight controls: “cyclic” stick, collective stick, and yaw pedals, in the traditional layout used in rotorcraft since the mid-20th century. The flight deck is laid out simply and classically, allowing single pilot operation.
Aft and to starboard of the pilot’s position is the Nav Station. The navigator can receive input from all the Dragon’s imaging devices and instruments, and can display imaging feeds from other aerial and ground units. The role of the so-called “navigator” is really battle theater coordination, and he will typically act as Forward Air Controller in operations with multiple aircraft, and may coordinate ground operations as well.
Parker Parker
The Dragon’s role is typically command and control, with its weapons being used defensively. The Dragon can provide close air support for ground operations, and can coordinate aerial attack as well as aerial defense. Its weapons systems are controlled by a single central gunnery station. The “Gunner” is the human part of a team consisting also of multiple targeting computers. The gunner will designate targets and assign tasks to different gun and missile systems, then those systems will execute the order autonomously. The gunner may also take direct manual control of any single weapon system aboard, via joystick controls at his gunnery station. The gunner has excellent visibility of the battle theater from his separate cockpit to port of the pilot’s cockpit, though some gunners complain about the lack of visibility to starboard. In any case, the weapons systems are controlled by imaging instruments on board and in the weapons themselves, and do not rely much on the pilot’s vision (except in instances of high EMF interference, such as occur within the fluxcons of Pandora).
The composite triple-blade rotors have an 11.58 meter diameter and are stacked in a co-axial configuration within each of the four ducts. The ducts are arranged in a four-poster lift configuration at the corners of the wide, flat main fuselage. Between the four and aft rotor systems on each side, are the mid-fuselage weapons pods, which carry a large number and variety of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles.
Jayden Lee
The power plant has two D5-"Jimmy" turbines, rated at 15,000 shp 725 kW. The turbines serve power to a master bus, from which power is distributed to the dual coaxial ceramic motors in each of the four rotor hubs. Loss of a single turbine does not produce asymmetric lift, merely a reduction of overall power. In a turbine-out scenario, the remaining turbine can be operated at 150% to provide enough lift for forward flight and hover, although the climb rate is significantly impacted, and operation in this mode is restricted to twenty minutes maximum.
In the event of a failed prop-rotor (due to mechanical failure or enemy fire), the diagonally opposed rotor system must be ‘feathered’ to zero pitch within forty milliseconds to prevent asymmetric thrust from inducing a catastrophic coupled pitch-roll effect. This is performed automatically by the flight computer. Such a failure will require an immediate emergency landing. Lift for a controlled landing is provided by pitching the remaining two rotor systems to 150% of normal operating pitch and by throttling up to the Contingency RPM setting (at which point the rotor blade tips are barely subsonic). This condition can only be maintained for two minutes without causing permanent damage to the rotors and rotor-hub gear boxes.
On Pandora Dragon’s best rate of climb is 427 meters per minute. The unit's service ceiling is 2,750 meters (in Pandoran atmos).
Like all aircraft operated by the RDA on Pandora, the Dragon required modification to fly in the local atmosphere. The turbines required a four degree repitch of the blade tips at the time of manufacture. The turbines are manufactured on Earth and installed in the airframe on Pandora. The airframe and rotor systems are manufactured at the in situ stereolithography plant at Hell’s Gate. Missile tracking and guidance electronics are imported from Earth, but missile airframes are manufactured in situ.
Sebastian Peterson
In situ manufacturing is necessary because of the extremely high cost of transporting mass from Earth to Pandora. Only exotic electronics and other specialty items are manifested as ‘upmass’ from Earth. The rest is made locally, including all ground vehicles, bulldozers, mine equipment, weapons, clothing, modular building elements, etc.
The construction of the Dragon was controversial, because it was a ‘one-off’ which did not, in the opinion of the in situ plant managers, justify the tooling necessary to build it. However, Colonel Miles Quarich lobbied strongly for the vehicle, saying it was necessary to accomplish his mission of security for all on-world RDA assets. Given his sterling record as SecOps commander on Pandora, his will prevailed and the Dragon was built. A second Dragon airframe was fabricated, but the turbines and other components necessary to make it operational have not, at the date of this writing, arrived from Earth.
