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Design Thread: Nostromo interiors and deck configurations
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Cold Canuck
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing to remember...in a plant such as that one, if something is too heavy or cumbersome, there are resources nearby to help...in space, no one can hear you swearing out of frustration because your support/help is some distance away.

There is also the chance that if the crew was unable to wrestle some big or important piece of hardware up a bunch of ladders from the garage to one of the upper levels, if they were physically unable to do so....in a critical situation, they would be up a creek without a single paddle.

We all know that Weylan-Yutani doesn't give a sh*t about the crew's welfare, but how likely are they to not care about the risk to their precious tug and refinery.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's just in reference to your typical blue collar working environment.
Such as, e.g., the Nostromo.

But bearing in mind that the crew normally is just awake to manoeuvre the ship out of and into port (where repair resources, perhaps even dry docks, always are close at hand) and that just about anything in between will have to be solved automatically by redundant systems anyway (if it's a real emergency, there will be no time to thaw out the crew), having a freight elevator on board seems like a huge waste of money.

Add to that that there really isn't anything to stop you from storing spare parts, for the rare occasion the crew might need to use them, close by, or at least on the same deck as, whatever machinery they are spares for (cheaper than installing an elevator, anyway).

And add further that the gear wells provide ample capacity to shift equipment between decks for the ultra-super-rare occasion (if it even ever happens) that that is required ... I really have a hard time seeing what possible motive there might be to have an elevator on the Nostromo.


Again — consider real-world commercial ships!

They don't have massive elevators to shift equipment between decks — and why would they? There is no viable technical reason for it.

But in the middle of the Pacific, you are in just as deep a creek as you are at Zeta Tauri. But if even they don't have such assets on board — why would the Nostromo?
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Space Jockey
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 8:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If no elevator, how do we account for the vehicle that can be seen on B-Deck in the scene just before Kane is 'buried'? We've discussed this vehicle elsewhere in this or another thread- the one from the C-Deck garage that was repainted white?
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some comments on the overall discussion: While I agree with Graham about lifts (see about middle of the page), I'm not knocking Vader's choice to spread the layout over the length of the hull and into the nacelles; it makes perfect sense from an onscreen-evidence perspective. However, it leaves the "real" crew walking a heck of a long way. Sure, that happens on ULCC's, I'm sure. Saying that, it might be less important to argue about elevators and more so about high-speed transport from bow to 'midships. Smile Using the dimensions on Graham's blueprint poster as a guide, I figure it's around 700 feet from bridge to shuttle, give or take a yard or so. And further: I figure there's about 80 feet of ladder to climb from Deck A (bridge level), to Deck C, with maybe 20 to 30 feet from Deck A to Deck B, which seemed much shorter as they chased the acid leak.

Basing deck plans solely on what is shown in the film --- while certainly the preferred choice --- imposes its own limits. I've had these discussion with Adam, who is "adamant" that you can't use the set plans for deck plans for that very reason. The same problem crops up with Paxton Young and his Space: 1999 Moonbase Alpha "deck plans": onscreen evidence contradicts with what is done in actual construction of buildings, etc. Nostromo deck plans, to me, require ignoring some of what is shown on screen in favor of what "makes sense" in the overall aesthetic of what was implied. Graham lucked up with the observation room solution for Ripley's descent to the Autodoc; not so sure anyone can easily explain away Parker and Lambert's descent when they split up with Ripley.

I'm not sure what the answer is to how close to reality or onscreen to adhere, but I'm thinking maybe a mixture of them, the dosage depending on the imaginative tolerance of the individual. Your mileage, in other words, may vary.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It is tricky and enjoyable in equal measure to try to bridge that gap....in total agreement with Adam. I try to go by purely what I see on screen within the shot personally. That is how I put a locker room on A-Deck...we all know it isn't there, but I put the door to it on a section of wall we don't see in the movie, it's just out of frame.
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

FenGiddel wrote:
Graham lucked up with the observation room solution for Ripley's descent to the Autodoc


Not sure I follow ... is there some kind of intrinsic value to using the set plans as deck plans, that I just fail to see?

