Movies - Nostromo

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	Movies - Nostromo

The USCSS Ulysees Nostromo is a fictional starship, featured in the 1979 film Alien. The name is from the eponymous hero of the 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad. The design of the Nostromo is credited to illustrators Ron Cobb and Chris Foss. Ultimately Chris Foss' highly organic visions of the spacecraft were discarded in favor of Cobb's NASA-like utilitarian renderings. Ridley Scott made his own design contributions as well, adding most of the cathedralesque "refinery" portion, which dominates the craft on screen.

Beneath Cobb's blueprint elevations of a late Nostromo rendering, he specified:

::::::BASIC LOCKHEED CM 88B BISON TRANSPORTER FRAME ::::::MODIFIED AND FITTED WITH A YUTANI T7A NLS STELLAR DRIVE ::::::THE ORIGINAL SATURN J3000 ENGINES HAVE BEEN REPLACED ::::::BY 2 ROLLS ROYCE NGG CYCLONE THRUST TUNNELS WITH ::::::BI-POLAR VECTORING FOR MID LINE LIFE FUNCTION ::::::EACH POWER PLANT DEVELOPING 7,250,000 TONS THRUST ::::::(14,500,000,000 POUNDS) GIVING A HIGH IMPULSE TOTAL ::::::OF 14,460,000 TONS. (The Book of Alien, Titan Books 1979)

It is interesting to note that some of this information has filtered into the official canon, as appears below. The canon itself no doubt issues from "ALIENS COLONIAL MARINES TECHNICAL MANUAL" (Lee Brimmicombe-Wood), a highly detailed large format paperback originally published in 1996, now generally regarded as a primary source of information on vessels and equipment appearing in the Alien universe, specifically Aliens (though craft from Alien, Aliens, and Alien3 are mentioned).

Commercial Towing Vessel Nostromo, an M-Class starfreighter property of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, is a tug, a towing vessel, hauling an enormous ore refinery and 20 million tons of raw ore, weighing many times the mass of the Nostromo. The ship itself is still substantial, over 60,000 metric tons and almost 245 metres long, including three decks, four holds, stores, engines, and lots of pipes and ducts; its escape ship is called Narcissus.

(On a side note, many moviegoers have often mistaken the four-towered refinery as being the Nostromo itself and the Nostromo, when it detached itself from the refinery, as the shuttle Narcissus.)

The crew is seven. In the order credited, they include Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Engineering Technician Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Chief Engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto). There is also a tiger-striped orange tabby cat named Jones. The ship's computer is called "Mother" (occasionally spelled MU-TH-UR).

In the year 2122, the ship is on a course returning to Earth from Thedus, using a form of FTL drive that requires the crew to spend most of the journey in "hypersleep," a form of suspended animation. While on the return voyage back to Earth, Mother intercepts an unknown transmission from a moon (LV-426) orbiting a gas giant, causing her to interrupt the course of the journey and wake the crew. This leads directly to what was assumed to be the first encounter between humans and the aliens, although the movie Alien vs. Predator shows an earlier encounter with the aliens in the 21st century (the true validity of which is debated among fans, based mainly on whether the movie is considered a crossover or a genunine part of the Alien canon).

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Movies - Nostromo

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