Blake Kelly
Amplified Mobility Platform
>Function Ambulatory weapons platform for military and civilian operations in hostile and toxic environments. Used on Pandora for construction, field and mining security, perimeter defense at Hell's Gate.
>Official Name MK-6 Amplified Mobility Platform
>Size and Weight 4.205 meters high, 2.83 meters wide. Weighs roughly 1,700 kilos, depending on options.
>Navigation and Communications GPS. FLIR, radar, and NV, for nav and targeting. Cockpit commands are voice actuated, coded to driver's voiceprint pattern.
>Weaponry Shoulder-slung and detachable GAU-90 thirty millimeter cannon. Linked ammo belt runs through flexible feed chute. Optional flamethrower, ceramic knife.
>Notes Not designed specifically for Pandora, but this class of hard-suits is effective protection from toxic plants, swarms of aggressive stinging insects, and other biting creatures. Highly agile and swift in the hands of a skilled driver.
The Amplified Mobility Platform (or “AMP” Suit) is a distant descendant of the first military exoskeletons used on Earth in the mid 21st century. It was improved during military service in a myriad of combat theaters-- from arctic to jungle to desert-- over the decades. Sealed and pressurized models for toxic environments were developed as well. The suit is used extensively on the Moon and Mars colonies (where they are powered by fuel cells and/or monopropellant ceramic turbines). Its well-tested capabilities have proved invaluable in the deadly environment of Pandora.
Alexander Ward
BASED JIM
Nathaniel Clark
The human-operated walking machine magnifies the strength and mobility of a soldier or civilian worker while providing protection from military and environmental threats. Unlike fanciful designs in which weapons were integrated into limbs, the AMP suit is a multi-purpose machine, able to duplicate all functions of the infantry soldier. Since soldiers spend much of their time loading and unloading, and performing other tasks besides operating weapons, it was determined that the AMP suit needed the same functionality as a human: two legs, two arms, and highly dexterous hands. This allows not only a wide range of functions, but allows the suit to operate a variety of weapons systems.
The servo-actuated limbs instantly respond to the driver's hand and leg movements inside the sealed cab, greatly magnifying the driver's strength.
The operator’s arms move servo armatures and the suit’s arms follow in perfect synchronization. Because of limited space inside the cockpit, the servo armatures move in a 1:2 ratio relative to the suit’s arms. It requires many hours of training for an AMP suit driver to become agile and dexterous, with the biggest difficulty being this scaled ratio of movement. The legs are actuated by foot-pedals which amplify on an even larger ratio. In fact, the leg sensors work slightly differently than the arms. Due to the confining spatial envelope around the feet and legs of the operator, the pedals cannot move in long strides, even on a scaled relationship. Instead, they sense the force and direction of the input and the onboard computer triggers a corresponding programmed movement of the legs. So the operator creates pressure and direction “cues” which trigger leg movements. The suit executes the “intention” of the pilot, calculating terrain factors and momentum to perform balanced movement.
Blake Myers
The arms on the other hand, operate in a directly scaled relationship to the operator’s arms, which allows better spatial positioning of the hands. The fingers and thumb are in direct 1:1 ratio. The servo armature has force feedback, and resists the movement of the operator’s arms when the suit’s limbs meet an obstacle. The operator can “feel” what the suit is doing. It is said that the suit can be operated in full darkness, by a skilled driver, by “feel” alone.
Using the suit, a driver is able to punch through a tree trunk, lift a half ton cargo crate, or rapidly build prefab units without a construction crew. Its cannon obliterates anything in its targeting sights with a rain of armor-piercing rounds, at a 250 round per minute cyclic rate of fire.
The AMP Suit is an agile, powerful all-terrain ground combat unit. With its firepower, it can defeat most opponents and cut a swathe through difficult landscape and strong enemy positions. The suit, which is made of composites and ceramics, is lightweight for its size, and operates well in high EMF conditions.
The suit is effective against swarms of stinging, aggressive insects on Pandora. Its enclosed cab and “Built-In Breathing System” (BIBS) also allows RDA personnel to perform civilian and military duties in the toxic atmosphere of Pandora and other off-Earth locations. The cockpit is run at a 0.3 psi overpressure, to prevent leak-in of toxic gases. There is an emergency canopy ejection system, in case a driver is trapped in a burning AMP suit.
