NationStates Jolt Archive

The Secretary-General of the Federation of Autonomous City-states sat at his desk, reading over the mission report from the Ophelia which was still conducting its survey mission of the Uranus system. Negotiations with the Taurenor elves were going well, and the Secretary-General had every hope that they would become valued friends over time. Doctor Lieova, mission commander on the Uranus survey team, was even kicking around the idea of a joint mission to restore the balance of Uranus' rings with a well placed Kuiper Belt object.

A handful of small, insular outposts from an undetermined nation had also been detected; but they were out of the way of the plans of the Transdynamics Consortium and of little concern. The Consortium and its plan, however, were the focus of the Secretary-General's attention. They proposed a ten-year initiative to establish gas and ice mining operations in the Uranus system. The Aerospace Forces' fledgling Deep Space Command also intended to set up operations out there and build their first dedicated interplanetary units.

Novadyne Engineering and Sterling Robotics intended to work together to build a station in Uranus orbit dedicated to mining deuterium and helium-3 from the planet's atmosphere and conducting limited experiments on collecting metal ores from stray ring fragments. It would also be the home of the Consortium's effort to develop stabilized metallic hydrogen.

The administrative center of the colony would be built on Miranda. The plans were to build a domed city near one of the moon's many large ice-filled ravines. The seat of government, families of the engineers, scientists, and gas processing specialists on the station, and service industries would reside there.

A dedicated ice mining station was to be constructed on Ariel, a cold, harsh, and even icier world than Miranda. A few biosapient caretakers with genetic modifications to their bloodstream much like the Inuit would oversee the automated mining operations. While there was more than enough ice on Miranda to meet the needs of the city itself, Ariel Station was to largely supply the space station, the Aerospace Forces, and spacecraft returning to the City-states.

Titania Aerospace Forces Base would be the Federation's first offworld military base. Administrative, training, and habitat facilities would all be there. Sections of the moon were already being planned as live-fire exercise zones. Hangars for intrasystem shuttles were to be developed. Space architects were also planning the first military spacedock and engineering yards for the eventual construction of DSPACECOM's First Deep Space Wing.

Focusing on the future of the nation was a welcome respite for the Secretary-General. The civil war in McLeod was going well for his allies, yet it was still a tedious and depressing affair. This was something truly uplifting and truly exciting! And it all would begin with this: a simple signature putting the Uranus Commonwealth Initiative into effect. Being a relatively libertarian nation, oversight of civilian affairs was largely a formality and the law itself had more to do with DSPACECOM's charter on Uranus... but it was still a damn fun thing to be involved in, as far as the Sec-Gen was concerned.

As representatives from the military, the invested corporations, the national media, civilian colonization advocacy groups, and the legislature looked on, the Secretary-General signed the digital document on his electronic notebook and smiled widely for the microcameras. The colonization of Uranus was on.

While the Ophelia continued its surface mapping operations of Uranus' moons, the first construction ships began their own preparations to depart from the space station where they were constructed.

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With the exception of their command crews, the supply and construction ships were designed to be completely automated and run by low-sapient AI. This realized tremendous savings on weight and life support requirements. The plan was to send the construction tenders well ahead of the colonists to prepare the landing sites and set up all of the essential hardware the colonists would need.

Miranda Station would be especially important in this regard, as it was to be the base camp for the fabrication of the gas mining space station. While a few large prefabricated parts would be shipped to Uranus, the main structure was to be built on-site using local resources.

The tender ships themselves were the first to experiment with the planned modular space transportation system. Rather than using specialized designs for every large spacecraft, they would use common drive, cargo, and habitation modules. Specialized forward modules would then be built for whatever the intended purpose of the spacecraft was.

The standard configuration for the tenders was a single drive module, two cargo & fuel modules, and an expanded cargo bay capped by a command and control pod. The rotating habitation modules were still under construction for the colony ships; the construction teams were going to have to do without simulated gravity for their first trip out. Fortunately, they had the same gene therapy done on the Ophelia's crew and the physical effects of deep space travel were the least of their concerns.

