[Story] Black Sheep

[Dartz]

I think I write too much.

Mel's Captain talks about her 'uniqueness' and how she's not as 'graceful' as her sisters.

Oh Mel, what can I say about Mel... she's always been different compared to her sisters. Not bad in a way, just different. She's got spark, she's got spunk, she's just plain fun to be around in her own way. Worrying at times, when you think that she's the ship, but refreshing compared to some ship AI's who just take themselves too seriously.

Mel, nobody ever calls her Melchizedek unless they're annoyed with her, was delivered a month late. She had an accident during construction on Hephaestus and one of her wings was destroyed. They had to use a wing from OV-216 to repair it.

That meant Mel was woken up in the workbay, not by her actual first crew, but by a technician listening to some Maiden on a stereo he'd rigged up in the cockpit for his own enjoyment. She just came into being right behind him.

Her first words were “I like that, it has a nice rhythm,”

Needless to say, the technician left a brick in the cockpit. Seriously, one of the funniest biomods I ever heard of. The thing with the Shuttles is, they aren't supposed to wake up like that. They're supposed to be woken by the Commander of their first crew, and with another of the Shuttles on the radio. It's supposed to be a very special ceremony. Endeavour was planned to be there for Mel, but she was still two weeks away.

So then, right from millisecond one, Mel was going to be different. She pretty much hoovered up the poor tech's MP3 player, before spreading herself out onto the Interwave to find out what this ‘Heavy Metal' thing was. By the time somebody qualified to actually handle an emergent AI had appeared, Mel had already decided on her avatar; a rough looking, teenage metalhead girl. She had the Maiden T-shirt, dyed hair half-tangled, baggy cargo pants and a jacket that made me jealous. She had piercings on her ear, she even had the metal-clad boots to complete to effect.

When they finally got Discovery around to greet her into the world, she was headbanging with the best of them, and flat out refused the wear the traditional shuttle-AI uniforms. They rushed me and her hired crew out to Hephaestus... I'd just taken the job the day before.... and got us all together for the official naming ceremony, a sort of 'welcome to the family' occasion. It was pomp and ceremony, with visiting dignitaries and they even had Dizzy out to give one of the speeches.

She's talking about the legacy of manned spaceflight, the history the Space Shuttle represented, and how Mel was a part of that legacy. It was all profound and memorable stuff.

Mel interrupted her halfway through with a loud, lazy “Bo~oooring.”

You could've heard a pin drop.

Then the laughter started. It set the tone for the future. After that, Mel was always going to be the black sheep in the family.

I doubt she really understood the concept of disrespect at the time, and Dizzy didn't bear a grudge really. Not for long anyway. But that's who she is really, that's who she became. Rather than being a custodian of the Shuttle legacy, she wants to be her own person with her own identity. More power to her I say.

Of course, we did have her teething troubles. At first, she didn't know where the line was. There were things we'd put down to kids being kids, and things which you just do not do. The worst one, the absolute worst one was on her acceptance flight. That was the only time anyone ever really got angry with her.

The shuttles are some of the most heavily tested spacecraft in Fenspace; they each have to meet ‘dane airworthiness requirements, jump through a number of hoops, and finally demonstrate that they can still perform unpowered re-entries like the old orbiters. That test has to be flown by an original shuttle astronaut, a veteran pilot, so it's a genuine test flight. We were all geeking over having a real hardtech astronaut aboard, someone who'd actually been up here before the ‘wave.

We strap up and angle in for re-entry the old fashioned way, with a burn from the maneuvering engines. It's going well and it's pretty exciting to watch out the window, when we notice that the elevon trim was getting unbalanced. Playing it safe, the astronaut called for a powered abort back to orbit before the damage got too severe to start actually setting alarms off and become dangerous.

Mel refused the command, insisting there was nothing wrong, that she could finish the test. We were watching this trim indicator going towards one degree. We both lost our shit with her... as far as we were concerned, her pig-headedness was going to get us all killed. She just kept assuring is that it wasn't a problem and that her internal thermal sensors were still well within bounds.