I place the sickbay on the level below the bridge, since Ripley descends at least one level on the direct path between the two. This also allows me to line up the path of the acid very neatly.
Why should we want to invent a detour to some unseen and unknown area (we're not talking about the Leviathan's observation dome here by any chance, are we...?) just so as not to have to break apart the sets?


FenGiddel wrote:
not so sure anyone can easily explain away Parker and Lambert's descent when they split up with Ripley.


Again, not sure I follow ... what is the problem with this? In my plans, I place this scene in the intersection to the bunk room area, being the intersection closest to the fore of the gear well on the bridge level.
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Vader wrote:
Not sure I follow ... is there some kind of intrinsic value to using the set plans as deck plans, that I just fail to see
Nope.

Vader wrote:
Again, not sure I follow ... what is the problem with this
You're fine on that, Vader.
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From my perspective, what is seen on-screen must take precedence over pretty much everything else.

Why, I hear you cry...

Well ... because, as I mentioned before, my ambition is to create a set of deck plans "for posterity", as it were. Something for ALIEN to equal what Barbara Strachey did for The Lord of the Rings — something where fans could actually draw red arrows to track exactly how the characters move in every scene, figure out where the camera pans or moves in every shot.

If I start placing my own preferences above the only truly canonical source we have — being the movie — and adding or altering or moving things around wherever they don't fit into my own viewpoint (basically do for the Nostromo what Sir Arthur Evans did for Knossos), then that wouldn't work, would it? It wouldn't be the movie's Nostromo I'd drawn; it'd be my own, wouldn't it?
And whom would that benefit, apart from myself?

And here's the the interesting creative exercise; the calisthenics for the imagination — it must still be a believable working ship. One that is both solidly grounded in the nitty-gritty realism of SRC's vision, as well as following a consistent idea of such future technology (as far as possible building on an understanding of real-world science and engineering) as is required for the ship to work the way we see in the movie.

That is the philosophy that guides me in doing all this.

Now, I am of course aware that there have been tons of discussions going on about the Nostromo for years before I came onto this thread, and so I am a relative noob here.

I am therefore not entirely sure where everybody else is coming from, philosophy-wise, or which direction the "legacy consensus" is headed in. I can clearly see that not many here agree with my standpoint, but I struggle to see where the exact breaking points are in each individual case.

I would therefore greatly appreciate if you clarified this.

I have tried to outline what I want to create.
What do you want to create?
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To steal from Nike's ad campaign, "Just do it!" 😉
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's no real legacy consensus Vader, and if there is, it's probably A-Deck as we know it was built as a self-contained set and set blueprints of it have been around a while. But all this is really a different interpretation of the same thing each of us has, and that's cool, no right or wrong way of doing it, and personally I've enjoyed seeing your work, just as at some point I hope you would enjoy seeing my interpretation of the Nostromo. We're all enthusiasts and that's a good thing. There's nothing to say you have to do something a certain way.
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Starrigger
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A few final thoughts on elevators/lifts on the Nostromo. As a tug, the Nostromo would not have been built for for luxury to be sure. However, efficiency would have been a concern. Get what needs to be done completed as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

On ocean going vessels today that is sometimes accomplished with one of these:



The lowly and oft maligned deck crane. It is in fact an elevator in the purest since of the word. Note this one is not installed on a dry goods freighter, but a chemical tanker by the looks of it.

Would a vessel used in servicing a refinery have any less? (The docking ring on the top is HUGE I can imaging needed equipment being transported through it to the refinery, but how did it get on the Nostromo?)

Sure, store needed equipment in an area near where it is needed, but how do you replace it when it gets used?

I do note however a lot of chains in the landing gear wells. Why? could it be some sort of pulley system used to get stuff to higher decks? Maybe they are just for the servicing of the gear themselves, or are part of the machinery that keeps them aligned during deployment/retraction.

I did do some poking around on the net and saw a few freight/service related marine elevators, (most are passenger ship related. but some were not.) I even saw elevator/dumbwaiter configurations on military vessels (munitions mostly) Also, most modern vessels have stairs and not ladders. True they take up more room, but they are safer and conserve more personal energy.