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The three New Detroit-class construction tenders, one for each of the planned moon stations, released - without much fanfare - their docking clamps from the orbital station where they had been built. The celebratory launches would be reserved for the colony ships to come.

With a few spurts from their reaction control jets, the tenders slowly separated themselves from the station and the protective canopy of the spaceyard. As they passed out into orbits of their own, the crews could see the distinctive rings of the colony ships' habitation modules taking shape. Those were the key to true long-duration missions in space. Alas, that was a luxury not intended for the tenders at this time. The construction of the base camps could not wait; the timetable had to be kept.

Half an orbit later and a little bit higher in altitude, the tenders engaged their nuclear thermal propulsion. Conventional fission reactors in the cores of their propulsion modules produced a uranium plasma which was funneled into a fused silica "light bulb." Hydrogen fuel was then injected into the reaction chamber where the light bulb superheated and ionized the atoms. Magnetic solenoids directed the energized fuel out the back to create thrust. Four slender fins stretching out in a cruciform arrangement acted as radiators and picked up the stray electrons to recharge the ships' batteries.

Fortunately for the crew, standard radiation shielding around the fission reactor was all they needed for safety. The fused silica allowed heat to pass through, but not the lethal radiation problematic of fission reactions. Thus, the engines themselves did not spew fallout in their wake.

After an acceleration spiral out from their home, the tenders cut their engines and slipped out into open space. By the time they reached Uranus, the colony ships would be almost finished and preparing to make their own launches. By the time the colonists reached Uranus, these construction crews were to have the first of their new homes waiting for them. Then, the real process of developing Uranus would begin.

The construction of the Alexandria-class colony ships was well underway. Despite the tremendous light-lag, the word had come back that the supply tenders were about at the halfway point on their journey to Uranus. The colony ships were the first purpose-built spacecraft built by the City-states with their own rotating habitation modules to simulate gravity.

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While the technology had been perfected on the orbital construction platform itself, it had never been attempted on interplanetary craft intended to move from one gravity well to another. Thus, the Consortium decided to prove that the concept would work by building a much smaller test vehicle with the control deck from an Alexandria and one hab module attached to a single engine-cargo module combination.

The critical portion of the testing schedule was showing that the habitation 'cylinders' would also be able to account for the acceleration segments of flight. Thus, the cylinders were mounted to the connector pylons on their own computer-controlled, rotating joints. The test vehicle planned to make an acceleration burn for a lunar trajectory, conduct four days of tests in lunar orbit, and then return home. While a flight crew of three sat in the control deck, four engineers each sat in the four hab cylinders to record the test. They were all carefully strapped into their acceleration chairs to prevent any accidents.

As the flight crew engaged the engines, the habitation module slowly came to a halt in its rotation and locked in place. The cylinders themselves turned on their mounts to line up parallel with the acceleration vector. The engineers felt a slight drop in gravity momentarily as the transition occured, but it all happened quickly enough to keep anyone from getting sick or losing control of their stations.

As the planet began to fall away from them and the acceleration burn gradually finished, the habitation cylinders spun back into their usual positions and the module began to rotate again. Again, the test team recorded enough of a gravity drop to be felt, but not enough to hinder anyone aware that it was coming.

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Cheers went throughout the test vehicle as it continued on towards the Moon. The first test of the rotational habitation module appeared to be a success by all accounts. There were no abnormal vibrations. The computers were able to time the transition from rotation to non-rotation and back well enough to keep the occupants from vomiting. A few of the engineers reported minor nausea, though. With enough practice, they believed they could minimize even those sensations to the point that space travellers would simply need to strap into their chairs during the transition. Over long acceleration burns, they would be able to move about freely.

The capture burn for lunar orbit and the escape burn to return home would be so relatively short that the engineers decided to not run through the entire transition sequence. Instead, they would monitor the effects of direct acceleration on the rotating module. Measuring the stresses in such a relatively safe flight profile would be immensely helpful in refining the hab module design.

Six days after departing the orbital construction platform, the test vehicle and its crew returned. Their tests were complete and the engineers had all the data they required to perfect the habitation module design. Just as with aerodynamic vehicles, space vehicles required test flights to validate their principles and the Consortium was not going to take anything for granted. There was no profit to be made if no one would fly. Fortunately, the engineers gave the green light to proceed. And proceed they did.

