NationStates Jolt Archive

VILYA ELENOSTO, FRIDAY - The Imperial Space Administration Ministry for Colonial Development reported Friday that the robot factory ship VEFS1 touched down on newly-designated AST-441'Romeo' at 1241 Universal Standard Time. Romeo will be the site for six more such landings over the few months, as the asteroid is bored, spun, and hollowed out in preperation for its usage as the base of operations for the Vilya Elenoston Freedom Dockyards.

Giant psuedo-gravitational field units will be built on its exterior once the asteroid is hollowed, to provide simulated gravity inside the object - but the new PGF units are extremely weak, and, to counteract the difficulties involved, two large trains will be run around tracks to allow sleeping in either Terran or Martian g.

The Dockyards, including hollowing AST-441'Romeo' and renovating it, are costing an estimated two hundred fifty billion Relhames, but High Lord Commodore Aglar ux-Rihad believes the investment is worth the taxpayers money. "Ground construction capacity on the mainland is constantly stretched," he pointed out, "which makes this expansion into a spaceborne construction facility for civilian and military enterprises only natural."

The Freedom Dockyards are expected to be operational in late September, and will be fully operational by the late northern tropical Terran summer next year.

~ Excerpted from The Vilya Elenosto Times

VILYA ELENOSTO, FRIDAY - As the Freedom Dockyards' primary construction unit nears completion, with the first ship already having left the civilian-designated tertiary unit (CSS Valiant), AST-441'Romeo' is set to finally spin up to a rotational velocity of 22,000rpm by the PGF field emittors constructed at either magnetic pole. The rotation is set to last for two and a half hours; water that has been pumped into the asteroid will be superheated and ejected through specially constructed vents.

Massive fabric units, strung out around the vents and currently in a vacuum-state await the moment of ejection - the vents will open at the critical moment - to capture as much of the ejecta as possible; IsnCo does not intend to waste any materials, including the water initially pumped into the asteroid.

Engineers - and investors - will be crossing their fingers that the massive investment outlay on AST-441'Romeo' will not be lost; if the calculations involved are incorrect, it is possible that Romeo could fracture. If the integrity of the asteroid is breached too severely, and patches cannot be afixed to the surface, then work will have to begin anew.

~ Excerpted from the Vilya Elenosto Times