Although a driver can learn to adequately manipulate the unit in combat conditions with less than two months of training, it takes months longer to master such actions as fall recovery from face-up supine position (the “turtle” problem.)
Nolan Lopez
However, with the solid state gyro sensors and the DBS (Dynamic Balance System) very few AMP suits topple. Its dynamic balancing system automatically compensates for shifts in the suit’s center of gravity whether standing, walking, or lifting heavy loads. The suit instantly adjusts to radical shifts in body movements on uneven terrain; it is very difficult to trip and it would take a direct hit from a missile (or a thanator) to knock one over.
The force feedback in the arm and hand servo armatures is both powerful and sensitive. It can create pressure against the operator which stops his hand in mid air if the suit’s arm encounters an obstacle it cannot move. The pressure on the fingertips is proportional to the pressure exerted by the suit’s fingers. An experienced driver can pick up an egg without breaking it.
If the driver has been injured or killed, the AMP Suit has “walk-back” capability of up to the range of its onboard fuel and reserve fuel-cells. This feature was designed to protect the significant capital investment in each suit. This function can be triggered by the driver, or from SecOps headquarters at Hell’s Gate, if the driver’s biotelemetry indicate unconsciousness or death. Only SecOps AMP suits are allowed beyond the perimeter at Hell’s Gate or at the mine complex. Suits operated by non-SecOps base or mine personnel are not equipped with a weapons system interface, nor do they have rack-space for ammo canisters.
The unit's torso features an impact-resistant glass-polymer laminate canopy. The lower legs and bottom of the feet are reinforced to protect against shrapnel and mines.
Jason Thompson
The power source is a 6849-RLF gas turbine engine. The ceramic miniturbine is a standard power supply for all military systems and is highly robust in environments of snow, sand, dust, and mud. The suit can operate at medium power for up to eight hours on a full fuel load. A high energy-density fuel cell provides a back-up energy source for up to two hours of use.
The controls for operating the system are inside the sealed cab. The turbine runs a servo-motor system that moves the limbs by magnifying the driver's waist, leg, feet, hand, arm, and finger movements through an electromechanical forced feedback system. This increases the driver's physical strength by an average factor of fifteen times. The hands can exert a grip of roughly 150 kilograms per square centimeter-- enough pressure to crush a metal pipe or smash through a brick wall. Each suit must be custom calibrated to the driver for ease of use and to avoid hyperextension injuries.
The suit's weapons are more lethal than its raw strength. The hip-fired GAU-90 thirty millimeter machine gun can fire 250 explosive rounds per minute. Ammo is disintegrating-link belt fed from an ammo canister mounted on the unit's back through a flex chute over the shoulder to the weapon. The gun can be slung using an over-shoulder rifle-sling to free the hands for other tasks. The other (non-standard) weapon is a combat knife of self-sharpening diamond-hard ceramic. To match the scale of the suit, the blade is over one meter long and can cut through many metals. (Although lethal, the blade is not as utilitarian as some cutting devices and is considered to be something of an affectation, used mostly by SecOps troopers with a “Special Forces” mentality.)
The utility version features the same technology and dimensions, but without the weapons. Both models have proved extremely effective on Earth and Pandora.
Dominic Ross
The driver's HUD (head-up display) projects radar, active IR (infrared) and passive thermal targeting data on an impact-resistant visor on top of the center console. When the unit's blast shield is lowered over the cab canopy, the suit can be operated using only visual instruments. In Pandora's EMF fields and high humidity, these systems are notorious for failing. Because of their complex Earth-manufactured electronics, they are difficult to repair.
When the driver’s hands are within the servo armatures, the driver uses voice actuation to control suit systems. External sound can be monitored and amplified, and is reproduced inside the cockpit with full directionality. The driver can “hear” another AMP suit or ground trooper operating nearby, and know their position by the direction of the sound. The driver’s voice can be projected outside the suit via external speakers.
When the Master Servo Arm switch is activated by thumb control (on the left hand armature) the suit’s servos move the limbs from rest position to the current position of the driver’s arms and legs in one second. When the driver “switches out,” hitting the MSA switch again (indicator goes from green to red) the suit will relax from the current position of the operator to its standing rest position in one second.
>Function Interstellar vehicle (ISV) designed to transport personnel, supplies, and equipment between Earth and Pandora, and to return personnel and refined unobtanium from Pandora to Earth.