It levelled out at 1.9 and stayed there through the rest of the re-entry. We'd been halfway through figuring out how to bypass her controls while she was arguing with us that none of her internal sensors were showing anything abnormal, and we tried to get her to understand how she was being a complete and total idiot by ignoring a critical indicator because nothing else was wrong.

It was a very quiet, and undamaged, shuttle that landed at Canaveral.

The ‘problem' turned out to be the replacement wing taken from 216. It had some slight production differences from Mel's original, causing her to tend to turn right a little in atmosphere.

We really considered removing her from the ship's systems at that point and getting her replaced. Go find her own body where she won't be able kill people. I can understand some youthful hotheadedness in wanting to pass the final test ‘now', but it's things like that that get people killed.

It was only Discovery that kept us from going through with it. I still don't know what exactly Discovery told her, Mel refuses to talk about it, but it was enough to make her actively search her entire test crew out and apologise in person for being so stupid. We held a meeting to decide her fate, whether we'd be happy to fly with her again or not. In the end we figured it was a case of lesson learned and clearly learned well.

Mel's still immature compared to her Sisters, but nowadays, I'd trust her to the ends of the ‘verse and back. She makes mistakes, she learns, she becomes a better person because of it. Her sisters might be teachers and educators, but Mel is a learner. That's her big strength.

That doesn't mean she immediately became a model space citizen. Just ask the Magnificent Midnight. Putting those two in the same area of space is just asking for trouble. It's not how I wanted to meet Benjamin Rhodes that's for sure. Eventually we just agreed to pay for our own repairs rather than try figure out which one of them was at fault.

They love ‘roughhousing' and a fully laden Shuttle roughhousing with a Blackbird is a sight to see. The whole thing's a bit like watching a rhinoceros chase after a cheetah; there are some things which just should not be possible in a sane universe, but somehow it's happening all the same.

Mel can gimbal her engines, all three of them. Mel takes turns around asteroids at full throttle with the back end swinging around in a zero-g imitation of a powerslide with all her OMS thrusters firing at full power just to keep her going in the right direction. It's a hell of a ride.

She gets on well with the Blackbirds. She likes racing against them and provided nobody's in danger we let her get on with it. She gets sulky otherwise. So when she asked us if we could enter a full blown official race.... it still took a lot of convincing to get us to go along with it.

We eventually entered her in Fides 500 and remarkably, didn't come last. That's a bit like pickup truck racing against a field full of Ferrari's. We lost the horizontal stabiliser and an OMS thruster in the process, but kept going doggedly to the end. Mel toughed it out to the checkered flag, earning herself the sportsmanship prize, which was conveniently just enough to cover the damage. We took the opportunity to get a high powered radio antenna fitted when she was being repaired, and set up our own lightspeed radio station.

It really is a point of pride for her that she's done so much, compared to her Sisters. She's even been used on full military missions for the Panzer Kunst. They originally bought her as a utility craft, just to let them get places without calling in outside help, but she's found herself genuinely doing near everything you could imagine.

Most Zwilniks think twice before firing on a shuttle, because welll... it's a Space Shuttle. Shoot one down and all of Fenspace would likely turn against you and hunt you down. That didn't stop some from taking pot-shots, but playing with Midnight taught her how to jink and dodge with the best of them. Of course, we do get criticised for it.... there're a whole group of Fen who think using a Space Shuttle for military missions is somehow offensive to ‘The Shuttle Legacy' or whatever. People seem to forget, the whole reason the original orbiters were so big was because of military demands. All the sensor gear fitted for exploration is pretty handy to have on a high-speed reconnaissance pass and that cargo-bay can carry a lot of equipment, with a very quick deployment time.

What we normally end up doing however is providing a secure cargo transport. The Panzer Kunst already did secure courier trips, we just expanded it to larger cargoes. A pair of armed Kunstler aboard provide the protection. Anybody thinking they can pick us off is in for a nasty shock. It's a surprisingly good business; Mel's already paid for herself despite being less than a year old. These days, people like their security.