OOC: Thanks, Gawdly.

As the colonization of Uranus continued and negotiations began to establish a colony on Mars, the Federation Senate convened a special meeting with the Secretary-General to discuss the nature of the City-states' constitution.

The Speaker of the Senate took the main podium and cleared her throat. "Our great nation has always been a shining example of preventing government interference in the affairs of its citizens while still providing the necessary defense of their rights. The secular federation between the City-states to provide coherent national policy and a common defense apparatus has served us well.

"However, we have now reached that day where the original constitution to establish that federation has become dated. We have now reached a day where there will soon be a Commonwealth of Uranus Territories and a Commonwealth of Martian City-states is a realistic dream.

"We must do everything possible to ensure that the rights, privileges, and liberties of our citizens in these territories are every bit as protected as they would be here at home. To that end, the Senate has worded an amendment to the Federation Constitution to establish the Autonomous City-states as a Federated Concordat including terrestrial AND off-world territories. The City-states have voted to uphold this amendment. All that is required now is the Secretary-General's signature to make the amendment binding. Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary-General."

The leader of the executive branch of government stepped up next to the Speaker and waved to the applauding legislators and media. Some time later, that wave would reach the science and construction teams near Uranus. In his mind, the Autonomous City-states were now showing that they had crossed the point of no return and their course was steady. The City-states were to become a space power.

"Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is with great pride and great honor that I sign the Federated Concord into effect and establish our nation as a truly interplanetary government. To our citizens in orbit building the first interplanetary spacecraft, I thank you. To our scientists and engineers near Uranus, I thank you. To our negotiators working to secure a Martian Commonwealth, I thank you. It is men, women, and electronic lifeforms of vision, passion, and reason that have made this all possible. May that light always be our guide as we transition to become the Federated Concordat of Autonomous City-states!"

The Secretary-General then signed the Concord to a standing ovation. He was right about one thing for certain. There was no turning back now. They were truly committed.

Nearly five months after the construction tenders had left the station to begin their journey to Uranus, the colony ships were completing their own final preparations. The cargo and fuel modules were fully stocked with everything from emergency rations to spacesuits to seed packets to hydrogen propellant.

Each habitation module had several hydroponics bays and "storm shelters" attached to secure mounts on the interior of the rings. The genetically engineered plants in the hydroponics bays would provide much of the colonists' food supply on the trip and form the basis for the base camp greenhouses.

A single storm shelter was assigned to each quadrant of each ring. Rather than shield the entire habitation section from the rare, but potentially deadly solar storms with heavy and expensive materials, the storm shelters would provide temporary protection in the event of a radiation storm. The storm shelters were double-hulled, with seawater filling the gap.

The Alexandria-class colony ships were capped with shuttlecraft and repair bays and a control deck. These forward modules were nonrotating and in total microgravity except during acceleration. The command crew had the necessary biomods to survive in such an environment for the duration of the trip, if necessary, but many of the colonists did not.

Many of the colonists had never even left the ground before except on short flights to the various city-states. Most had never flown into space except for those on colony ship carrying the Titania AFB personnel and their families. To minimize exposure to microgravity, the colony ships departed from the orbital platform with only their command crews on board and instead rendezvoused with shuttles carrying up the colonists. By the time the first transfer shuttles arrived, the habitats were already in rotation to simulate 0.75 G.

Once all the various people were in their assigned sections, the colony ships began their own slower escape burn from Earth's gravity. The Alexandrias had to make a longer and more sustained spiral out of the gravity well and into interplanetary space because of their higher overall mass. Before too long, however, the shining blue ball of Earth began to recede from view.

After a lengthy journey into the outer regions of the solar system, the construction tenders arrived at Uranus. Their orbit insertion burn had gone well, and the crews had no complaints about the nuclear thermal rocket modules - more efficient versions of the same propulsion used on the waiting Ophelia

While waiting for the construction teams to arrive, Ophelia and her crew had mapped Uranus' moons, selected the best base camp sites, and conducted an extensive survey of Uranus' weather patterns and helium concentrations. Every so often, Dr. Lieova had video conferences with the Taurenor elves to keep them updated on their progress and share weather data.

