Tech History 02

Moon Base Alfa 

The first base built by the UN-EDC. Construction began in 2007 and was mostly complete in 2009.  The surface buildings shown here are only half the story, a lot more exists underground. There is also the industrial complex, located a few KM distant to the east and the ship yard a few KM to the north east. (not pictured here).
The base is intended for a permanent staff of 320 personnel, with visitor quarters for 200 more. It is not a city or habitat, it is a functional purpose built center for the advancement of the space industry.

 

At the same time as the base was being built, a new line of space craft was designed by the engineering team.  The Egallax Class "Eagle" transport and several variants on the basic frame. They were intended to be for work around the moon, with out need for atmospheric capabilities.  In short they could be built with out CGUs.  A key feature of the craft was its ability to carry a standard ISO 20x8x8 ft container, the same sort of box the Mule ships were able to bring up from Earth.  Of course specialized pods for the Egallax were built for various missions, and some variants did have GCU installed.   Below is Eagle #1 on the launch pad. 

 

The basic Egallax is 66 ft long 20 ft wide, with a crew of 2 in the forward cabin, which can act as escape pod and 3 passengers in the main room, which has storage space for some luggage. Aft of the modular cargo pod is the main reactor room. Unlike many of the small craft being made at this time who used banks of E-Cells or small iso-serling reactors, this ship had a mini-fusion reactor. 

The craft entered service in mid 2008. 

Below are the two major variants, in the underground hangar bay.   

The wide body Ea22, built for atmospheric use, with used second gen skylon engines. 

The rescue racer Er54, with its sizable fuel tanks  and specialized GCU.