USCSS Nostromo - Discussion Thread

[SKIN JOB 66]

[FenGiddel]

Stumbled upon an interesting site that has a cool section on the Nostromo.

http://www.planet-alien.co.uk/index.html

The callouts on his blueprints are interesting, as is the artwork derived from the film and other sources. Classy presentation.

[The Loyalizer]

I remember running across this site years ago. I always thought his extrapolation of the derelict's underside was top notch.
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"We began to recognize in them a strange obsession..."

http://fcomin.cgsociety.org/gallery/

[Space Jockey]

[Space Jockey]

Finally, its done. Completely revised the observation blister location.
Now for the next one...

[SKIN JOB 66]

Excellent work Graham !!!

Can't wait for the first run of milars now !!!



Fred
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THE FUTURE IS A THING OF THE PAST

[joberg]

Too cool Graham!!

[SKIN JOB 66]

Saw Dennis Lowe's ALIEN MAKERS 2 yesterday night, it's as amazing as his first film !!!

There's even a lost test scene featuring the Nostromo, that was found by Denys Ayling son... This scene (THOSE scenes, should I say, there's 2 shots) is very interesting because it shows the underside of the Nostromo model in one of its early stages and, OH SURPRISE, we can clearly see Ash's blister !!!

I understand now why we couldn't locate it on the final model, those past months : The underbelly thrusters were added over the place where the blister and airlock were located !!!



Mystery solved... (and BRAVO Graham, you really nailed it despite the lack of clear info on the Blister location)

Cheers !

Fred

PS : Here is a link to Dennis' site, where you'll find a page exclusively devoted to Denys Ayling. You'll also find a HD version of this long lost footage...

http://www.zen171398.zen.co.uk/Alien%20(page4).html


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THE FUTURE IS A THING OF THE PAST

[Space Jockey]

Oh HAHAHA!!
SWEEEEEET!!
That's excellent news! I've yet to see this, thanks Fred for the heads up! Yeah, I kind of based it from info received from Martin; this module was placed by accident where the landing leg should go (they covered up the hole where the undercarriage connects) so they ended up having to move it forward a bit. Great to see these images!

On another note, Acme Archives have a copy of the print to see if they want to greenlight it or not (they got it two days ago), just waiting to hear what they have to say...

[joberg]

Very good Fred...and congrats Space Jockey!!!

[SKIN JOB 66]

Same as joberg... and fingers crossed for you regarding the acme archives answer !!!

Fred
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THE FUTURE IS A THING OF THE PAST

[Space Jockey]

Cheers guys, means alot!

In the meantime, can any of you guess what it is I'm doing here?



Yep, going to rough in a new 3D model of the Nostromo geometry. Once the hull and main body is done, I can cut a horizontal 'slice' through any part of the ship. This will give me something similar to a building 'footprint' - so I can see where the outline of the ship is on each deck, and know that everything has to fit within the footprint / outline.
(Hope you're paying attention FenGiddel, 'cos I'm sure you'd like to help out with that)!

[FenGiddel]

Aye!

Would you believe that's the same 'slice' idea I had years ago when the Enterprise-D had my interest. Long before 3-D CG software was so commonly used by fans or Trekdom released offical blueprints.

I really think you're next steps in this direction will generate quite a bit of interest --- on my part as well as others --- since it will provide us with the opportunity to flesh out the areas of the ship that were never shown but would have existed in such a craft.

Some areas I've wondered about:

Were the crew limited to the galley and its little cubicles along the perimeter? (Maybe, since they probably weren't intended to spend much time out of hibernation)

Personnel and Service lifts for moving between decks when using the ladderways wasn't feasible. (Like moving Kane from the airlock to the autodoc...or were they on the same deck???)

The location of the landing gear suggests to me that the ship was bow-heavy. (The Halcyon model kit requires nose-weighting, too.) Could the central hull between the outriggers house the ship's cavernous drive, explaining why the ship didn't promptly fall on its aft thrusters once it landed?

B-Deck was the service level. Lots and lots of storage areas, parts and machinery shops, etc.