The strange, but quiet, bases on the inner moons had remained that way. Transport ships passed back and forth from those bases on a fairly regular basis, but gave the Ophelia a wide berth and never attempted contact. The scientists were happy to leave well enough alone.

It was an exciting time for the science team to actually get to see their fellow men in real time. A few exchanges of gifts from their families back home, a rather raucous arrival party, and fourteen hours of sleep later, the four spacecraft set to work. With the Ophelia's data in hand, the tenders began launching drop pods with construction robots and prefabricated materials on board. Once at their landing sites, the drop pods themselves were cannibalized for parts and materials.

Via telepresence, the human crews directed the nonsapient robotic work teams to begin the arduous process of digging out the foundations of the colonies. The excess rock and dirty ice was then processed into a slurry to make large Quonset-style solar storm shelters for the colonists, as they needed some place safe to live as they built their permanent homes. The "huts" were planned for use as warehouses and emergency shelters once the colonies were finished.

The construction teams themselves departed their tenders and landed in their own drop pods on Miranda, Ariel, and Titania once the shelters were complete. These pods, however, were left parked near their team's respective huts as an emergency escape option. Once moonside, the human crew chiefs began directing the more detailed tasks that required immediate attention while the flight teams provided a bird's-eye-view of their progress via wireless video communications links.

Now, the real development of Uranus was to begin. The three colony ships made their own highly-anticipated arrivals shortly after the construction crews had finished preparing the colony sites.

While the two civilian ships had their celebrations with the scientists and engineers at Miranda and Ariel, the lone Aerospace Forces ship quietly met up with the engineering team at Titania and immediately set about their work.

The orders had come down from Deep Space Command itself - there was no time to be spared in bringing Titania AFB online. While the civilians could afford to build their domed city on Miranda and the ice mining station on Ariel at a comfortable pace, Titania AFB would be entirely responsible for ensuring the safety of those territories and had to be ready as soon as possible.

So, while the colonists partied and micro-g danced the weekend away (all to the glee of viewers back home), the astronauts of the Aerospace Forces began moving their equipment to the surface and setting up the command system in the storm shelters.

Four months into the construction of the colonies, Titania Aerospace Force Base was already nearing completion of its first phase of construction and the Miranda dome was nearly halfway finished. The ice mining station on Ariel was the smallest and easiest to build, so it had been conducting its trial run for the past month.

For the Ariel station, ice and rock processing factories were simply built into a radiation-shielded structure located in the middle of the storm shelters. Pressurized connection tubes were added to the storm shelters so the human crews could go back and forth between the control decks and their homes without needing to don EVA suits. The construction robots were retooled to dig into Ariel's thick ice fields and carry back water ice chunks for processing. Once cleaned of impurities, the water was then moved to a low pressure storage area to be monitored for radiation exposure and impurity acquisition. This first "harvest" was intended for the planned space station, if all went well.

On Miranda, the colonists oversaw the development of the ever-arching pressure dome that would protect their city from the cold vacuum outside. The interior would be a so-called "shirt sleeves environment" where people could go about their business as normal. Burrowing robots had made connecting tunnels through the rock and ice between the storm shelters and the city. For now, the tunnels had airlocks at both ends to prevent emergency depressurization. Once the dome was sealed, those airlocks would only be closed in an emergency. The tunnels themselves were large and deep enough to serve as storm shelters in their own right; though, they did not have the amenities of the dedicated structures.

Titania Aerospace Force Base was in the final stages of building its dockyards and its support and housing facilities were already complete. The Ground Forces were due to send a contingent for microgravity training in a month. They would be the first dedicated space operations troop in the City-states. A team of aerospace engineers at Titania AFB were hard at work finishing the design of what would be the dockyards' first project - the Autonomous Kill Vehicle or AKV. These AKVs would be dedicated space combat craft: unmanned, high thrust, and loaded to bear. There was one problem, though. The AKVs did not yet have engines powerful enough to take full advantage of their capabilities. For now, they would rely upon prototype fusion jet rockets... also under development on Titania.