>Official Name Interstellar Vehicle ISV Venture Star.
>Hull Number 601-09.
>Manufacturer Consortium of aerospace contractors under control of RDA.
The ISV Venture Star is one of a twelve vehicle fleet which provides commercial space transportation between Earth and Alpha Centauri. As with the other ships of the “Capital Star” class, it was designed to carry a large payload of cargo and passengers to the worlds of the Alpha Centauri star system, especially the rich world of Pandora. The ships of this class are not exploration ships, they are commercial freighters. The ship's mission is to be part of an endlessly looping supply chain which enables the exploitation of the indigenous resources of Pandora. The ISV Venture Star, and the other ships of its class, represent the highest technological achievement in human history. Only the great need for unobtanium and the energy which it allows human civilization to produce could justify the cost of creating these vessels. In fact, the unobtanium itself enabled the creation of this class of ISV’s. It is used in the superconducting magnet arrays which contain and direct the energy of the matter-antimatter annihilation which propels the ship. Without unobtanium, interstellar commerce on this scale would not be possible. Unobtanium is not only the key to Earth’s energy needs in the 22nd century, but it is the enabler of interstellar travel and the establishment of a truly spacefaring civilization.
The Venture Star is the ninth ship of its class brought into service, and has made one round trip to the Alpha Centauri System. It is currently outbound on its second voyage, due to arrive there in 2154.
Matthew Roberts
>Design History: When the first voyage to the Alpha Centauri system was envisioned, engineers knew that a conventional rocket was hopelessly inadequate. Even the fusion powered rockets used within Earth’s solar system could not generate the thrust needed to achieve “relativistic” speeds (some large fraction of the speed of light). Since any starship capable of supporting interstellar commerce on reasonable time scales needed to travel at relativistic speeds, its rocket exhaust velocity, too, had to be near lightspeed to create sufficient thrust. This eliminated chemically powered rocket engines, nuclear thermal engines, plasma engines and fusion engines (despite their long history of successful missions amongst the planets of our solar system in the 21st and early 22nd centuries).
Talk of “wormholes” and “warp drives” captured the imagination of twentieth-century sci-fi fans, but no such methods have come to fruition. For now, engineers must rely upon techniques that exploit our current understanding of physics. Visionaries set their sights on the potential for matter-antimatter reactions. The enormous energy released in the annihilation of matter and antimatter is the only known means of creating the kind of propulsion needed for interstellar travel. The first interstellar ship was over four kilometers long, because of the massive refrigeration system required to maintain the conventional low-temperature superconducting magnets that produced the containment field for the matter-antimatter reaction. It was not until the discovery of the high-temperature superconductor unobtanium on Pandora that interstellar travel and commerce became commercially viable. The Capital Star Class ISV was developed using this technology and is one-quarter the size of that first ship, and many times more efficient.
Samuel Kelly
>Mission: The ISV Venture Star can carry a large payload of cargo and passengers to establish commercial and scientific outposts on alien worlds. The ship's current mission is the exploitation of indigenous resources on Pandora, and is one of twelve ISVs that travel between Earth and Pandora on a continuing basis.
>Range: 4.4 light-years. This range is set by onboard fuel supply and its containment system, and the life-support consumables, and the infrastructure needed to contain them. Because each gram of mass must be accelerated and decelerated (as well as the onboard fuel to accomplish this), every possible weight-saving measure has been taken. The ship carries only enough fuel for the planned mission profile, and a minimal amount of additional maneuvering. There are only enough supplies for the minimum crew needed to remain out of cryosleep. Air, water, and food must be replenished at Pandora, and the ship refueled there with locally-manufactured anti-matter and hydrogen and deuterium harvested from Polyphemus.
>Cruising speed: 210,000 kilometers per second (70% of lightspeed, or 0.7 c).
>Maximum Acceleration: 1.5 g.
>Mission Profile: 0.46 year initial acceleration @ 1.5 g to reach 0.7 c; 5.83 years cruise @ 0.7 c; 0.46 year deceleration; 1 year loiter in orbit around Pandora; 0.46 year acceleration @ 1.5 g to 0.7 c for return trip; 5.83 years cruise; 0.46 year final deceleration @ 1.5 g to go into orbit around Earth.