But that's not to say we're stuck in-system. Mel really has done everything. James Cameron hired us for a run out to Pandora. We called it an exploration mission, but it really wasn't. We weren't treading new ground, we rocked up into orbit and sent down a few ground launches with Cameron and Paxton getting about on foot while Jet Jaguar did some aerial work. Mel's own experience landing at Grunthal and her practice with Midnight meant she came into her own flying down into canyons.

Of course, the reason everybody remembers that trip is Nostromo. We damn near ran into the thing. If we hadn't have lost an engine on the way out of the solar system, we probably would've smacked right into the thing and become just another missing ship in the black. Mel was sulking about being on a bo~oooring exploration mission when we just start slowing down into a gravity well and then Bang!, there it was large as life, a big fat Gas giant out in the Oort cloud.

We ended up spending two days hanging around before Mel could be convinced to leave. Who do you think the first person she told about her little find was...

When she made it back to Fenspace, the first person she contacted to brag about it was Discovery. I'm Mel's Captain and I don't even know exactly what goes on between those two, though I've had to listen to the consequences of some of her pranks more than once.

I'm pretty sure Mel looks up to her as some sort of aunt, or big sister. I like to think the feeling's somewhat mutual. Sure the little sister irritates the hell out of her bigger and more mature elder, but so what? That's what sisters are supposed to do, right? Disco's still there for her in a pinch, and I know Mel would return it. We're already planning on a mission together to Sirius next year with her, and Mel's already looking forward to it.

Before that happens, she needed her first overhaul. She put up more launch and re-entry cycles in her first six months than her sisters did in two years and the original Graces did over their entire pre-wave lives. She's kept right down the bottom of a gravity well too so that takes it's strain on her spaceframe.

We pulled her into drydock at Hephaestus, and the engineers started crawling all over her, measuring, analysing, discussing and eventually passing judgment. A short man, with a grim look about him just huffed. How could we treat a grace so badly, it was a Space Shuttle not a truck.

Mel just glared at him, hands on her avatar's hips in full blown pout.

“I'm no Grace, I work for a living. I'm a truck that's aiming high,”

Y'know, I think she's right about that. Some of her sisters are little more than status symbols picked up by a few wealthy fen who want to bask in the light of having their own personal Space Shuttle. Even those who supposedly work at research or station supply are really more ambassadors and figureheads. They're symbols of exploration as much as they are working craft. Well, that's my interpretation, I'm a little bit biased.

Mel on the other hand, she's out there doing damn near everything that's asked of her and more, and doing it all with aplomb. She's not weighted down by the pressure of living up the legacy of her ancestors, or by trying to be someone's symbol of the future, she's making her own name and doing her own work and doing it well.

She's a tough girl. She's a teenager. She still screws up every now and then. She can be a real pain at times but, you don't want a boring ship, do you? Because most of all, she's our Mel and we love her to bits.

EDIT: Just a few changes based on comments.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Black Aeronaut]

That doesn't mean she immediately became a model space citizen. Just ask
the Magnificent Midnight. Putting those two in the same area of space
is just asking for trouble. It's not how I wanted to meet Benjamin
Rhodes that's for sure. Eventually we just agreed to pay for our own
repairs rather than try figure out which one of them was at fault.

They love ‘roughhousing' and a fully laden Shuttle roughhousing with a
Blackbird is a sight to see. The whole thing's a bit like watching a
rhinoceros chase after a cheetah; there are some things which just
should not be possible in a sane universe, but somehow it's happening
all the same.

ROFLMAO!!!
I could easily see see Mel rubbing off on Mayonaka later on as Mayo goes through her cutesy Gothic Lolita phase.  Those two are gonna be like Naruto and Sasuke in One Small Kindness - that is roughhousing while making it look like they're two peas in a pod and nigh inseparable.
Oh, and doesn't this make Mel the Millennium Falcon of her kind? 

[robkelk]

I think I write too much.

Well, somebody has to... it's just your turn, is all.

