Suggestion: In-game tributes to Neil Armstrong and other Astronauts/Cosmonauts

logandarklighter

There have been mentions of ideas for in-game tributes for Neil Armstrong. I think there's merit to many of them.

Possibilities include:

A Ship Class name of a future addition to the game named in his honor. (Armstrong Class)

Question: If a ship class is named in his honor, what type should it be? Tactical, Science, or Engineering?

The obvious answer I think for most people would be "Science". And I agree that's a valid choice.

But I would vote "Engineering" because - other than being an incredible test pilot, that's what he was trained as. In fact, after he left the Astronaut Corp, he taught a class in Engineering for several years back in Ohio.

Further suggestions:

Statue on the grounds of Starfleet Academy. (Should be for Apollo 11 overall, and include tribute to Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins as well, since by that time, all three will have long since passed on. And Neil always stressed that he was part of a team.

(Further suggestion along those lines: Name plaque at base of statue could also list names of the Mission Control team. Gene Kranz, John Aaron, Steve Bales etc, just to name a few.)

Name Plaque/Memorial Wall at SFA. Not just for Neil, but for all the astronauts of Apollo (and Mercury and Gemini?). (Further suggestion: Could also add names from Soviet/Russian program as well.)

(Also - perhaps memorial wall for those astronauts that died while in space/missions? Apollo 1, the Challenger 7, the Columbia 7. Soyuz 1. Soyuz 11.

More elaborately, suggestion has been made for a site visitable on the moon. Overviewing the Apollo 11 site? (At a distance, let's not disturb the actual site)

Incidentally, if additions like this to the game are made. There should definitely be a place to honor Yuri Gagarin - the first human into space. Just a thought.

And also - one of the (admittedly) odd ideas was over here. And I say that as the author of that post.

kyeto13

I would like to see a mission where we go to the Memorial Park on Luna where Neil Armstrong touched the moon. Maybe have a limited time mission where you can talk to the hologram of him, after which you can earn the Title "One Small Step for Man."

Just a thought

bluegeek

Yes -- for a ship named after him. Not necessarily a whole new class of ship. Just stick a ship in a new mission and name it the U.S.S. Armstrong.

No -- for a statue at SFA. If we'd seen one there in any episode, I'd be asking why we didn't already have one. Putting one in SFA retroactively doesn't make much sense to me.

Yes -- to a memorial plaque. That would be easy enough to do... a wall plaque or memorial stone with an interact button so you can "read" the plaque.

Yes -- to a moon memorial... if only so STO will put in a way we can visit the moon

neoakiraii

If they do name a ship after him....It should be a Luna Class.

diotw

neoakiraii wrote: »

If they do name a ship after him....It should be a Luna Class.

Or a new variant skin for the Exploration cruiser.

darkwhite0

kyeto13 wrote: »

I would like to see a mission where we go to the Memorial Park on Luna where Neil Armstrong touched the moon. Maybe have a limited time mission where you can talk to the hologram of him, after which you can earn the Title "One Small Step for Man."

Just a thought

you win, perfect



(Cryptic, you already can start negotiate the copyright with NASA and Neil Armstrong's family)

denizenvi

According to Riker in First Contact, he's got a whole lake named after him on the moon. Since the moon still looks relatively normal in the shows, I imagine it's encased in a dome and occasionally reflects sunlight, making it visible from earth.

It would be cool to visit a massive environment dome with parks and memorials appropriate for early spaceflight. Perhaps the Apollo 11 site is still encased in vacuum in the center!

wildmousex

all for them doing a tribute to real world space program's....


I would like to see little tribute missions to do inside earth orbit, such as suggested by Kyeto - just expanded to include other historic missions, vehicles, and such - you can do one a day.

.. the luner lander idea is already a good one - others would be to fly past the hubble telescope; MIR; the I.S.S.; warp to Mar's to see the rovers; Beam down to Floriduh and a Soyuz launch site to get trophies of those ships.

they can also add hologram program's of famous space people or maybe minipet holograms with missions to visit the event's they're known for.

logandarklighter

kyeto13 wrote: »

I would like to see a mission where we go to the Memorial Park on Luna where Neil Armstrong touched the moon. Maybe have a limited time mission where you can talk to the hologram of him, after which you can earn the Title "One Small Step for Man."

Just a thought

I think that's a little TOO elaborate.

I'm not sure the Armstrong family would appreciate someone making up dialogue for Neil Armstrong to say. Even if it is intended to be respectful.

So no, I don't think holograms, either of him or the other astronauts, would be a good idea.

Now reading a plaque or interacting with something like the academy history exam kiosk - that would be more do-able.

I personally think that the Apollo 11 site should be left as undisturbed as possible. In fact, I wouldn't even want to put any structures closer than half a mile from it. How do you view the site then? Telescopic viewers for one. You look through them at the site and pop-up text in the HUD points out what each item is that you are looking at and what it was for.

