Factory Satellite Size

[Avenger]

Just a few random thoughts

I was looking through Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions website (http://www.merzo.net/) and looking at the -2000X zoom tab. In there is the zent home base from the TV series and its size can be compared to the moon. This got me wondering how big the factory satellite was. Its huge! To big infact.. looking through the UNSD RPG site I found a few figures:

Total Width Entire Factory: 15,000 km

Height(Main Pod): 3,000 km

Now the Moon's diameter: 3,476 km

Earth's diameter: 12,756km

So the factory satilite is longer than the earth and 5 times that of the moon? Thats kind of hard to swallow. Looking at the pictures of it on the UNSD site a lot of those structures on the surface would be larger than many small countries.

The size fo the thing just seems wrong to me. And the given production numbers at the bottom of the stats also seem rather low. Even accounting for damage taken by it, something that could fit the USA and china inside its belly should be able to make a lot more stuff. Those colony ships aren't that huge. At the very least the crew should be over a million easy. Btw, the UNs fleet should be insanely huge.

[the white drew carey]

HERE is the info from the Macross Compendium, as close as you're ever going to get to official.

[briscojr84]

You can never really be sure on the actual true dimension of any thing in Macross sometimes, the designers had a tendancy to fudge on occassion. Although considering what the factory manufactured it's not out of the realm of possibility for it to be that large and it is just referred to as a factory satellite where some of the stuff on the compendium says it was manufactured on a factory planet.

[Southcross]

some of the stuff on the compendium says it was manufactured on a factory planet.

probably a translation issue... technically... a planet/moon/Asteroid/etc (anything with an orbit) is a "Satilite"

[Boxer]

So in effect Earth has a second moon.

Probably parked it in outer orbit somewhere to prevent the station's gravity from messing up Earth and the moon.

[RichterX]

Wouldn't something like that affect the Earth gravitation a lot? Or was it balanced by the fact that it was bombarded by Bodolza?

Any one has seen a Map of the Macross' Earth? are the continents placed the same way or is it missing island or have more parts covered with water?

[VF-19]

Just a few random thoughts

I was looking through Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions website (http://www.merzo.net/) and looking at the -2000X zoom tab. In there is the zent home base from the TV series and its size can be compared to the moon. This got me wondering how big the factory satellite was. Its huge! To big infact.. looking through the UNSD RPG site I found a few figures:

Total Width Entire Factory: 15,000 km

Height(Main Pod): 3,000 km

Now the Moon's diameter: 3,476 km

Earth's diameter: 12,756km

So the factory satilite is longer than the earth and 5 times that of the moon? Thats kind of hard to swallow. Looking at the pictures of it on the UNSD site a lot of those structures on the surface would be larger than many small countries.

The size fo the thing just seems wrong to me. And the given production numbers at the bottom of the stats also seem rather low. Even accounting for damage taken by it, something that could fit the USA and china inside its belly should be able to make a lot more stuff. Those colony ships aren't that huge. At the very least the crew should be over a million easy. Btw, the UNs fleet should be insanely huge.

One problem: If you turn out ships at the factory sattelite's maximum output, then you're going to end up with more ships than you do crews. It's kinda wasteful to do it that way. The UN Spacy probably builds less ships, but at a faster rate.

[Lezt]

Wouldn't something like that affect the Earth gravitation a lot? Or was it balanced by the fact that it was bombarded by Bodolza?

Any one has seen a Map of the Macross' Earth? are the continents placed the same way or is it missing island or have more parts covered with water?

well then agian the satilite should be quiped with gravity control and much less dense than the earth since it is mostly hollow as to allow for space docks, manufacturing plants etc...

[Boxer]

One problem: If you turn out ships at the factory sattelite's maximum output, then you're going to end up with more ships than you do crews. It's kinda wasteful to do it that way. The UN Spacy probably builds less ships, but at a faster rate.

Unless your an advocate of drone ships, then the UN Spacy would become more like the Jovain armada from Nadesico

Or we get a hold of a Zentran cloning chaimber, either way Or we have another baby boom....

[Mr March]

Three thousand kilometers is pretty much in range for the largest of Zentradi spacecraft in Macross. It's certainly not out of the question. Bodolzaa's mothership was 1,400 km high and it makes sense that the manufacturing facility that built the motherships were larger than the ships themselves yes?

Avoid RPG figures when rationalizing any official numbers or statistics. The numbers given in RPG games are often mistranslated, taken from dubious sources (mostly unofficial) and or are outright wrong on any number of important statistics.

As the Macross Compendium describes, the Factory Satellite had been damaged for some time (probably for hundreds or thousands of years of Supervision Army assaults) before the UN Spacy ever got a hold of it. It's production capability is severly hampered by the facility's state of disrepair.

About gravity produced by a mass like the Factory Satellite and its effect in the Sol system, the density and mass of the Factory Satellite is an unknown. Although the size of a small planet, its mass would most likely be significantly less since it is a hollow installation built for giants and not a solid mass. The majority of the Factory Satellite would no doubt be filled with empty space, making its mass comparable to a celestial body many, many times smaller. Properly positioned and set along an orbital path within the Sol system, its effect on any nearby satellites would be neglegible unless the effects of gravity were to be measured over a time period of many millenia.

Edited April 13, 2004 by Mr March

[dedalus001]

Just a few random thoughts

I was looking through Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions website (http://www.merzo.net/) and looking at the  -2000X zoom tab. In there is the zent home base from the TV series and its size can be compared to the moon. This got me wondering how big the factory satellite was. Its huge! To big infact.. looking through the UNSD RPG site I found a few figures:

Total Width Entire Factory: 15,000 km

Height(Main Pod):              3,000 km

Now the Moon's diameter:  3,476 km

Earth's diameter:              12,756km

So the factory satilite is longer than the earth and 5 times that of the moon? Thats kind of hard to swallow. Looking at the pictures of it on the UNSD site a lot of those structures on the surface would be larger than many small countries.

The size fo the thing just seems wrong to me. And the given production numbers at the bottom of the stats also seem rather low. Even accounting for damage taken by it, something that could fit the USA and china inside its belly should be able to make a lot more stuff. Those colony ships aren't that huge. At the very least the crew should be over a million easy. Btw, the UNs fleet should be insanely huge.

One problem: If you turn out ships at the factory sattelite's maximum output, then you're going to end up with more ships than you do crews. It's kinda wasteful to do it that way. The UN Spacy probably builds less ships, but at a faster rate.

theres always "strategic cloning" and repopulation...

[RichterX]

Or they had lots and lots of sex to repopulate the Earth, just like Max and Miriya

Cloning methods are say that were used to increase Earth population, probably Basara is a clone and that is why he is an orphan...