Deep Space Command released this image of the nearly-complete Titania AFB Dockyards.

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With the sealing of the Miranda Station dome, the First Phase of the development of the Territories was complete. The dome was pressurized to a comfortable, easily breathable level -- much like what one might experience in Colorado -- and the colonists quickly began moving in.

Within a month, the first large buildings began to creep their way up towards the top of the dome while numerous one and two-story structures popped up around them. Miranda Station was a veritable boom town. This was in large part because water, the source of life, was extremely easy to come by. Coiled heat generators had been installed in a few of the nearby ice-filled ravines. The temperature was raised just enough to form a number of small, ice-covered reservoirs that were, for all intents and purposes, inexhaustible. In space, everything was recycled... even and especially water.

Ariel Station had accumulated nearly four-fifths of the estimated stockpile of ice water the gas mining space station would need and was in the process of building an experimental mass driver to send large ice chunks to the Vista Explorer, as pure water was hard to come by on Mars.

In the meantime, the personnel and AI on Titania AFB continued on with their quiet, but essential work. The dockyards were brought online and the first production run of experimental AKVs had begun. These unmanned attack craft were to be the vanguards of the Deep Space Command.

Miranda Station, of course, held yet another baachanalian to celebrate its enclosure and settlement process. With much fanfare and raucous celebration, the Commonwealth of Uranus Territories submitted its formal application to join the Federated Concordat of Autonomous City-states as an "associate member." Once clearing the light-lag, the application was immediately accepted and confirmed by the Secretary-General and the city-states back home.

Deep Space Command and the Consortium administrators on Miranda held a telepresence meeting to discuss Phase Two of the Commonwealth's development. Originally, they had planned to build their joint stable liquid metallic hydrogen test plant on the gas mining and processing platform; however, a catastrophic failure could spell doom for the space station and its occupants.

Instead, DSPACECOM and the Consortium agreed to purify hydrogen gas on the station and then shuttle it to a dedicated stable metallic hydrogen research station located in one of the many interconnecting valleys on Titania. This would put the test plant far enough away from other settlements to do any damage and reduce the final transit time for processed SLMH fuel to Titania AFB.

DSPACECOM consented to increase their funding for the SLMH research station from 35% to 50% to offset the higher cost to the Consortium for not doing all the development in one location. However, this decision also opened up a large amount of space on the planned platform and, thus, allowed for more total gas processing capacity.

Once Miranda Station's spaceport was complete in the coming month, the construction of the orbital platform would begin.

The first three SIV-101 "Wyvern" autonomous kill vehicles came off the assembly line from the Titania AFB dockyards and accelerated into higher parking orbits where they could test their maneuvering systems and cycle their fusion jet rocket engines.

Each was armed with four anti-spacecraft interceptor missiles designed to penetrate an armored hull by a combination of kinetic energy and a directed-blast warhead with a tungsten penetrator. The Wyverns also sported two linear projectile accelerators, which could fire unguided or guided projectiles, and a chemical laser. As the guided projectiles were still in development, the ammunition magazines were loaded with 'simple' depleted uranium darts shipped along with the tender.

After conducting a few practice orbits of Titania and all systems were confirmed at nominal operation, the so-designated Space Intercept Vehicles departed Titania to conduct their first recon mission...

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The stable liquid metallic hydrogen research facility was the first project in the gas mining system under development. In cooperation with DSPACECOM engineers, a Transdynamics Consortium construction crew from Miranda Station first built a landing pad adjacent to an ice ravine about a two hour hike away from Titania AFB.

They then reinforced a section of the ravine with trusses and installed cargo elevators in the structure. At the bottom of the ravine, where it was as much rock as ice, the robotic construction drones began digging out tunnels and bunkers for the research labs and production facilities. A separate shaft, directly through the ice and rock, was then excavated for eventual use as a conduit for fuel lines and pumps from the production plant to surface filling tanks.