Next, we have already seen one elevator on the Nostromo that we know of as was already referenced. The elevator used to exit and re-enter the vessel. It looks to me that the point where they enter the airlock is actually on the crew deck. (All white and shiny as apposed to Ash's Blister, all industrial..) So, is the airlock itself an elevator? And if there is one documented elevator (Why not a ladder here too?) why not another?





Anyway, I'll shut up now. I still believe it would be very conceivable to have an elevator cluster somewhere mid-ship. it just makes sense.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am inclined to believe that the main airlock itself is an elevator, as of course is the platform that takes people to the ground from it.

Why can I accept them here, but not anywhere else?

For two reasons, mainly: first, having the airlock be an elevator is pretty much the only way I've been able to think of that can get the geometry of what is seen on-screen to mesh even halfway.
Second, the spacesuits are very bulky and cumbersome. Negotiating a ladder in one must obviously be difficult and time consuming. It might not even be possible to grasp the ladder rungs with those gloves well enough to actually do it at all.

As in my tale of the cement factory, they did have elevators there, too, where practicality required it; just like the munitions dumbwaiters on warships you mention.

Another side story — I have spent quite a lot of time on board warships. As you might expect, elevators are not a common feature, and when you do have them, they're not for people. Even on the very largest ships, gangways connecting decks are little more than inclined ladders. Or 75deg stairs, if you like...
But there was one exception!
At one point, just after the South Atlantic conflict, I was on board the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, and she did have an elevator actually meant for carrying people. Or one person, to be absolutely precise.
It was a small wardrobe sized affair that connected the Captain's day cabin to the bridge on the deck directly above it. It was there to make it quicker for the Captain to reach the bridge in an emergency than it would have been to rush to the nearest gangway.
Hardly relevant, but I wanted to share it anyway, because I've always found it rather amusing...


The crane on that tanker — I am fairly convinced it's there for the specific purpose of managing the hoses that attach to the row of connectors seen on the port side when loading and offloading. Such hoses are much too heavy to handle manually.

Just like this Crowley plug-in deep-sea tug that I like to cite as the closest real-world equivalent to the Nostromo also has little cranes here and there, for specific purposes (the bigger one is for a RIB skiff, for instance):



But just like this one, I don't think the Nostromo's job is to service its payload in any way; just to shift it from point A to point B.


But yeah, it does seem that in the specific point of elevators, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Which is kind of a bummer, because I had really hoped that we'd be able to discuss an debate all our different visions, in order to eventually merge them into an even stronger unity.
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Starrigger
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 12:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Vader wrote:
I am inclined to believe that the main airlock itself is an elevator, as of course is the platform that takes people to the ground from it.

Why can I accept them here, but not anywhere else?

For two reasons, mainly: first, having the airlock be an elevator is pretty much the only way I've been able to think of that can get the geometry of what is seen on-screen to mesh even halfway.
Second, the spacesuits are very bulky and cumbersome. Negotiating a ladder in one must obviously be difficult and time consuming. It might not even be possible to grasp the ladder rungs with those gloves well enough to actually do it at all.

As in my tale of the cement factory, they did have elevators there, too, where practicality required it; just like the munitions dumbwaiters on warships you mention.

Another side story — I have spent quite a lot of time on board warships. As you might expect, elevators are not a common feature, and when you do have them, they're not for people. Even on the very largest ships, gangways connecting decks are little more than inclined ladders. Or 75deg stairs, if you like...
But there was one exception!
At one point, just after the South Atlantic conflict, I was on board the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, and she did have an elevator actually meant for carrying people. Or one person, to be absolutely precise.
It was a small wardrobe sized affair that connected the Captain's day cabin to the bridge on the deck directly above it. It was there to make it quicker for the Captain to reach the bridge in an emergency than it would have been to rush to the nearest gangway.
Hardly relevant, but I wanted to share it anyway, because I've always found it rather amusing...


The crane on that tanker — I am fairly convinced it's there for the specific purpose of managing the hoses that attach to the row of connectors seen on the port side when loading and offloading. Such hoses are much too heavy to handle manually.