C-Deck has been described as the 'garage-level'. If so, what mechanism did the ship deploy to enable the crew to use the rover we see in the gold room, as well as the VTOL-heli craft?

Since Nostromo towed the refinery, did Nostromo fulfil some mining function while planetside, either via prospecting equiipment, etc.? I always wondered, dramatic license aside, why the ship was so big...

Was there an armory where the firearms were kept?

Did the lifters use reactant, and if so, was it stored in the outriggers?

Were the grids on the front of the 'headpiece" and the front of each outrigger --- all similar to the grids on the angled thrusters --- some sort of reverse thruster system while in atmo?

Since the 'headpiece' --- tiara? --- housed the docking latches, this part of the hull must have been integral to the ship's keel and other supportive framing. Any internal design might begin with charting the Nostromo's strong bones and then filling the spaces between with the pressurized living spaces, fuel storage, water and waste tankage, etc.

I've read that the starboard tube projecting from the face of the ship is a docking tube. If so, is it to scale?

(***My head's spinning***)

In the immortal words of David Essex: "Rock on!"

[Space Jockey]

David Essex? Man, that's somebody I haven't seen in a while, not since I was a kid watching Postman Pat and Portland Bill living in England, anyway!!!

Rock on indeed!!!! We're going to be able to BUILD a frigging real-life nostromo by the time we're done with it! I'll put some hull outlines on here sometime next week so you can print'em and we can all start scribblin'. In the meantime, I shall search for a rather large field and begin to build up a big hoard of scrap metal and disused aircraft parts!!!

I'm looking forward to the sketching part, I have to say, we should have some pretty cool stuff on here in the coming weeks!!! (wife, children and chores permitting, o'course)!!!

[SKIN JOB 66]

This is very exciting !!!

I must admit I've always wondered where their toilets and bathroom were... and if they had a rescue hypersleep chamber somewhere in the ship, or at least an extra chamber for unexpected extra crew...

Count me in to submit some doodles...



Fred
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THE FUTURE IS A THING OF THE PAST

[USCSS_Nostromo]

I have been lurking here for a while but decided to join because this is a fantastic thread!

Nostromo is my favourite sci-fi ship (so I nicked the name for my user i.d. on here; anyway I am useless at thinking up user names) but there's been a lack of information on it until fairly recently, so it was always a little annoying trying to find out anything about it or see a decent picture of a/the model or even a painting of it. I have a copy of 'The Book of Alien' which has a cracking picture of Nostromo in flight (no refinery) on the second page but even this pic doesn't show much detail, as the bow of the ship is in shadow. So it was good to do a Google search a while back and find this.

I am not sure why Nostromo is my favourite, maybe it's because it's the most believable science fiction ship. It looks as if it is something that could/would be built in the not-too-distant future, unlike the USS Enterprise, and it wouldn't fall apart, again unlike the Enterprise and some other fictional star ships.

Awesome blueprints Space Jockey, that's dedication. Absolutely fantastic stuff!

[Space Jockey]

Thank you Nostromo and welcome!

Agreed, it's only the last 6 months there's been a huge surge in behind-the-scenes information on the ship, which is wonderful. I think just lately there's just been a huge appreciation of the work that went into the models and the making of the movie, and it's all been very exciting for us the fans.

Also, if anyone (who may or may not be a member) has access to original set blueprints, such as the ones seen here http://www.remington-rand.com/alien/ and would be willing to lend a hand do (PLEASE!) come forward! It'd be great to see some better images of these.

[USCSS_Nostromo]

Thanks SJ.

Also, if anyone is interested, I have found the original 'Nostromo Files' website. I went to http://web.archive.org and found the index page. Not all the links are there but most are:

Nostromo Files

[Space Jockey]

NIIICE!! Member Fengiddel will be pleased, he made it originally! Though I think it was thought this site no longer existed! Nice find!

[USCSS_Nostromo]

Thanks.

I didn't think it existed either, because clicking on the link alone just brought up a 'Page Not Found' message but going in via web.archive.org produced the site. I was pleased to find it as it sounded promising from what had been written on this thread about it.