Shuttles began bringing to the site the gas processing and scientific equipment they would need. Either by the cargo elevators or down the shaft, everything was brought down piece by piece until the components were small enough to fit through airlocks. At that point, the shaft and the entry tunnels were capped with industrial airlocks to allow engineers inside to work in a pressurized environment.

The tunnels and bunkers were sealed with self-curing foam to prevent outgassing. Unfortunately, the interior temperature was kept slightly below freezing to prevent cracking and melting. Thus, the human crews had to wear self-heating, thermal clothes and air warming masks while inside. At least it wasn't a full-on spacesuit, they all agreed.

In the meantime, another team from Miranda Station began the process of converting the construction tender in orbit around the moon into an asteroid capture and processing facility. This would be used to capture a near-flying stony-iron asteroid and eventually turn it into the gas mining and processing space station.

The reconfigured asteroid tender began its acceleration burn to grab the designated hunk of metal and rock. Given Uranus' unique orientation, the trajectory had to be aimed perfectly so that the tender could make a quick capture and almost immediately begin pushing the asteroid into a Uranus insertion course.

Fortunately, the asteroid was already projected to be captured by Uranus itself in a few hundred years. This made the asteroid capture team's task a little easier as their target was already under Uranus' gravitational influence.

In the meantime, construction of the SLMH processing facility on Titania was well underway. The test laboratories and the pilot plant were assembled and awaiting the first shipments of hydrogen. The process engineers began the arduous process of checking every stage of the facility for leaks, cracks, and anomalies. Until they certified the equipment, safety concerns demanded that the facility remain on stand-by.

Rather than going through the expensive and arduous task of building a space station from scratch, the Consortium engineers planned to build the gas mining facility directly in the asteroid itself. By the time the capture tender and the asteroid arrived in their parking orbit around Uranus, specially designed robots were already boring tunnels into the elongated-peanut-shaped chunk of silicates, iron, and other metallic compounds.

The first task once in orbit was to use the excavated metals to build a docking ring and cargo transit facilities. This was located around the center of the asteroid, as it had the smallest cross-section and made it so that no one had to travel too far from any point in the asteroid. The original boreholes for the digger robots were also located here, making them natural anchor points for the connecting tubes to the ring.

Inside the two larger sections, the robots continued their excavation to form roughly cylindrical levels that would eventually house living and working spaces for the gas refineries. Two additional medium-sized boreholes, one at each "pole," were then started to eventually terminate at the transit facilities in the center.

These boreholes were to serve as the station's primary internal conduits -- with elevators, minitrains, and vast piping planned. Shorly before becoming fully operational, the boreholes would be capped and sealed with recovery, launch, and maintenance facilities for the gas collection vehicles. The station was to contain a "shirt sleeves" environment for the comfort of the human crews.

On Titania AFB

As the maintenance and construction facilities on the converted asteroid were not yet ready, the first atmospheric mining vehicles (AMV) were built at Titania AFB's dockyards under contract from the Consortium. These transatmospheric craft were designed to launch from the mining station, descend into Uranus' atmosphere, deploy a Stratosphere-Inflated Balloon (SIB) for lift, fill its tanks, return to the base to offload, and repeat the cycle.

The SIB takes advantage of the fact that the molecular weight of the upper atmosphere of Uranus is slightly lower than in the troposphere where the AMVs operate. As an AMV descends towards the troposphere cloud layer, the SIB sucks in stratospheric gas and inflates until the balloon can support the AMV.

Once its tanks are full, the AMV fills its own hydrogen fuel tank, disconnects from the balloon, and ignites its nuclear thermal rocket to return to the station. The balloons themselves rise back just above the troposphere cloud layer and carry tracking sensors to be used for real-time weather observation.

With the exception of a handful of emergency escape shafts and vents, the only access points to the station were either on the ring or at the poles. Even so, the Consortium was nigh paranoid about OPSEC and proprietary information on this brand-new facility and had security hardware installed at every possible ingress and egress point. Nothing came into or left the station without it being recorded somewhere, by something.

The overall operation of the station was to be managed by three cooperative AI housed in the "north" operations center. Backup cores for these AI were installed in the "south" operations center. Each major section of the station also had its own low-sapience control node to run minor tasks and keep basic support systems functioning in the event of a major catastrophe, much like the autonomic nervous system of a human.