Another option, particularly for cadets, might be a fly-over in a shuttle. With the Federation anti-grav tech, a shuttle can hover slowly over the site and not disturb anything. (Just in case, they'd probably still restrict flights to flying close to the site and not directly over it.)

(In both of the above examples, you could actually switch to a scripted cut-scene.)

zebular

I'd like to see maybe a satellite "orbiting" the Moon that we could fly to and see and interact with a holographic plaque dedicated to him, like Wolf 359's or Romulus'. Even a plaque somewhere in SFA would be great, indeed.

logandarklighter

denizenvi wrote: »

According to Riker in First Contact, he's got a whole lake named after him on the moon. Since the moon still looks relatively normal in the shows, I imagine it's encased in a dome and occasionally reflects sunlight, making it visible from earth.

It would be cool to visit a massive environment dome with parks and memorials appropriate for early spaceflight. Perhaps the Apollo 11 site is still encased in vacuum in the center!

Actually, the most likely way a moon city would be constructed, especially early on in the mid-late 21st century, would be underground. In fact one of the more popular suggestions on techniques (Heinlein used it for "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress") is to use an existing crater and basically roof it over with a concrete/regolith shield. This is to provide basic radiation shielding. (another possibility is if there are lava tubes on the moon, you can seal them up and use them as the start of your colony.)

Mind you - Star Trek tech by the 25th century is a lot more capable of doing the whole classic Sci-Fi clear dome city thing. Radiation shielding is probably handled by city-sized deflector grids. But there's still going to be a fair amount of each city that's not under the dome, but underground.

Reason I mention this is that I'm betting there's a mix of structures on the Moon. You find parts of every city in the world that are made of older construction mixed in with the newer high rise scyscrapers.

How I envision it is that one of the older parts of the moon construction is the base and memorial near the Apollo 11 site.

So - picture this:

You get in a shuttle from either SFA or ESD, and head to the moon. You come in towards the glittering dome of one of the lunar cities and land at the port. And it's all Hi-tech and 24th-25th century style stuff that you see around you.

(All of the above can be cut-scene, like the shuttle ride down to Vulcan in that early mission where you escort that Vulcan to the monastery on P'Jem.)

So you get out of the shuttle and your character can wander around the small Academy campus on the moon. (and maybe talk to random NPCs - kinda like on Bajor.) There can be some NPC vendors here. Maybe you can even get a couple of DOFF missions going. You're free to run your character around here as long as you like. But ultimately you'll want to go to the next area.

You go board an underground tram. And this can be another (short, skippable) cut-scene. But if you want to let it run, it basically shows your tram going through a tube and through a couple of very large underground city areas (think about that establishing shot of the underground refinery area in the episode "Devil in the Dark" with the Horta). These are still pretty high tech looking, but more industrial. This is the "blue collar" area of moon industry.

You wind up in another Federation base. But this one looks very retro, even old-fashioned by 25th century standards. (I'm imagining a stylistic cross between Moonbase Alpha from Space 1999 and the type of set design from Star Trek: Enterprise.)

And here's where the real historical stuff happens. There are banners on the wall with the old NASA emblems on them. There's mock-ups of various capsules. You can read/interact with history kiosks and plaques. And talk with NPCs for mission objectives.

Ultimately, you'll want to take a lift to the observation dome on the surface. This is at the top of a short tower (about 5 stories) about a half-mile from the Apollo 11 site. From here, you can look down with a telescopic viewer on the Apollo 11 site.

The idea behind each change of scenery is to "take a trip back in time". You move from the glittering modern Federation era to environments that are progressively lower tech. Until you view the fragile lander and the idea is to impress upon you just how heroic an accomplishment the landings were.

Kind of like how, when you think about Lindberg's crossing of the Atlantic all alone in his "Spirit of St. Louis" monoplane. Initially a modern kid might think - "big deal, we cross the ocean in jets all the time now." You have to work a bit to get across the perspective of the times, and how monumental his achievement was.

Well think of some slightly cocky Starfleet Cadet who's used to the hi-tech world of 25th Century Earth and the Federation. How hard would it be to get that idea across to them?

(For amusement value, feel free to imagine some instructor scheduling his students 3 at a time to holodeck simulations of a Saturn V launch with the cadets taking the roles of the astronauts!

Imagine a young Tom Paris walking a little wobbly out of the Holodeck going... "Man... that was INTENSE!!" )


Yes - all of the above is kinda elaborate and over-the-top in terms of resources. So before anyone pipes up about it, let me say - I KNOW this is unlikely to happen. But I'm just saying - that's what it would look like if they put me in charge of it. :cool:

tancrediiv

kyeto13 wrote: »

I would like to see a mission where we go to the Memorial Park on Luna where Neil Armstrong touched the moon. Maybe have a limited time mission where you can talk to the hologram of him, after which you can earn the Title "One Small Step for Man."

Just a thought

Yes to this. And have it play a video of that big step down off the lander. I was both old and young enough to watch it on our old oval screen black and white TV and got to meet Mr. Armstrong. Good memories. Rest in peace.