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Due to the privatization of government space agencies, now controlled by pro-profit entities, space exploration was pushed back by at least an entire century. Although a few motivated and dedicated eastern countries continued their government-run space programs, despite most of them filing for bankruptcy, manned space exploration was nearly destroyed under the pursuit for big business. This put a massive dent in the research of space related sciences, and man's future in the final frontier seemed to have been lost forever.
One day, all this had changed. The moment word became public, that an Earth-like, habitable planet was found, companies immediately struggled to research and design ways to build permanent colonies, and claim the newly discovered world for their very own. They were motivated only by the idea of exploiting the rich, lush alien land for new commercial attractions and vacation resorts.
After sending satellites, rovers and other probes to the newly discovered planet "E518" (Ethonia), the GSA decided it was time to for a manned exploration mission. The "STS (Space Transport Shuttle) - 100" vehicle series was primarily designed to shuttle large groups of researchers to alien worlds, in order to see if humans could live on an Earth-like planet for long durations without developing any ill side effects.
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The 100 series is capable of entering, and leaving a planet's atmosphere under its own power.
Each craft is outfitted with powerful boosters at the end of the vehicle. These are used primarily to help a shuttle enter space. A shuttle can only hold enough fuel to perform this maneuver once, before it must be refueled again. On each mission, the shuttle is sent out with extra refueling tanks, which are left orbiting a planet, while the main vehicle is sent out to explore the planet below. A maximum of 3 refueling maneuvers is possible. When launched from Earth, these shuttles come attached with extra fueling tanks, as well as a booster to help send everything out into space, without wasting any mission specific resources.
By using advanced VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) technologies, it would be possible for a shuttle to land safely on flat terrain, given the absence of landing fields on alien worlds.
When these STS vehicles were first tested in remote desert areas, people easily mistook them as extra terrestrial UFOs. The three bright, glowing red lights (VTOL engines) under these shuttles, and their ability to fly silently at extremely low speeds, caused a lot of ruckus within conspiracy theory communities. |
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These vehicles are estimated to be roughly twice, if not three times the size of 21st century shuttles. They could house up to 20 crew members, and could easily lift up to 100,000 lb of payload.
Out of four shuttles, only three ever flew in space, the:
STS-101-Entdeckung (German for "discovery")
STS-103-Forschung (German for "research")
STS-104-Constellation
The "Entdeckung" became the first to write history, as it was the shuttle which helped human researchers come in contact with Ethonian and Akeshi life.
It was also the first shuttle to have an Ethonian passenger, by sending an elder by the name of Marathe, on a little cruise around his people's lands, in order to impress his tribe with mankind's technological achievements.
The "Forschung" also wrote history, for it was the first Hyperlink related casualty in space. It was sent through a Hyperlink module, on route to Ethonia, yet it never arrived. Only centuries later did it reappear near Ethonia, with all its crew missing. For that very reason it was referred to as the first space "Ghost Ship".
In later Adregalus chapters, the Entdeckung-1 shuttle can be found at a museum on Earth.
The massive research and exploration carrier, the "Entdeckung-2", received it's name to honor the significant discoveries its predecessor had achieved. This massive, mile-long space-faring vehicle played an important role during the exploration of the Uraeus Solar System, and also helped the recovery of three Ethonian monarchs from a tribal raid on their palace.
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