Just like this Crowley plug-in deep-sea tug that I like to cite as the closest real-world equivalent to the Nostromo also has little cranes here and there, for specific purposes (the bigger one is for a RIB skiff, for instance):

(The image is too big to post, and I can't make it smaller right now, so you'll have to do with a link for now, I'm afraid)
http://www.professionalmariner.com/Crowley1.JPG

But just like this one, I don't think the Nostromo's job is to service its payload in any way; just to shift it from point A to point B.


But yeah, it does seem that in the specific point of elevators, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Which is kind of a bummer, because I had really hoped that we'd be able to discuss an debate all our different visions, in order to eventually merge them into an even stronger unity.


Before I get into this, let me say you are a brave person trying to make real since out of movie logic, you have progressed well.

I am not trying to start a war, I am just trying to understand the logic presented.

Okay, Putting in an elevator because it is too difficult to negotiate a ladder in full space suit is okay, ( The Lunar Lander Guys would have probably killed for one...) but for shifting around tons of equipment is not? Shocked

Yes you have been on ships that move stuff around using elevators but the Nostromo would never! Shocked Shocked

Sure the cement factory had them where practical, but you can't imagine a practical use for one on the Nostromo. Confused

Yes, that deck crane is used to help out in moving heavy and unwieldy loads, but they would never do it on a space tug light years from home, that just might have to perform repairs on equipment that weighs a lot and is, judging by the size of the ship itself, probably quite large, doesn't justify the installation of an elevator?



This ship is as long as, and taller then the Titanic was, including the smoke stacks! But you see no need for a vertical lift system to manage large items? Ash's blister is about 40' off the ground when on it's legs, we know how people get on board, how does big stuff get on board? Even something as "small" as a pallet of food would be difficult to get in and out of that airlock. (just making a point, I could actually imagine something designed just for that purpose...)

perhaps we ( you and I, I can't speak for everyone here.) are unable to agree on a strong unity on this subject because I don't understand the strong aversion to an elevator system that your own arguments seem to support.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing we haven't mentioned is that the crew of the Nostromo, aren't exactly well-trained navy or experienced laborers who think nothing of handling heavy equipment and supplies.
At best, they would be most representative of an airline crew with some manual labor thrown in for the engineering staff. Their job is to be awake when departing and/or arriving at a destination.

There would need to be some way to get needed equipment to whatever level necessary and without risking injuring one of the crew, such as the navigator or captain.
It could be something as simple as a large dumb waiter or as elaborate as a full elevator system.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 7:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That is an excellent question, Starrigger -- I'll try my best to answer. I'm afraid this will be quite verbose, so I must ask you to bear with me and to read with patience.


To begin with, I believe the assumption that there is a need for the crew to shift tons of equipment on board to be fundamentally fallacious.

Let us examine that statement a little:


SRS has always described the concept for the Nostromo's crew as "truckers in space".
Now, truckers need to know how to manoeuvre their vehicle, to find their destination, and to take care of themselves in the meanwhile. If we talk about the tow rig type (the closest analogy), they also need to know how to dock the rig to the trailer. Being able to refuel and top up engine oil and windscreen wiper fluid when necessary helps, too. Possibly change a tyre, but that's stretching it quite a lot.
In relation to everything that might need to be done with a truck, still relatively simple things, within a strictly defined scope.

To wit -- they do not need to know how to change the engine, or repair the gearbox, or even change the cylinder head gasket or an oil filter; nor does the truck need to carry spares or equipment for such a purpose.


So what is the precise scope of the Nostromo crew's job?

Well, we know that out of the total journey time, they spend almost all of it in hypersleep. They expect to be thawed out just in time to have a leisurely cup of coffee, and then call up the traffic control for the final approach. It seems logical to presume that at the start of the haul, they similarly crawl into the ol' freezerinos pretty much immediately upon leaving port.
Out of several months of flight time, they spend a few hours awake.

Consequently, they don't do any heavy work or maintenance during the trip. They're there to see to it that the payload is picked up in a timely and orderly fashion, that it is delivered in a similar manner, and that's it. Mother will handle any emergencies in between, so there will be ample redundant systems to ensure that the payload is delivered safely. Which also eliminates the need for the crew to perform any major in-flight repairs, should something occur during the few hours when the crew is awake for it.