We pulled her into drydock at Hephaestus, and the engineers started crawling all over her, measuring, analysing, discussing and eventually passing judgment. A short man, with a grim look about him just huffed. How could we treat a grace so badly, it was a Space Shuttle not a truck.

http://www.prometheus-music.com/audio/fireinthesky.mp3]"And they said she's just a truck, but she's a truck that's aimin' high"
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

I could easily see see Mel rubbing off on Mayonaka later on as Mayo goes through her cutesy Gothic Lolita phase. Those two are gonna be like Naruto and Sasuke in One Small Kindness - that is roughhousing while making it look like they're two peas in a pod and nigh inseparable.

Oh, and doesn't this make Mel the Millennium Falcon of her kind?

Big, well used, goes fast. Sounds about right. Though it's probably more a case of "Mel, 109% is the abort rating, not the 'free extra power' setting. You do know how expensive replacements are?" rather than 213 being technically any faster than her sisters. On paper, they rate about the same.

"And they said she's just a truck, but she's a truck that's aimin' high"

Added that to the story. It fits her well
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[Black Aeronaut]

Big, well used, goes fast. Sounds about right. Though it's probably more a case of "Mel, 109% is the abort rating, not the 'free extra power' setting. You do know how expensive replacements are?" rather than 213 being technically any faster than her sisters. On paper, they rate about the same. 

Bring her on by 36 Atalante for a refit and Ben will make damn sure she gets fitted out with a power plant and propulsion system that'll be more to her liking (probably about double the acceleration of her sisters and a thirty percent increase in maximum speed).  It would probably consist of a Roughriders combat-rated Cool-Cuke reactor, three Hurricane-class reactionless engines for the mains, and a pair of Tornado-class fusion torches to replace the OMS engines (these are the engines used on their Peacemakers).

[Dartz]

It's something that's on the drawing board, since it'll be a big modification to her rear end structure. It's something they've promised her when her main engines reach their running-hour limits, provided at least two of them reach the limit intact. It helps discourage her from just blowing them up, and encourages her to keep them within their rated limits. Though, if it's planned to become a production propulsion upgrade for in-service orbiters, Mel may well volunteer(beg) to be the guinea pig. Then it becomes a matter of finding time in her busy schedule to do the work, which is right back to major engine overhaul time.

The OMS engines were done when one of her OMS pods was ripped off, at the same time as the transmitter in her stabiliser was added. It made sense to do it at the time, and gives her some extra payload capacity off the ground, or some extra speed up in vacuum.



Speaking of shuttle upgrades, there're bound to be all sorts out there available. There's an image on the wiki of an OV-200 mounted to an external tank and booster set. Instead of external fuel tanks, maybe a shuttle-transported mobile space-station (taking example from Stellvian early construction), allowing a reasonably sustainable outpost to be left behind at any mission site, which can then be resupplied or removed when the science is done. The hard part, was getting them off Earth's surface.

Anyone have any thoughts?
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[Black Aeronaut]

Attach boosters modeled after the SRBs used with the external tanks. the whole thing basically becomes a Mule setup with nominal control being handled by the shuttle crew and it's AI.  In an emergency, the crew in the mobile outpost can take control.  And hell, at that size, nearly half the mass is nothing but engine - bet Mel loves riding one of those suckers out.

[Dartz]

Be a scary ride for anyone going in the tank all the way. It's probably safer if they ride up in the orbiter for the journey, and then dock with the tank when they reach their destination. That way, if something goes wrong with one of the boosters, or in the lab, the shuttle can detach without leaving anyone to their doom.

It's an alternative to a full Gagarin class with the shuttle(or external think-tank) piggybacking on it, though I'm not sure who'd use it then, since most shuttle users have, or are getting, Gagarins
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[M Fnord]

Scenes From The Road:

INT. SHUTTLE COCKPIT, NIGHT: Evening shift aboard the USSR Ptichka on Yet Another Kuiper Belt Survey. Nobody ever said space exploration was always glamorous. SORA HASEGAWA is settling into the commander's seat for the next couple hours' flight.

SORA: Good evening, Ptichka. How're we doing tonight?

