NationStates Jolt Archive

ACORIA, RANDOM KINGDOM, 31 Oldinita 32AR (31 January 2113)

The RKSOIA have announced today the beginning of a new milestone in the RK space project - the redesignation of mining colony NEO1 as a spaceship dock and spacelab.

The spacedock project, Operation Frontier, is estimated to take at least 20 years and a large amount of RK budget (the cheapest estimate is five billion orcas) to complete.

Phase 1 involves the construction of a fleet of 5 "Archangel" A2 Cargo Deployment Ships, and a "Shadow" B/S1 Troop Deployment Ships (OOC: all of these concepts are new, and a bit more detail can be found on the NS Draftroom article "RK spacefarers"). These will be created en masse using new techniques to reduce time.

Phase 2 will see the creation of the spacedock itself, in parts to be assembled by the current mining crew and a small supplement carried in the Shadow. The spacedock will be partially constructed by steel alloyed from iron from NEO1.

Phase 3 transports the crew and spacedock, which will make its way to NEO1 and land several kilometres away from the mines.

Phase 4 is the construction. Among other things a large light-emitting structure will be set up, and this will be used to send basic signals to Terra (OOC: it will be rarely used, and will only be used when it is pointing at Random Kingdom, so other nations need not worry about the structure's dull light ruining the sky). The structure will be set up to send a signal immediately.

Phase 5 will be the opening, and Human Representative Cornia Eyrie (Acoran II was recently murdered), or his successor (if he dies before the opening) will be travelling in the civilian A1B with news crews from across RK.

After the spacedock is completed NEO1 will have become under RK tradition a prefecture, and will be assigned a common name. As there are no named landforms on the mining asteroid it will be named after its founder, in this case Human Representative Cornia Eyrie, and is now known as Eyria MC. (MC stands for Mining Colony; when the dock is completed, it will become a habitat and known as just Eyria.

The Holy Empire of Cryst offers its congradulations and it's help. We have abundent supplies of minerals, expendable workers (slaves), and space construct ships, having plenty of experience. (We built a trade station that was 19 km across, for fun)

Bauxite and clay shipments would be helpful; iron is being shipped from Eyria MC, and carbon is abundant, so steel can be locally produced, workers would be helpful but RK law dictates that slaves cannot be used for any public works regardless of nationality, and freighters would be helpful if a reasonable price could be agreed.