November
2015 Post Farside, Part I
In this post, we look at one of the more important
facilities used in the Tales of the
Quantum Corps. It’s the Farside
complex, at Korolev Crater on the far side of the Moon. The complex is run by Frontier Corps, a
UNIFORCE agency that is co-equal with Quantum Corps and often conducts joint
missions.
Just to set the stage, Korolev Crater is about 430
kilometers wide and lies near the Moon’s equator on the far side. The Farside complex is located here, as
shown in the image below.
Farside is operated by Frontier Corps and has two
main tenants: SpaceGuard Center and the Observatory Center.
SpaceGuard is a defensive network of sensors and
detection systems that range across the entire breadth of the solar system,
looking for anything out of the ordinary.
They catalogue asteroids and comets that threaten human habitats,
stations and settlements, from the Jupiter system to the inner system,
including Earth. They also operate
remote sentinel stations in key locations around the solar system, such as the
Europa Eye satellite in orbit around Europa, put in place after the Great Rift Zone case to keep an eye on
the Europan Keeper. SpaceGuard’s mission
is to know where everybody is at all times and to provide alerts when something
changes.
The Observatory Center is also run by Frontier
Corps. It contains radar, optical and
infrared telescopes, mass spectrometers, radio telescopes, and a variety of
other devices to conduct astronomical research within the solar system and
across the galaxy. The work of the
Observatory is predominantly research, although they do have a supporting
mission to assist SpaceGuard Center as needed.
The Farside complex itself is home to over fifty
personnel, ranging from astronomers and cosmologists, to engineers and
technicians and system operators, command staff, even a few robotic bartenders
for the habitat spaces. Most of the
complex itself is buried under a few meters of lunar regolith for radiation
protection. The domes have several
levels and there are three main elements, called wings: Galileo Wing, Kepler
Wing and Newton Wing. A fourth compound,
to be known as DaVinci Wing, is under construction.
Let’s look at the elements that make up Farside.
1. Three shuttle and ferry landing pads occupy
ground a kilometer or so to the northwest of the main facility. The telescope arrays are also located to the
northeast, connected by wireways and buried access tunnels, to make servicing
and maintenance a bit easier. Many of
the scopes and arrays are operated remotely from Newton Wing’s SpaceGuard
Center.
2. Southwest
of the main compound, a small nuclear power plant, well shielded, provides
multi-megawatt power for night time operations, augmented by a huge array of
solar photovoltaic panels for daytime power.
Again, there are buried wireways, power cables and access tunnels.
3. Galileo Wing
contains offices for UNISPACE and Frontier Corps command staff. There is also a protected and isolated
section for ANAD operations, including a containment vault, a foundry for
assembling parts and items needed by the base and replicator banks to test out
molecular assembly and disassembly ideas and concepts. Note the crawler garage and airlocks; all
wings have this. Crawlers are
pressurized surface mobility vehicles used by personnel to shuttle around the
complex above ground and to conduct forays further afield as needed, for
science, materials (mainly dirt) and other needed tasks.
4. Newton Wing contains
SpaceGuard Center itself, including mission operations and supporting
rooms. The mission of SpaceGuard is
critical so there are plenty of backups and redundant systems for
everything. About half the instruments
located in the array fields are operated by SpaceGuard Center.
5. Kepler Wing is
where most of the base personnel live and hang out when not on duty. This wing contains the berthing spaces, the
wardroom and mess facilities (café and lounge) and the canteen, which is
currently done up to resemble a South Seas beachside cantina. The Locals call is ‘Fiji Island Lagoon’ and
it’s said that the robo-bartenders can mix up anything, including a mean
daiquiri. All personnel have individual
rooms, though calling them rooms might be a stretch. Perhaps ‘closet’ would be better. Farside
operates on an Earthside duty schedule, which means three shifts over every 24
hours.
6. DaVinci Wing is
the newest wing and, when finished, will house more hab spaces, staff
facilities and labs for the Observatory crew.
This completes our quick tour of
Farside. I'll put the layout diagram of Farside in a following post. The next post in early December
will cover another key facility that plays a big role in the stories of the Tales of the Quantum Corps. This is the Quartier-General, in Paris. The Q-G is UNIFORCE headquarters.
See you in December.