>Mission Duration: 6.75 + 1.0 + 6.75 = 14.5 Earth years. However, relativistic effects shorten the time onboard ship to slightly less than 6 years each way.
Angel Miller
>Power Source: Hybrid deuterium fusion / matter-antimatter annihilation. Propulsion: Two hybrid fusion/matter-antimatter engines. One photon sail. One fusion PME (Planetary Maneuvering Engine.) Beamed photon power from Earth for outward acceleration phase; ship’s hybrid fusion / matter-antimatter power for deceleration phase on approach to Pandora. Sequence reversed for return to Earth.
>Engines: Two, arranged symmetrically in a tractor configuration. They are angled outward a few degrees off the ship’s longitudinal axis so their exhaust plumes bypass the ship’s structure. This results in a slight cosine loss to thrust efficiency, and the body of the ship must be shielded from the plume’s thermal radiation, but the mass-savings advantage of a tensile structure outweigh these disadvantages. Since a very long truss is needed to separate the habitable section of the ship from the engines which produce large amounts of radiation, such a structure would be prohibitively massive if it were a conventional space-frame truss designed for compressive loading. But the carbon-nanotube composite tensile-truss creates the necessary stand-off distance at one tenth the mass. Essentially it is a tow cable with enough torsional rigidity to allow the ship to maneuver, including the pitch-over maneuver which must be performed to turn 180 degrees for the deceleration burn when inbound to Pandora.
Thomas Cook
A matter-antimatter reaction causes the total conversion of matter into energy, as per Einstein’s famous formula of E = mc2. The antimatter (in this case anti-hydrogen) is contained by a magnetic field in a near-perfect vacuum in which it circulates as a high density cloud of atoms cooled to near-absolute-zero temperature. When antimatter and matter (normal hydrogen) are brought together, they mutually annihilate and produce an enormous amount of energy, which must be directed by an ultra-powerful magnetic field to form the exhaust plume. These photons of energy, although massless, possess momentum, and their ejection provides the thrust to accelerate the ship. Additional thrust is obtained by injecting hydrogen atoms into the plasma before it leaves the engines. The exhaust flare is an incandescent plasma a million times brighter than a welding arc, and over thirty kilometers long. The plume is considered to be one of the most spectacular man-made sights in history. Structure: The ship's primary structure (which could only exist in zero gravity) consists of the two side-by-side engines attached to a tensile-truss of carbon-nanotube composite. This connects the propulsion section to the payload section, which includes habitation modules for crew, the cryovaults for passengers, amnio tanks for the avatars, and the cargo section. Starting from the forward end:
1. Engines, propellant tanks, and radiators. The propellant tanks are spheres insulated for zero boil-off of the cryogenic hydrogen propellant. The radiators dissipate the heat of the engine section. After a deccel or accel burn phase, the radiators will glow red hot for 2 weeks.
Zachary Parker
2. The tensile-truss that transfers the thrust of the two engines to the rest of the ship. Although thin, it is rigid enough to prevent the payload section from fishtailing caused by buildup of resonant frequency vibrations during acceleration and deceleration. The section of the truss adjacent to the antimatter engine nozzles is protected by a thermal shield of nearly perfect reflecting materials, to guard against the intense heat radiated from the exhaust plumes.
3. Cargo containers, arranged in four ranks of four modules each. The 16 modules are in turn composed of 6 cargo pods. Depending on the cargo bay configuration of the shuttle, it can hold the contents of two pods and 100 passengers in jump seats, or up to the contents of six pods and no passengers. A mobile transporter running on tracks can position a large robotic arm for transfer of the cargo modules to and from the trans-atmospheric shuttles.
4. Two Valkyrie TAV’s (trans-atmospheric vehicles) docked to access tunnels. The tunnels connect to a pressurized tunnel that runs through the truss, and connects to the habitation section.
5. The habitation section consists of three large modules containing the cryovaults and amnio tanks. Inside each module is an open frame structure of advanced composites, with non-load bearing walls made of foam composite. There is almost no metal used in the structure. This is to prevent galactic cosmic radiation from striking metal and producing secondary radiation particles. There are a number of airlocks for the crew, and portals for repair bots that look like high-tech mechanical crabs.
