UCS Apollo

[Graham Kennedy]

It would be super cool, yeah.

Hell, even Trek could do that right now. They have forcefields to hold air in already, used as backup for the hull.

[Mikey]

Are 'Trek force fields (and their tributory systems) reliable enough to have that as one's only protection from vacuum?

[Graham Kennedy]

Are 'Trek force fields (and their tributory systems) reliable enough to have that as one's only protection from vacuum?

I wouldn't trust them for that myself.

Heh, you could have role reversal; when the forcefield fails a big backup metal shutter slams down on the window.

[Graham Kennedy]

Okay, work for today. First, hospital ships always seem to be white, so here we go with a new paint scheme. While I was at that I finished up the superstructure and the end caps for the power tower.



I also added some quick-launch boats. I want this ship to be able to handle lots of people, and patients take up a lot more space on transports than able bodied people do. I was a bit concerned that if the ship had to be evacuated in a hurry, you wouldn't be able to trek everyone all the way back to the boat deck in time, so I have added two rows of boats to the hospital section.



They are kind of glorified escape pods/shuttlecraft. Each bay holds two of these, and there are 36 bays, so 72 craft. As you can see they aren't very well drawn at this scale; might do a proper version later.Each would be 18.5 metres long, and I figure could hold maybe 24 stretchers plus a couple of attendants.

Now the boat deck. There's not a lot of room for support facilities back here, but I worked a small hangar in under the flight deck, and there's room for maintanence and support facilities and fuel tanks below that. Most boat decks have large access ports to allow heavy cargo craft to use them, but this is designed for large numbers of smaller craft so I've gone with three small ports per side. Sketched out a top view of the same little craft from before, and we can very comfortably accommodate 45 of those on the flight deck whilst still leaving room for moving them around and such. I figure the hangar could comfortably take another 30, but I am going to limit it to 15 to be on the cautious side. That's an operating capacity of 60 craft, each capable of handling up to 24 wounded - 1,440 wounded per cycle.

[Mikey]

As I'm seeing it get fleshed out, I think I like the "underbite" look. It separates it from the warships.

[Graham Kennedy]

Still not completely sure about that. I might try it the other way, just to see.

[Captain Seafort]

Looks pretty cool to me, and with the relative depth of the lower section I think it would look odd if you extended the upper hull to overhang.

In more general terms, how many patients are you thinking of putting on this ship? I assume that it won't be limited by the 3000-ish stretcher evacuation limit, given that that would only give it roughly the same capacity as the Britannic, so will the assumption be made that in case of emergency other ships will be on-hand to assist with evacuation?

[Graham Kennedy]

It's 1.8 km long, so it should be able to handle as many patients as a major hospital - in fact several major hospitals. I'm thinking the shuttle deals will be for the more serious cases, while most will be able to use standard escape pods that I haven't added as yet. I'd quite like to know how current hospital ships handle this kind of thing; do they expect casualties to use those inflatable lifeboat things that ships use nowdays?

[Captain Seafort]

I'd quite like to know how current hospital ships handle this kind of thing; do they expect casualties to use those inflatable lifeboat things that ships use nowdays?

I assume they do - looking at photos of hospital ships I can't see any larger casevac lifeboats. In any event, casualties suffered in the loss of any ship would use the standard life rafts, so why not casualties brought aboard for treatment? I think serious cases would be evacuated by helicopter if possible, again just as casualties suffered in the loss of any other ship would be.

[Graham Kennedy]

Okay, I have done a first pass to add some lifeboats; 1,466 of them. Now I need to design a lifeboat, so that I can see how many they can take.

The fun part of this is that with the shuttle thing, now I have two more designs to do in order to make this one work.

[Graham Kennedy]

A rough outline of a lifeboat. A cylinder, 2.5 m in diameter - which is how big the dots on the Apollo are - and 8.5 m long. It would hold 24 people, leaving a little space in the back for an STL engine and airlock. I'll easily fit a line of supply lockers on the ceiling between the chairs, and I might even fit a midspace engine under the seats to give it some low level FTL capability.

If all 1466 lifeboats held 24 people, that's another 35,184 that can be evacuated.

[Mikey]

Is it just me, or does it seem like there's a lot of stuff wedged in toward the stern - boat deck, generators, drive, etc.?

[Graham Kennedy]

Is it just me, or does it seem like there's a lot of stuff wedged in toward the stern - boat deck, generators, drive, etc.?

Yes indeed. In a warship, the forward section would hold fighter bays and heavy weapons at the front. In a civilian ship it's passengers, cargo areas, etc.

Actually now I think of it, civilian and non-combatant military ships usually have the midspace shunts and power systems at the front... don't know why I didn't think of that earlier, I guess I am so used to doing warships lately I am in the habit, lol. The idea is that having the engines forward of the center of mass makes the design stable in FTL flight, but makes it less agile. Having it aft means you need active flight control to keep flying straight, which is expensive and difficult, but does make the ship more agile.

Soooo, I either think of a reason why a cruise liner would have engines at the back, or do a bit of redesigning! Have to think about that one.

[Captain Seafort]

I think a redesign would be the better option, unfortunately. Given that this is a hospital ship stability would be very important - you don't want the thing bouncing around in the middle of an operation. Plus it would give you space to enlarge the boat deck to allow the maximum number of patients to be brought aboard in the minimum possible time - I must say that I think the relatively poor hangar facilities are the weak point of the design at this point.

[Mikey]

Hey, glad I thought of it. *pats self on back*