Remember that the engineers -- Parker and Brett -- we're not talking about Scotty, or Kaylee, here! They're a far cry from Sci-Fi's staple hyper-competent mechanical wizards, able to rebuild the ship in a coffee break!
Even if either or both of these gentlemen would happen to be particularly ingenious, that is certainly not the expectation upon which a ship such as the Nostromo is built. The expectation is that the engineers are ... well, in trucker terms, they're the guys who operate the gear shift and the pedals.
Kane is the guy who turns the steering wheel, Lambert reads the map, Ash is in charge of the first aid kit, and Ripley of the CB radio. Dallas has the unenviable job of making sure everybody pulls in the same direction and does so in accordance with Company policy.
The engineers double as mechanics, sure, but the scope of what they can, or even will be allowed to do, will be very narrow. Just like a truck driver's.


Therefore, any shifting of heavy items between decks will perforce be done when the ship has landed, and is in the hands of the port crew. This is thus most practically done through the landing gear wells -- they're there, they're open to the ground, and they have access to pretty much every single deck of the ship. It can be done with lift gear in the gearwells, or with purpose-built port cranes (as is the case with real-world ships) reaching up into said wells.

A point of note here -- we know that the gearwells have direct access to the store room decks of the ship. We do not know that there is a "cargo elevator" anywhere.
Why add something we do not know, when what we know already solves the problem?

I believe I have taken a position that fully explains why the gearwells have this direct access to the habitable decks -- a feature which actually would be somewhat peculiar, otherwise.
This also obviates the need for elevators. Why lift stuff on board and then reload it to an elevator, when you can deposit it at the destination deck directly from the crane?

If, as I have postulated before, any heavier spare parts relevant to the (limited) scope of what the ship's engineers can do are already stored on the decks they'd be used on, there is never any need for shifting anything whatsoever between the decks during flight.
Chain hoists in the gearwells (or the, admittedly slightly redundant, ladder hoists I played around with a couple of pages ago) would be ample to handle any emergencies that could arise, such as unconscious crewmen in spacesuits.
In the presence of fully adequate alternatives, I can't see that the possibility of such emergencies arising would be sufficient to motivate the Company to install "cargo elevators" on their ships just for the sake of convenience.


Now to address specific points you make directly:

Starrigger wrote:
Putting in an elevator because it is too difficult to negotiate a ladder in full space suit is okay, ( The Lunar Lander Guys would have probably killed for one...) but for shifting around tons of equipment is not?

The LEM crews had about 7ft of ladder to negotiate in 0.16g. The Nostromo crew has a bit longer to descend -- and then ascend! -- perhaps in full gravity, and aren't trained astronauts. Thus the Nostromo has more need for one than the LEM ever did.

Starrigger wrote:
Yes you have been on ships that move stuff around using elevators but the Nostromo would never!

The ships I mentioned were warships, and the munitions dumbwaiters and Captain's private lift were all directly linked to operational needs dictated by the specific requirements for which the ships were built.
The Nostromo isn't (nor was ever) a warship.

Starrigger wrote:
Sure the cement factory had them where practical, but you can't imagine a practical use for one on the Nostromo.

Correct.
See my text above -- any such practical use would be much too occasional to warrant installation of dedicated assets, when the gearwells provide an entirely adequate alternative.

Starrigger wrote:
Yes, that deck crane is used to help out in moving heavy and unwieldy loads, but they would never do it on a space tug light years from home, that just might have to perform repairs on equipment that weighs a lot and is, judging by the size of the ship itself, probably quite large, doesn't justify the installation of an elevator?.

Again, correct.
See my text above -- the ship's "space trucker" engineers will not have the scope to perform major repairs anyway, and any spare parts they do need will already be on the relevant decks.

Recall how, while stranded on the planetoid, they find that all the real problems with the systems require that they dry-dock? And that they just patch everything up best they can basically with spit and duct tape, and then keep their fingers crossed that the repairs hold up long enough for orbital injection?
Clearly, they do not have resources, equipment, or spare parts -- or skills, quite likely -- on board to conduct anything beyond rudimentary repairs.