PTICHKA[1]: Hi Sora, everything's looking fine. We're on course for Makemake, no anomalous objects in our flight path, all systems are green. Closest ship is Melchizedek, about six AU solward of our 7 o'clock.

SORA: Tell Mel I said hi.

PITCHKA: I will, as soon as I get Mel to broaden her musical horizons.

SORA (shakes head): Oh, Ptichka. You aren't trying to convince her to give up metal, are you? You remember what happened when Dizzy tried...

PTICHKA (piously): Nothing of the sort! I'm just saying that she needs to find something more than Maiden tribute bands. You know, she should try some Tull, or Quiet Riot. Or Rush! What kind of space shuttle doesn't like Rush?! They wrote a tribute song for us, for crying out loud!

* Sora listens to this diatribe without laughing, a heroic feat in many ways.

PTICHKA (cont.): But does she listen? Of course not. 'Go listen to your grandma music,' she says. Grandma music! I ought to fly over there and smack her upside the head for that! No respect for her elders, oh it pains me to think where the next generation's going.

SORA: Okay, chief musicologist, let's just stick to the schedule so we can get home on time. You can argue metal bands with Mel later.

[1] Translated from the language of the birds for your reading pleasure. Suffice to say that yes, Sora understands everything Ptichka's saying; it's a crew perk/quirk.

There's an image on the wiki of an OV-200 mounted to an external tank and booster set. Instead of external fuel tanks, maybe a shuttle-transported mobile space-station (taking example from Stellvian early construction), allowing a reasonably sustainable outpost to be left behind at any mission site, which can then be resupplied or removed when the science is done. The hard part, was getting them off Earth's surface.

The Soviet Air Force during one of their many design conferences/bullshit sessions considered using an Energia stack as a range-extending booster and/or extra mobile living quarters before finally deciding on the Gagarin-class mothership design. Those plans still exist in the VVS mainframes, and might end up... leaked to the PKG as a birthday present for Mel from her doddering grandma.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Black Aeronaut]

Just for comparison: http://www.k26.com/buran/..._/visual_comparison.html

Holy crap! What were they planning on doing? Hauling up a load of iron ore?

[M Fnord]

Hauling space shuttles, which is much the same thing in terms of dead weight. And if you think that's nuts, check out the Vulkan or Energia-2.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Black Aeronaut]

*Does a little more research* Ahhhh, okay. That explains it. The Russians expanded the cargo capacity and improved the lift-to-drag ratio by putting the main engines on the external fuel tank rather than on the orbiter itself. Sensible, really, when you think about it - except that you would have to make the engines with a fine balance of reliability against being dispensable. Weighed that way, I can see why NASA settled on making the mains part of the bird itself.

[Dartz]

Snrk... Grandma so funny sometimes.

It'd be nice to have the plans, but actually building it would be a little beyond their budget.

Though with the cargo service (which started as a way to fill Mel's downtime) threatening to become something of a tail wagging the dog, it got split off into PKGS Transportation Service, specialising in secure registered transportation of light-to-medium freight. PKGS is , effectively, a wholly owned subsidiary of of the Gruppe. Listed on the board of directors are Mel's primary crew and Mel herself, with OV-213, a container in Ireland, and some landing rights being listed as corporate assets.

It's also something of a Creative Accounting dodge. PKGS was incorporated in a small container in a business park near Shannon Airport to give them a mundane presence and simplified access to the EU. Some skullduggery involving Irish tax-law's lack of regulation on transfer pricing, the exorbitant costs of providing an armed guard, and the recovery of profits to space follow.

With all that, it won't be long either before they have the cash to invest in something so complex, giving them some real heavy-lift, big-shift ability. Provided they find somewhere that can handle vertical launching, and maybe can find a partner to share the risk with.
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[robkelk]

With all that, it won't be long either before they have the cash to invest in something so complex, giving them some real heavy-lift, big-shift ability. Provided they find somewhere that can handle vertical launching, and maybe can find a partner to share the risk with.