Those first AMVs built at Titania AFB were sent to the north terminal (as it was the first to be completed) filled with inert gas to conduct dry runs of the fuel transfer mechanisms. Using inert gas gave the engineers a chance to make sure that everything flowed correctly and clean out any impurities at the same time. Once the test cycles were complete and the inert gas vented slowly out into space, along with any stray particulate matter, the safety and standards team certified the north plant as operational.

They would go through the same process in a month with the south terminal and plant, but humans had a special affinity for celebrating first events... and they certainly did this one. The administration team from Miranda Station flew out to the asteroid to personally certify the new base for active operations and formally open it for business.

After christening the platform "Oceanus Orbital Mining Station" by the administrators, for one of the children of Uranus from mythology, the Territories all over were roused into a celebratory baachanalian to rival the one for the founding of the Commonwealth.

Oceanus Orbital Mining Station

http://phalanx.i8.com/FACS/Uranus/oceanus.JPG

Now that the inert testing was complete, the Consortium gave the go-ahead for the first trial run to Uranus. The flight path of Atmospheric Mining Vehicle 1 was forwarded to the Taurenori station to avoid any accidents.

Hundreds of monitoring sensors were installed to keep close tabs on each system. There was a lot riding on this test and any failures would have to be identified quickly to avoid catastrophe.

AMV 1 departed Oceanus Station by its manuevering thrusters and moved out into open space around the giant blue planet. It then spun up its nuclear thermal rockets and began a fast deorbit burn to descend to the planet. Before too long, AMV 1 was in a freefall towards Uranus' stratosphere.

Once the first few touches of gas were detected, AMV 1 fired its rockets one more time to slow its descent. The packed self-inflating balloon then released from its bolts and unfurled out above the mining craft. Light stratospheric gases sucked into the balloon and the AMV's vertical velocity began to rapidly drop - both from the parachute-like effect from the balloon and the increasing lift as the atmosphere thickened.

Finally, AMV 1 came to a relative hover in the troposphere where azure clouds stretched out along a seemingly infinite horizon. Wispy bluish-white clouds circled overhead every so often, but Uranus truly was a world of turquoise.

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For about a week, AMV 1 silently floated through the clouds and sucked in immense quantities of gas, compressing it into liquid form for the journey back to Oceanus Station. After filling its own rockets' fuel tanks with hydrogen, excess was allowed to filter out so that the precious helium would take up most of the cargo holds.

The processing equipment to separate helium-3 out of the mix was too heavy for an AMV at this point, but it could at least isolate its cargo to a single element. A second AMV, arriving on Uranus as AMV 1 would return to the station, would be dedicated to hydrogen collection.

Once its helium tanks were full, AMV 1 sent its signal: Returning to Station. The rocketcraft cut its ties to the balloon and began to rapidly decend immediately. A second later, the nuclear thermal rockets erupted with all their fury and pushed the fully-laden AMV back up towards space.

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The trip back to Oceanus Station was relatively uneventful. AMV 1 went through its automated docking procedure at the North terminal and quickly hooked up to the transfer valves to send the helium to the processing plant. Once the liquified gas was emptied, AMV 1 quietly made its way to the maintenance hangar for its post-flight checks and balloon restocking.

Eventually, the Consortium hoped to miniaturize the processing technology and develop more advanced AMVs that essentially acted as ramscoops to pick up helium-3 and hydrogen and bring it back to the station for distribution. However, every endeavor has to start somewhere and the Uranus Atmospheric Mining Project was off to a damn good start.

Within the first month, ten AMVs were operating from the north terminal and five more began operations from the south terminal. Once pumped into the plants, the liquified gases were channeled into heavy cryogenic chambers to be cooled even further so that the lighter He-3 would separate from the heavier He-4. The He-3 was then funneled to storage tanks and the excess He-4 either diverted for industrial use or slow vented to space.

