SPECIFICATIONS

GOVERNMENT: United States of North America/USSN


Description/Overview:
         A relic from the 2130s time period, refit and rearmed for the Asian Pacific conflict of the 2140s and kept in service with the United States Space Navy until the end of the Great War of the 2150s, the General Atomics Saturn-VII Interplanetary Space Cutter was a staple of space forces of the world for nearly three decades. It was a thermonuclear rail-gun, pusher plate propelled craft capable of acceleration of up to 2,800,000 miles per hour (778 miles per second). The endurance of the engine was a full three months of continuous usage. The maximum speed of the ship was only attainable safely for the crew using the Hoph Fibration Electromagnetic gravity generator rings. These rings were a primitive version of the Tesla-Shauberger type developed during the 2150s. The ring system acted as a g-force compensation unit, internal gravity generator (capable of .76 gs) and a primitive electromagnetic deflector field that could protect the ship from most cannon fire and railgun weapons of the 2150s and 60s. However, energy weapons of the 2170s proved more powerful than the ring generators could deflect, due mostly to the fibration effect allowing some photon, and proton particles to get through.

This craft was 550 feet long (167.4 meters), and 125 feet in diameter at the largest ring (38.1 meters). It used multiple methane-rocket engines for maneuvering, braking, and Delta-V changes. The maximum speed of the rocket engines was a meager 7600 mph each (could be combined with other engines in one direction). The armaments of the Saturn-VII Cutter were four 12 inch rail cannons, and twenty Spacecraft Launched Cruise Missiles fitted with thermonuclear warheads.

The command module of this cutter was detachable and could act as the ship's boat to dock with space stations, land on moons, or planetoids or other low-g bodies. However, the module lacked the thrust to be able to escape the Earth's gravity and so only entered a gravity well of .8g or higher as an escape pod or life-boat.

The crew of this ship was 20 persons. All of which could fit into the command module (cramped) in an emergency.

After the Great War ended the United States Space Navy fleet of Saturn VIIs was assigned to guard duty and patrol around the planetoid Juno until they were decomissioned after the 1st Interplanetary War in 2180.