The Lockmart CM-88B Bison was a type of spacecraft manufactured by the Lockheed Martin Corporation.[1] It found widespread use as both an interstellar cruiser and a deep space cargo transport.[3] In the latter role, the CM-88B operated as a tug, connecting to and pulling loads like a tractor truck rather than carrying those loads on board like a traditional freighter.
Internally, the CM-88B consisted of three pressurized decks and four internal cargo holds, totalling around 1.1 million cubic meters of pressurized volume.[4] Most of the spare space on board was filled with fuel for the ship's fusion reactor and reaction mass for the thrust engines.[3] The upper deck contained the main living areas, including the bridge, crew quarters, mess hall, science station and medical bay with a Autodoc, while the lower decks comprised of extensive engineering and storage areas.[5] The ship was sturdy enough to withstand atmospheric re-entries and had three main landing legs to allow surface landings. Particulate shielding helped to protect the vessel from airborne debris in even the roughest planetary atmospheres.
In-flight systems were governed by the ship's central artificial intelligence computer, MU/TH/UR 6000 (known by the crew as "Mother"). A backup 2.0 terabyte mainframe would come online should Mother fail, while a third tier of automation could sustain vital systems in the rare event of a failure in the backup CPU as well.[3] Despite the extensive computer automation aboard the CM-88B, a human crew was still required for more complicated docking manoeuvres at each end of a transit.
Energy and propulsion
The CM-88B's power core was a Laretel WF-15 2.8 terawatt fusion reactor.[4] The power plant operated around a deuterium/tritium reaction that fused the fuel elements in a containment chamber using conversion lasers. The He4 byproduct of the reaction was stored separately and vented at regular intervals. Power was drawn off of the reactor by a closed-cycle liquid potassium cooling system, running off into an induction torus which used the intense magnetic field created by the superheated potassium to generate electric power for the vessel.[4]
