A family of four decide to sell up, leave Earth behind and live the shuttle life. They're travelling the galaxy in a convert passenger shuttle, seeing the universe. But will this adventure be as safe as they hope, and can they successfully outrun th...
How's it going? Blake here. My wife, Aisha, started this blog and threatened to remove all my fingernails if I didn't write this post. So here I am.
Today, I want to talk to you about our ship. Our new home. She was an old JY type passenger shuttle. She belonged to a rich executive who used her to ferry dignitaries and employees between Earth and his corporate headquarters on the moon. It's FTL capable, of course, but the FTL drive had rarely been used. She's spent most of her life in the Sol system.
The first thing we did was get the professionals to perform a detailed service of the FTL drive. Turns out it was in pretty good condition but needed some minor maintenance due to prolonged periods of inaction. While a mechanic by trade, I didn't trust myself to do this work. You've got to know when to call in the professionals. But as they worked, I took note of everything they did. I've been studying FTL drive systems since we decided to take the plunge into shuttle life and am now well-prepared to keep the ship's systems running long-term.
By the way, we still don't have a name for this ship. Lil wanted to name it Star Runner, but Jackson suggested we ask for opinions from our readers. So, if you have any great ideas please feel free to drop them in the comments below.
The ship has two decks. The upper deck is the living area, and the lower deck contains most of the engineering systems.
At the aft of the upper deck, we have our sleeping area. The master bed is on the deck, and two bunks drop down from the ceiling above us for the kids. The bed isn't the most comfortable I've ever slept on, but it's better than sticking your head into the magma reservoir of an active volcano.
Next, we have a small living area with a desk and entertainment screen. A few metres on, we have a compact bathroom with shower on the starboard side, and enough wardrobe space for the whole family on the port. Beyond that is a combined kitchen and dining area with a staircase leading down to the lower deck. And right up forward is the cockpit. Most of the ship's systems can actually be controlled remotely by tablet from anywhere on board, so we won't be spending all our time up there, but I'll admit to getting a kick out of sitting up front and flying the ship directly from the cockpit. If nothing else, it's a good place to hide from the kids, which I Like to do on a regular basis.
Down on the lower deck, starting aft, we have the primary engine core. The machinery for both the FTL and impulse drives live here. In front of them we have life-support systems and inertial dampeners, plus the gravity generator.
Toward the front of the ship we have an empty area that was designed to be cargo space. We store a lot of our belongings here, what little we kept after selling most of what we own. It also serves as an area where we can stretch our legs a little. We have an omni-directional treadmill with VR headset. A few days into the trip, I'm convinced we'll be fighting tooth and claw to use this.
I won't bore you will all the technical specifications of the engine, but if you're interested, you can look up the Kaas-28 model and see for yourself.
Okay. I've done my duty. I now return you to my wife and her regular programming.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