Starrigger wrote:
This ship is as long as, and taller then the Titanic was, including the smoke stacks! But you see no need for a vertical lift system to manage large items?

Once more, correct.
See my text above -- I cannot see what the "large items" that would need to be moved between decks during flight could possibly be.

Starrigger wrote:
Ash's blister is about 40' off the ground when on it's legs, we know how people get on board, how does big stuff get on board? Even something as "small" as a pallet of food would be difficult to get in and out of that airlock.

See my text above -- Hoisting items up the gearwells however would enable you to get quite large items on board. The limiting factor would be the doors to the loading bays, which we know to be quite large.

If not for allowing items to be brought on board this way -- why are the big doors to the gearwells there, in the first place?


I believe I have addressed every major point you raise in full detail. Hopefully, the logic of my position is therefore now a bit clearer -- that rather than an arbitrary "aversion", it is a position built on my own understanding of what kind of a vessel the Nostromo is supposed to be and the scope of her crew, such as these are presented to us.


But to turn the question around -- in light of what I've said above, why does the Nostromo need internal cargo elevators?

I mean, I have explained my ideas of using the gearwells as vertical accesses for bulkier items, the notion of storing larger spares on the proper decks, and so on and so forth, numerous times already in previous posts, but I keep getting this sort of Mr Prosser "what do you mean, why has it got to have an elevator? It is an elevator! You’ve got to have elevators!" reaction...

But perhaps you might explain why, as inevitable as I find that the Nostromo can't have an internal cargo elevator, you find it as inevitable that she must have one?
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 7:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, where do you guys think they keep Jones's litter box? Very Happy
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

FenGiddel wrote:
So, where do you guys think they keep Jones's litter box? Very Happy

Looking at how fond she seems to be of the fellow ... I think Ripley stuck it in the engineering control room, under Parker's chair.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Vader wrote:
FenGiddel wrote:
So, where do you guys think they keep Jones's litter box? Very Happy

Looking at how fond she seems to be of the fellow ... I think Ripley stuck it in the engineering control room, under Parker's chair.

Hah! Right! Smile
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

To address the previous discussion about what the probe-thing at the front end of Nostromo is for; now that I'm at a computer, I can make some slightly more serious measurements, and I come up with the following.

Assuming that the previously cited figure for the bridge viewports being approx. 5.5' tall is correct -- which seems extremely likely -- measuring against the models I come up with these figures:


("Big" is here the close-up model; "Little" the big full ship model)

Granted, there will be some perspective effect that I am not taking into account in those pictures, but (a) the effect can hardly be more than a foot in either direction, and (b) it will be in favour of a larger tube diameter in one case, and a smaller in the other, more or less taking each other out.

So, if the tube diameter comes out in the region of 6-7' -- give it a floor and a pressure hull, and the remaining corridor will indeed be little more than a crawlspace, in my opinion rendering the docking tunnel hypothesis impractical.



These pictures also illustrate the structures in the funnel very clearly. As far as I see it, it would be very difficult to functionally consolidate those structures with a docking port. Whereas a fluid inlet of some sort would seem to suggest itself rather naturally, I would think.

Therefore, in my interpretation, the physical inlet aperture for the vast force field funnel of a Bussard-type hydrogen collector (such gas would, albeit extremely thin, in physical terms, being a non-solid, sill be a 'fluid') is what it'll have to be.
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Starrigger
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Found this quote online:

Bill Pearson: After most of the model had been built we were informed that the scale of it had changed from 1:35 to approximately 1:150! This necessitated the construction of a new bridge section. Originally this was located just behind the "twinned lobes" but, as it had to match the windows on the full-size set, we had to remake these smaller and perch them on either side of a new unit, now located in front of the lobes. Also Martin fixed a docking tube and radar dish in that area. (From Script to Screen, p94)

Whether this is just Bill's interpretation of what Martin did, I leave for others to debate. I would be fine with seeing it as a refueling structure of some sort.
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