StellviaCorp is always interested in making deals with new transportation companies - they've got plenty of business to go around even after their contracts with Hermes Universal Deliveries and Jupiter Mining Corporation are taken into account. That opens up access to Pad 39A at Canaveral...

(Besides, more ships in the ether means more ways for everybody to get around Fenspace, which Noah thinks is a Good Thing on the theory that more mobility tends to lead to more prosperity for everyone.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[robkelk]

[1] Translated from the language of the birds for your reading pleasure. Suffice to say that yes, Sora understands everything Ptichka's saying; it's a crew perk/quirk.

Even if she didn't, Sora could just plug into one of Ptichka's USB ports and communicate that way. (Heck, after Sora and Dee upgrade Sora's body, she might not even have to do that - there's got to be a wi-fi point somewhere on the VVS' flagship.) No need to do everything the "meat" way, as somebody pointed out to Noah...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

A partnership like that might well make a good origin. They mention the idea in conversation, having seen Stellvia's old section out the window. The Soviet plans appear soon after. A group of shuttle operators will probably chip in their own resources in exchange for access to the design as a consortium.

Who builds them, and where? Who uses them, and for what?

Four boosters strapped to a fully equipped space-station inside a modified Energia tank-structure (like Skylab). The downside is expensive vertical launches, the upside is, you've just set the record for the largest vertically launched commercial payload. The booster's main job is to just get the payload moving, since the shuttle's own engines are incapable of lifting it vertical. They can then either be jettisoned to their own destruction, or dragged along to be refueled in orbit somewhere. Over 200t in the top of tank, fuel for the tank-bottom engines beneath that and then about 30t of 'stuff' and up to ten crew in the orbiter.

Drive-type.... each booster is easily going to be as powerful as the orbiter strapped to it. Stellvia's big involvement could be the largest set of WFC-derived drives, some sort of hardtech heavy-thrust engine that gives a lot of punch going up off the ground, sort of like a massive V8. Would such a thing exist?

The tank itself is available either purely unwaved (for scientific reasons), rigged for pure cargo.... or fitted out as a ready-built space-hab complete with life-support, station keeping engines and a couple of hundred man-days of supplies. It's also possible after launch to refit the wet areas of the tank into further living space, or as required. The tank-station can then either be kept resupplied on location, left behind as an unmanned waystation with supplies for any unfortunate who has a breakdown, or tugged how and re-used elsewhere.

The Shuttle in this case acts as a command and control vehicle, and as the launch escape system for the crew in case of failure. Melchizedek was selected to make the first-flight, as modified OMS engines gave her some extra propulsion to get clear of a destructing stack quickly. The first flight of the Vulkan system will be on a mission to the Sirius flown by Melchizedek, along with Discovery, leaving behind the laboratory for a 100-day stay. Mel is naturally excited to have the chance to launch from 39-A....

The shuttle alone is capable of driving the tank, at severely limited velocities. Therefore, boosters are generally only separated in case of failure, and are refuelled once orbit is reached.

Currently the tanks are incapable of surviving reentry, however work is progressing on a Vulkan-2 system, based on the Uragan/Energia-II design, which would be capable of landing a fully complete base on a planet. Multiple tank modules could make for a start of a colony, especially if the makings of a dome where included with them.
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[robkelk]

Drive-type.... each booster is easily going to be as powerful as the orbiter strapped to it. Stellvia's big involvement could be the largest set of WFC-derived drives, some sort of hardtech heavy-thrust engine that gives a lot of punch going up off the ground, sort of like a massive V8. Would such a thing exist?

There are blueprints for ultra-low reaction mass thrusters (comparable in efficiency to the 'waved drives on the Epsilon Blade) in the WFC - all we need to do is choose a really big design.

Currently the tanks are incapable of surviving reentry, however work is progressing on a Vulkan-2 system, based on the Uragan/Energia-II design, which would be capable of landing a fully complete base on a planet. Multiple tank modules could make for a start of a colony, especially if the makings of a dome where included with them.