Three of the fifteen AMVs carried up tanks full of hydrogen gas. The hydrogen was also processed in the cryogenic gas separation system to extract deuterium, the second part of the deuterium-helium-3 fusion equation. From Oceanus Station and its increasingly plentiful stocks of fuel, Consortium research scientists continued their work on perfecting a stable, mobile fusion reaction.

Some of the hydrogen was diverted to the SLMH research facility on Titania, where their work was going on in earnest. Stable liquid metallic hydrogen had a number of potential uses from explosives to superconductors to (as Deep Space Command wanted) high-thrust fuel.

The dockyards at Titania AFB were also hard at work utilizing the fruits of Oceanus Station's labor. The prototype fusion jet engines (relying on the much more expensive deuterium-tritium fusion reaction) used on the Space Intercept Vehicles worked as expected and Deep Space Command intended to replace the standard nuclear thermal rocket modules with hydrogen fusion jet engines.

Hydrogen fuel was extremely easy to come by now that Oceanus Station was online and the lower fuel consumption of the NTRs could be traded in for the vastly improved speed and power of the fusion jet. While the dockyards continued building more SIVs for the first operational squadron, the engineering crews were also laying down the superstructure for Deep Space Command's first dedicated Space Control Vehicle - the Sentinel.

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The Space Control Vehicle concept was Deep Space Command's answer to space dominance strategy. A Space Control Vehicle is intended to provide a stable, mobile, highly responsive platform for launching Space Intercept Vehicles away from permanent bases and directing heavy weapons fire on hardened targets.

The Sentinel was designed around the Modular Space Transportation System and uses a five-plug fusion jet engine module, two cargo and fuel modules, a nonrotating command, control, and weapons module, and a forward operations module.

The nonrotating CCW module contains the habitation, support, and control decks for the biologic crew in two "sails" with decks arranged perpendicular to the main acceleration vector. Medium-range and local communications antennas are also mounted on this module. Two "wings" house capacitors and maintenance spaces for two particle beam weapons at the end of each wing.

The forward operations module has interior hangar space dedicated to the Space Intercept Vehicle squadron on board. Each of four sides has an ingress/egress elevator and an electromagnetic launch rail. The very front of the operations module is where the primary sensor and long-range communications arrays are mounted.

The Sentinel is intended to provide space dominance for Deep Space Command either independently or in concert with other DSPACECOM spacecraft.

http://phalanx.i8.com/FACS/DSPACECOM/sentinel.JPG

As the Sentinel completed its docked testing schedule, the Titania Shipyards rushed to finish building her sister spacecraft, the Colossus. The Secretary-General had declared that the Colossus would be the vanguard of a new Mars Command and that was that.

While the corporations could (and would) jockey for position in the new order of things, the military had long prided itself on being apolitical and doing what was best for the defense of their country. Once the commander-in-chief made his decision, the orders were followed.

Any hint that DSPACECOM might delay the operational capability of Mars Command would be eaten alive in the press, anyways. So, no matter how much his personal pride stung, CINCDSPACECOM followed his orders and let his professional pride prevail. The preparations to begin building and training units for MARSCOM operations went ahead in earnest.

Necessity is often the mother of invention... and cooperation. MARSCOM needed good spacecraft and without delay. Thanks to the delay in completing the yards at Amun Station as a result of the Tyranid problem, the necessary funds were diverted to Titania AFB to finish the Colossus and build the six prototype Saladin-class destroyers.

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The Saladin-class space interdiction vehicle combined Uranian modular design philosophy with technological advances gained by MARSCOM's expertise with gravitics. Truly a fusion of two worlds, the Saladin was intended to be equally capable in orbit over Olympus Mons or passing through the inner Kuiper Belt.

It used one of the Class II fusion jet propulsion modules, like those the tenders and the Sentinel-class used, to generate electrical power and thrust. Gravity generators in the main hull served to both negate the debilitating effects of microgravity and eliminate the need for complicated rotating habitat sections.

The Saladins were armed with four dual railgun turrets, two grazer mounts, 16 anti-ship missiles, eight point defense coilguns, and a devastating particle accelerator. Two autonomous strike drones in the dorsal bay and two shuttles in the ventral bay rounded out the Saladin's embarked craft complement.