It had been 15 years since Cochrane's flight and the first meeting with Vulcans. Remarkable things had happened since then. Earth had finally recieved it's wake up call and boy, did we answer. We had gone from a world weary of battle all the way to an informal world government. Cities and nations had been rebuilt. Ever impatient we reached back to the heavens too. Cochrane showed us the way and the Vulcans represented the fulfillment of dreams. As soon as the first of the new heavy launchers was in production plans were put in place to build our own warp ships. The Vulcans were cautious in offering technology so we delved ahead with what we had. Not content to let someone else fly freely through our skies, we wanted to be able to meet as equals. So here we are after 15 years with the commissioning of Earth's first warp vessel.
The USS Longroad was an ugly duckling to say the least. She was built in a time when we were still re-learning how to get to orbit. There were no drydocks or space manufacturing. She was designed so every part of her could be built on earth and then strapped to the top of the largest rocket vehicles man would ever launch. Astronauts in clumsy space suits had to nudge parts together like giant lincoln logs. Through the whole process mistakes were made and people died, but we never shyed from the challenge.
The Longroad was slow, only 1.12 warp speed max. She doesn't have artificial gravity - the Vulcans are afraid to tell us how it's done. But we knew now that it could be done. Only a matter of time. So the ship was limited to 6 month missions with full crew swap out at the end. The crew of 18 would spend most of it's time on escort duty and rescue actions. Weapons? sure it's got one whole laser. Good for cutting things up in rescue missions or what have you.
When warp is not in use the ship had two trimodal fusion engines for maneuvering. Tankage was good for 1 hour at full thrust. Enough for changing orbits, but it won't get you much anywhere.
8 more were built though no 2 were the same due to how rapidly things advanced back then. Within 10 short years she was already obsolete - we'd cracked that pesky artificial gravity issue.
She was a stop gap measure and nothing more. Two were lost to equipment failure. One scuttled to prevent capture. The remaining 5 ended up in museums and private collections, with the USS Longroad ending up here in a corner of the Starfleet museum. Not many people notice the ugly duckling that gave rise to so many swans.
About the model:
As usual for me, it's not done but enough to see the idea. The idea as described in the above bit of fiction is that this is the first commissioned class of warp vessel by Earth. I went with the idea that we would be impatient to "catch up" with the Vulcans. This would lead to us not waiting on the proper infrastructure to build craft in space and instead launch major sections on HLV's So, the entire design can be broken down into pieces that will fit the 30'x80' cargo envelope of an imaginary launch vehicle.(the warp nacelles are 3 separate sections though it is hard to see).
Each of the three crew modules are 30' diameter and 80' long with 3 decks running longitudinally down each one.
Stats:
warp 1.12
18 crew
4 life boats/orbital craft that can hold 6 people each.(the cone shapes just aft of the main crew modules).
2 helium/deuterium fusion engines
1 laser
no gravity. everyone has to strap into flight chairs when maneuvering.
Questions/comments are welcome.
The USS Longroad was an ugly duckling to say the least. She was built in a time when we were still re-learning how to get to orbit. There were no drydocks or space manufacturing. She was designed so every part of her could be built on earth and then strapped to the top of the largest rocket vehicles man would ever launch. Astronauts in clumsy space suits had to nudge parts together like giant lincoln logs. Through the whole process mistakes were made and people died, but we never shyed from the challenge.
The Longroad was slow, only 1.12 warp speed max. She doesn't have artificial gravity - the Vulcans are afraid to tell us how it's done. But we knew now that it could be done. Only a matter of time. So the ship was limited to 6 month missions with full crew swap out at the end. The crew of 18 would spend most of it's time on escort duty and rescue actions. Weapons? sure it's got one whole laser. Good for cutting things up in rescue missions or what have you.
When warp is not in use the ship had two trimodal fusion engines for maneuvering. Tankage was good for 1 hour at full thrust. Enough for changing orbits, but it won't get you much anywhere.
8 more were built though no 2 were the same due to how rapidly things advanced back then. Within 10 short years she was already obsolete - we'd cracked that pesky artificial gravity issue.
She was a stop gap measure and nothing more. Two were lost to equipment failure. One scuttled to prevent capture. The remaining 5 ended up in museums and private collections, with the USS Longroad ending up here in a corner of the Starfleet museum. Not many people notice the ugly duckling that gave rise to so many swans.
About the model:
As usual for me, it's not done but enough to see the idea. The idea as described in the above bit of fiction is that this is the first commissioned class of warp vessel by Earth. I went with the idea that we would be impatient to "catch up" with the Vulcans. This would lead to us not waiting on the proper infrastructure to build craft in space and instead launch major sections on HLV's So, the entire design can be broken down into pieces that will fit the 30'x80' cargo envelope of an imaginary launch vehicle.(the warp nacelles are 3 separate sections though it is hard to see).
Each of the three crew modules are 30' diameter and 80' long with 3 decks running longitudinally down each one.
Stats:
warp 1.12
18 crew
4 life boats/orbital craft that can hold 6 people each.(the cone shapes just aft of the main crew modules).
2 helium/deuterium fusion engines
1 laser
no gravity. everyone has to strap into flight chairs when maneuvering.
Questions/comments are welcome.