Brody Harris
6. Immediately behind these three modules are the two on-duty crew modules, located at the opposite ends of a transverse truss. A pressurized tunnel runs through the truss, connecting the two units. During cruise mode, these modules can be rotated to create an artificial gravity for the on-duty crew. During accel and deccel phases, the modules fold along the longitudinal axis of the ship. In this configuration, the gravity is created by the acceleration of the ship (so all floors and walls are still correctly oriented to the gravity vector). The modules also provide centrifugal artificial gravity during the ISV’s one year loiter on orbit at Pandora.
7. At the far end of the structure is the mirror shield, which protects the ship from the intense light of the beamed-power laser from Earth. This mirror is only a few molecules thick, but reflects light efficiently enough to prevent incineration of the habitable section of the starship. When acceleration is completed, the ship is rotated 180 degrees so that the mirror shield faces forward. Now the shield performs another role, acting as a multi-layer interstellar debris shield. Although intense magnetic fields are used to deflect stray gas molecules, the occasional dust grain requires a physical barrier. The shield is in multiple layers, spaced one hundred meters apart. Impact of a debris grain (traveling at a relative speed of 0.7C) with the first layer of the shield causes vaporization into a plasma. The spray of plasma particles strikes the second layer, and the impacts cause spalling from the back of the second layer. These particles are stopped by the third layer. A fourth layer acts as a backup in the unlikely event that something gets past the third layer. Once cruise speed is reached, this shield is detached and moved by small thrusters thousands of miles in front of the ship, to improve survivability if a larger particle of debris is encountered.
Ryan Phillips
The largest component of the ship is not located on the primary structure. It is the “sail” which receives the beam of photons and extracts the momentum to accelerate or decelerate the ship. It is a shallow bowl 16 kilometers in diameter and stabilized by rotation. The material of the sail is incredibly thin, being only a few dozen molecules thick in most places. Its basic structure is a fabric woven from carbon nanotube thread, and coated with a refractory ceramic that fills in the interstices. The working side of the sail is further coated with a vacuum-deposited multi-layer diachronic reflector, which is 99.99999% efficient. What little heating of the sail that occurs is dissipated by radiation from its back side. Carbon nanotube cables connect it to the main body of the ship, and these cables also have a diachronic coating which reflects 99.99999% of the beam energy that strikes them, and prevents the cables from instantly vaporizing. When not in use, the sail is folded along molecular hinge lines, and occupies a surprisingly small volume. It is stored in the cargo area when not in use, along with the spools of connecting cables. Rigging and removal of the sail is done autonomously by the service bots, but can be done manually in an emergency by awakening the other two crew teams.
>Navigation: 1. Three-axis triangulation from reference stars during cruse phase. 2. Radar ranging when in proximity to planets and satellites. 3. Synthetic-aperture side-looking radar for surface mapping purposes.
>Lightspeed Communications: 1. Modulation of beamed power by ±0.1% for high bit-rate uplink during acceleration and deceleration phases. 2. Pulse-width modulated dedicated lasers for downlink and uplink when not using beamed power – bit rate dependent on distance 3. Standard VHF/UHF radio for short-range communication between orbit and ground.
>Superluminal Communications: Very low bit-rate up- and downlink using McKinney quantum entanglement encoding.
Adrian Lopez
>Life Support: All consumables are recycled to the maximum extent possible. Oxygen is reclaimed from carbon dioxide by fractional distillation of the ship’s atmosphere, which also removes all gaseous contaminants. Additionally, this process removes water vapor and purifies it for drinking. Steam distillation is used to reclaim more drinking water from urine and solid body waste. The dehydrated and sterilized remains are used as fertilizer in the hydroponic gardens where fresh fruits and vegetable are grown to supplement the crew’s diet of freeze-dried and irradiated food.
An auxiliary atmospheric system provides a much larger amount of oxygen, and carbon dioxide removal, for the short periods when the vessel is in orbit around Earth or Pandora, and the passengers and full crew are not in cryosleep. Since it is not practical to maintain this condition for the duration of the voyage, in the event of a failure of the cryosleep system the passengers would be euthanized before awakening, so that the crew can continue the mission and deliver the cargo. (The extra crew teams’ cryosleep system is separate, and triply-redundant.)
