Deep Space Transport Vehicle

Who would expect the ugliest and most common of the large deep space vehicles to bring joy whenever it arrives? The Deep Space Transport Vehicle, or DSTV, the utility truck of the solar system, does exactly that. These massive vessels, with their open-form girder-and-truss construction, bulky power facilities, cramped crew quarters far from the power system, bare-bones internal transit tubes, and containerized cargo slots can only be described as pure ugly. Built to be rugged under acceleration, which is limited to 7.6 meters per second per second under normal circumstances, the primary design criteria for these ships is reliability and cargo capacity. The maximum theoretical thrust of these behemoths is 15 meters per second per second, but most of them would crumple under the stress if pushed that hard. These freight haulers are the lifeline for asteroid mines and outposts throughout the inner and outer solar system. Without the supplies these ships deliver the personnel on the thousands of small outposts across space would eventually perish as their air, food, water, or power supplies run out. Furthermore these ships carry the product of asteroid mines back to the major facilities on Mars and Earth, which provides the economic reason for those mines to exist.

During the late 2040's and early 2050's the first few generations of DSTV were developed to support the second Mars colonization effort. Able to carry ten thousand tons, later increased to an astounding three hundred thousand tons for the largest models, these ships used their fusion spike drive systems to operate at close to Earth standard gravity by simply undergoing constant acceleration on a journey, with a brief interval of microgravity as the ship turns end-for-end at the halfway point of a trip. Reducing travel times from months to days, this approach consumes a great deal of hydrogen fuel, but breeds the lithium-6 generally used for the advanced fusion spike drives from a shield blanket of heavier elements, which preserves heavy fuel supplies while also absorbing the small quantity of particle radiation produced in side reactions. Hydrogen is easily available throughout deep space and is often collected by large field emitters powered by waste energy from the drive system to ensure maximum fuel reserves when needed.

Power Generation

The primary power during deep space travel is incidental power generation from the main propulsion drive systems, which is considerable while in transit but drops to nothing when the engines are powered down. Once near a destination, or while leaving dock, the vessels draw power from a Pleiades Power Systems PPS 0100-20, providing over one hundred megawatts for ships systems and the low-mass plasma control thrusters.

Propulsion

The primary thrust for most DSTV is provided by four or eight Pleiades Propulsion PPG 10-72 fusion spike drives with a specific impulse of 80342 seconds and a maximum exhaust velocity of 243,800 meters per second. This provides thrust ranging from 50 newtons to well over one million meganewtons, depending on the acceleration required. All DSTV also carry a PPFC 10-43 to replenish reaction mass in transit.