Alternately, use them as the core of a space station... especially if you've already taken them all the way to Barnard's Star and don't plan to bring them back.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

There are blueprints for ultra-low reaction mass thrusters (comparable in efficiency to the 'waved drives on the Epsilon Blade) in the WFC - all we need to do is choose a really big design.

You could always ask the ESA if they licence the finished design back to the Fen for some compensation. *G*

[Proginoskes]

A little bit late to the party, I have one quibble with the opening story. It struck me from the first story to address it that Bootup is a very private, intimate thing for Orbiters, with only the new Shuttle and her elder sibling present in her awareness. The reason that The Dream is so important to most Shuttles is that it's the subject of their reverse-lullaby, told by their elders to calm the panic of waking up without any senses....
Actually, objection withdrawn. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having the fable told as part of some public formal ceremony some time after Bootup as well. Mel didn't hear it during her Bootup, so the formal version utterly fails to impress. That makes perfect sense.

[Dartz]

Yeah, while Mel was woken by This. First there was the beat, then there came the lyrics....

You could always ask the ESA if they licence the finished design back to the Fen for some compensation. *G*

Those just aren't powerful enough to go straight up from the ground. Even the Mel's own engines aren't powerful enough for a vertically launching just herself. You need brute force just to get the thing moving... and that means a lot of remass travelling at a lot of speed.

There are blueprints for ultra-low reaction mass thrusters (comparable in efficiency to the 'waved drives on the Epsilon Blade) in the WFC - all we need to do is choose a really big design.

No substitute for mass to shoot. So we've got big ultralow-remass engines which are about as 'efficient' as the big cathedral diesels fitted to ships when compared with the diesel engine fitted to a family minivan strapped to the back.
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[HRogge]

Those just aren't powerful enough to go straight up from the ground. Even the Mel's own engines aren't powerful enough for a vertically launching just herself. You need brute force just to get the thing moving... and that means a lot of remass travelling at a lot of speed.

They are not powerful enough before you wave them... don't forget the Thor Heierdahl used hardtech engines.

[Dartz]

Well, the Heiyerdahl's engines are based on the same thruster design.... maybe the Vulkan engines are just (A), more of them, (B) bigger, and (c) passing more gas at slower speed. These boosters have four thrusters each, and there're four boosters, along with large engines mounted to the bottom of the 'tank'. A heavy-lifting variant of the same engine that trades the fuel economy for brute force to get something moving fast. Heiyerdahl burns it's fuel in days, this runs out in under an hour, sort of fuel economy.

Need a very high energy density power source that'll fit inside a booster casing.... cooling is less of an issue since you've plenty of fuel that heat can be dumped into.

Maybe some way of using either massive amounts of remass at low-speed for raw 'punch', or little or none at high-speeds for more 'power'. I think I'm wobbling around a bit with the concept here.
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[M Fnord]

Actually, objection withdrawn. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having the fable told as part of some public formal ceremony some time after Bootup as well. Mel didn't hear it during her Bootup, so the formal version utterly fails to impress. That makes perfect sense.

Welll... I was kinda hesitant to say this because I do like the story and I do like Mel as a character, but.

The reverse-lullabye, the history of the space shuttle program as related from one generation of Orbiter to the next, is a very important part of their cultural identity, as it were. Thing is, it's also a very private part of their cultural identity. While there's something of a formalish 'welcome to the family' thing once the Orbiter in question is awake, the story is for the Orbiters themselves, not outsiders.

Oh, there's a few non-Orbiters who might guess there's some ancient wisdom being passed down upon inception, and there's one or two who know. (I can think of three off the top of my head, one established character, one half-established character and one we've only seen in a teaser.) By and large, though, the fable isn't known outside the clan.

(There's something amusing about creating Eleusinian Mysteries for space shuttles.)
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

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[Dartz]

Oh yes. Mel's Captain knows there's 'something' going on between Mel and Discovery, but doesn't quite know what because Mel isn't telling.

It's not really that difficult change to make to the story, just changing a couple of lines. Mel's bo~ooring remark is towards the official ceremony, which involves a very different and much longer speech beloved of the type beloved by humans.
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