>Cryosleep System: The individual passenger compartments are equipped to freeze their occupants solid and maintain them at a very low temperature until the end of the voyage, when they are gradually re-warmed and thawed out. The problem of irreparable cell damage caused by the formation of intra-cellular ice crystals that stymied 20th Century life-extension attempts was solved by using low doses of microwave radiation to jostle the water molecules as the temperature drops, and completely prevents the formation of any ice crystals. The failure rate of this process is less than 1%, and passengers and their heirs release the RDA for any liability as a condition of their employment.
Samuel Gutierrez
>Crew: 25 The ship’s functioning is largely automated, using triply-redundant, radiation-hardened computers, but emergency manual control is provided for all functions. The minimal crew is cross-trained in all specialties. There are three crew teams of five each, who serve for 20-month tours, and are in cryosleep for the balance of the voyage. This seeming waste of mass was necessitated by the experience of mid- 21st Century space missions when crew members proved psychologically unstable after two years in close confinement. There are two main functions of the human crew: monitoring the power and propulsion systems, and supervising the developing avatars. Humans have the ability to notice anomalies too subtle for the automated monitors, in spite of these systems’ tremendous sophistication. In addition to the 15 flight crew there are 10 medical crew in cryosleep, who are awakened before the rest of the passengers to assist with their recovery from suspension.
>Passengers: 200 The passengers are placed in cryosleep so that they do not require any air, water, or food for the duration of the journey. Typical outbound passengers are replacements for RDA personnel, troopers, and avatar operators. Inbound passengers are limited to those who have finished their tour of duty. Unfortunately, the cost of shipping back personnel precludes returning individuals still under contract who have medical problems that cannot be treated on Pandora, so they are euthanized there. The only exception to this policy is for high-level RDA executives.
>Cargo Capacity: 350 metric tons Pandora to Earth
Asher Hughes
>Cargo, outbound: 1. Universal object-manufacturing system (In-situ Stereolighography plant). This can produce large, complex objects from data describing their three-dimensional form and material composition. Using raw materials obtained on Pandora, construction and mining equipment far too large and massive to be shipped from Earth can be produced, along with any replacement parts that are needed. Smaller items such as weapons and furniture, are also created, using design data brought from Earth. Locally-designed items are made as well, or modifications of existing designs. 2. Micro-miniaturized components like mirco- and nanoprocessors and other circuitry elements that cannot be manufactured on Pandora. 3. Data modules. Currently, photochromic glass holographic data-storage cubes are used, each one-centimeter cube containing 100 Petabytes of triply-error-corrected data. Typical imported data includes the specifications for equipment to be manufactured on Pandora. 4. Two Valkyrie shuttlecraft for transfer of personnel and cargo between the orbiting ISV and the surface of Pandora. These vessels are left at Pandora, to replace those from previous missions that have exceeded their design life as manned vehicles. The replaced craft are re-purposed to serve as automated gas harvesters, skimming through Polyphemus’s upper atmosphere to obtain hydrogen and deuterium for refueling the ISV. 5. Developing avatars in amnio tanks. 6. Drugs and other medications that cannot be produced locally.
Adam Cooper
>Cargo, inbound: 1. Refined unobtanium. This is the ISV’s raison d’etre. It takes precedence over all other items, including returning employees if there is no available mass capacity. 2. Data modules as described above. Typical exported data includes the molecular structure of Pandoran organic compounds that may have medical or other applications on Earth. The data will be used to synthesize them for testing and eventual sale. 3. Small Na’vi artifacts to be sold as collectables to wealthy individuals for extremely high prices.
>Potential Hazards: The Venture Star is a vast collection of complex interlocking technologies built to travel from one star system to another in the shortest time without killing the crew and damaging the cargo. At the incredible speed it travels, the ship could be destroyed by colliding with debris larger than a grain of sand. Although statistically rare given the emptiness of space, it is believed that a collision over the life of the ship is possible. Another danger is radiation generated by impacts of smaller particles with the debris shield. These gamma rays result from the incredible speed (0.7 c) of the particle with respect to the ship. If the ship should happen to encounter a high concentration of dust grains, the on-duty crew could receive a lethal dose. Since individuals in cryosleep are more resistant to radiation damage, in such an event automated sensors would awaken one of the other crew teams from cryosleep after the radiation level decreased.
