Zero-X

The Zero-X spacecraft.

The Martian Exploration Vehicle.

Lifting body 1. (Sorry if the pic is low res.)

Overview

The Zero-X is a Spacecraft built to travel to distant worlds in the Solar System. It was constructed and first launched at the Glenn Field Space Centre in the United States sometime during either 2025 or 2064. The craft itself is made up of many stages, the main body, lifting body 1, lifting body 2 and the MEV (Martian Exploration Vehicle) that come together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Technical Data

• Length (fully assembled): 1,190 feet
• Wingspan (lifting bodies): 780 feet
• Weight: 11,460 tons
• Total Delta Velocity: initially 40 miles per second; design modifications in 2068 saw increase to 200 miles per second, thereby reducing the travel time between Earth and Mars to three days
• Standard Acceleration: 1 g
• Maximum Acceleration: 10 g
• Emergency Acceleration: 15 g
• Crew: Normally five
• Manufacturer: New World Aircraft Corporation

Crew:

Captain x1

Space Captain x1

Space Navigator x1

Passengers x2 (Optional)

History

Zero-X 1 was launched in 2025 or 2064 to search for life on the planet Mars, with three crew members and two astronomers aboard it. However, a saboteur was on board, taking pictures of the craft's wing mechanism, and he got his foot stuck in the hydraulic system causing the elevation controls to jam. This caused the craft to lose altitude quickly, and it was heading for a crash into the Atlantic Ocean. After a few seconds, the saboteur freed his foot from the hydraulic system and parachuted to the ground with a broken foot. The crew members and their passengers were able to get to the ship's escape unit, and they ejected a few moments before the craft crashed and sank into the Ocean. With all hands in the escape unit, no one was killed.

Zero-X 2 was launched in 2027 or 2066 for the same purpose as the first, with the same crew but with much tighter security to ensure there was no sabotage attempt. After a successful launch, the craft reached Mars in six weeks and two days, four of the five crew members drove on the surface of Mars in the MEV. After a few minutes of such driving, the crew continued to see the same strange rock formations in a coil like a sleeping snake. The captain used the MEV's missile launcher to destroy one of the formations, so that he could obtain a sample to take back to Earth for analysis. However, something unthinkable happened. One of the formations came to life and shot fireball-like projectiles at the MEV, proving there to be life on Mars--life as humans did not know it. (Whether those "Rock Snakes" were linked to the Mysterons was never specified.) More of the formations came to life and attacked the MEV. The humans retaliated by using the missile gun on them, but they soon found themselves outnumbered and outgunned. The MEV thus fired its rockets, returned to the main body, and returned to Earth. After six more weeks and two more days, the Zero-X had entered Earth's upper atmosphere, and both lifting bodies were recalled to the ship. Lifting body 1 was successfully attached, but a malfunction caused lifting body 2 to collide with the ship and fall to the surface. Thought the ship remained intact, the escape unit was damaged in the collision. To make matters worse, the ship had gone off course and threatened to crash land in the town of Craigsville. Craigsville was evacuated, and a man was brought aboard to fix the escape unit. After four minutes, the escape unit was indeed fixed, the entire Zero-X crew boarded it, and all ejected seconds before the Zero-X craft crashed, destroying Craigsville. As before, no one was killed, even though four thousand eight hundred people were rendered homeless.

Zero-X 3 was launched in 2068, but this time it was used by three agents of the Spectrum Organisation to search for the origin of strange signals coming from a crater on Mars. The mission was led by Captain Black, and on Mars the three men found what could have been the greatest discovery in the history of man--a Martian city. But when an imaging device pointed towards the MEV, Captain Black mistook it for a weapon and fired the MEV's missile launchers on the city, completely destroying it. (The MEV had, between those Zero-X missions, gone though some upgrades such as multiple missile launchers instead of one.) Moments later, a tower shone a blue-green light on the destroyed city, restoring it to its pre-destroyed status. A race of alien beings who called themselves "the Mysterons" declared war on Earth. But when the Zero-X craft returned to Earth, Captain Black had disappeared, and the bodies of the other two members of his crew were never found. This was the only known Zero-X mission where the ship came back intact.

Trivia

• Zero-Xs 1 and 2 were seen in the film Thunderbirds Are Go!, a film based on Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson's most successful series, Thunderbirds. It is revealed in the film that the saboteur is the Hood, arch-nemesis of the series' main group of protagonists, International Rescue, and that the man who was able to rescue the Zero-X crew was Thunderbird 3 astronaut, Alan Tracy.
• Lifting Body 1 hangar was in the Joe 90 episode Most Special Astronaut.
• Lifting Body 2 hangar was seen in the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode Treble Cross at Western Airstrip.