Lower City MoonPad

The Lower City MoodPad and the scandal ridden Upper City MoonPad support the Metro Area by relieving congestion at the Armstrong Center@Newark. The Lower City MoonPad originally catered to a more industrial clientele. As people try to avoid the congestion around the Armstrong Center or the maglev trip to the Logan Areo Harbor Annex, more and more small charters are taking off from The Lower City's pad - often making connections at an orbital or stopover.

MoonPads are specific launch locations for small ships of the "car", "van", and "shuttle" designations: the most common traffic between a planet and its moons (natural and orbital posts). (This also includes in system traffic).

Consider them like the "Heli or Hover Ports" of the Post Modern Era Earth. They are local adjuncts to airports found in and around urban areas. Every large city will have two to eight of these locations, and some smaller cities or large buildings have them as well.

The Lower City MoonPad is classic Neo-Deco in style. It is huge long "T" shaped building, with the circular launch "tube" at the bottom end. It has the proper, sleek, gently curving lines, in the just off white color with green glass (with the mirrored sheen) accents, of the Neo Deco of last decade. Above main entrance (at the opposite end of the launch tube) to the waiting area/ offices is a tall rectangular window with geometrics (parallel lines, squares, and cross lines) in the glazing (imagine a one color stain glass window). It casts a green shadow across the waiting area and the front desk in the lobby most of the day. Green portholes windows (the size of manhole covers) run along the long part of the T and add some honest light to the inside hanger space. The massive roll up doors behind the office zone (the crossing bar of the T) are almost always open except in the most inclement weather. There is constant ground and grav traffic in and out of those doors.

MoonPads are usually some mix of parking zones, offices, passenger lounge, a small hanger with a loading dock(s), and launch zone surrounded by a circular tube wall.

The Launch Torus (which isn't a torus at all, but a cylindrical column) is at the far end of the building. It has two access points, the open roof and a the broad doors that lead into the hanger warehouse (that makes up most of the building). Ships move down the hanger, enter the Torus, take the "nose to the sky" launch position, the cylinder doors close, and it takes off (with the Pad's help).

At a busy time of day, they launch a ship every ten cycles (minutes) or so.

The walls around the Launch Zone/ Launch Torus, and the launch pad itself, are laced with field generators (in a torus configuration). They produce an enhanced low G beam field that will augments the G Drive of the smaller vehicles. In addition, a repulsing field pushes the ship to orbit, the beam throws an sheathing field to prevent any interference by high power G fields of a ship.

In addition to moving ships out of local airspace more quickly, the beam helps eliminate the "enviromental concerns" of this volume of gravity fields.

Ships often use the pad's beam to land as well. The Powel Cargo company, who's green (with the mirrored sheen) and off white trim ships, that are based out of the Pad Earthside, take off and land here once an hour or so. Landing "on the beam" is cheaper, easier, and safer, for all involved. (Okay, pilots dislike landing on the beam. The initial maneuver to get into the beam can be a bit dangerous (like merging onto a massively busy freeway off a poorly designed blind offramp) After that, no piloting skill is required. Not that much skill is required to fly a "modern" small scale G-Craft in the first place.)

Auxiliary Notes

The Franchaire Design: Some of pads use a a ring station in geostationary orbit to pull ships up rather than push them out. This makes the system more efficient and makes landing "on the beam" easier to do. There are many Franchaire designed pads in the world, just not around here.

A MoonPad, being more cargo oriented than a hoverpad, is a source of traffic for its neighborhood. Thus you will have fueling stations (for the delivery vehicles), restaurants (especially since the MoonPad tends to have nothing more than vending machines), and a fuel depot run by Oskar. If you are so includes, certain red collar operations could be nearby, as lots of teamsters (truckers) have some spare time on their hands.

In case of the bad "breaks" or is sabotaged, the launched ship has its on its own engines, which are engaged to "low" when launched. MoonPads are just auxiliaries, not requirements, part of an enviromentally friendly program that also helps air congestion.

(They also make interesting places to check out, complications for space born escapes, and so on.)