The USCSS Ulysees Nostromo is a fictional starship, featured in the 1979 film Alien. The name is from the eponymous hero of the 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad. The design of the Nostromo is credited to illustrators Ron Cobb and Chris Foss. Ultimately Chris Foss' highly organic visions of the spacecraft were discarded in favor of Cobb's NASA-like utilitarian renderings. Ridley Scott made his own design contributions as well, adding most of the cathedralesque "refinery" portion, which dominates the craft on screen.

Beneath Cobb's blueprint elevations of a late Nostromo rendering, he specified:

BASIC LOCKHEED CM 88B BISON TRANSPORTER FRAME

MODIFIED AND FITTED WITH A YUTANI T7A NLS STELLAR DRIVE

THE ORIGINAL SATURN J3000 ENGINES HAVE BEEN REPLACED

BY 2 ROLLS ROYCE NGG CYCLONE THRUST TUNNELS WITH

BI-POLAR VECTORING FOR MID LINE LIFE FUNCTION

EACH POWER PLANT DEVELOPING 7,250,000 TONS THRUST

(14,500,000,000 POUNDS) GIVING A HIGH IMPULSE TOTAL

OF 14,460,000 TONS. (The Book of Alien, Titan Books 1979)

It is interesting to note that some of this information has filtered into the official canon, as appears below. The canon itself no doubt issues from "ALIENS COLONIAL MARINES TECHNICAL MANUAL" (Lee Brimmicombe-Wood), a highly detailed large format paperback originally published in 1996, now generally regarded as a primary source of information on vessels and equipment appearing in the Alien universe, specifically Aliens (though craft from Alien, Aliens, and Alien3 are mentioned).

Commercial Towing Vessel Nostromo, an M-Class starfreighter property of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, is a tug, a towing vessel, hauling an enormous ore refinery and 20 million tons of raw ore, weighing many times the mass of the Nostromo. The ship itself is still substantial, over 60,000 metric tons and almost 245 metres long, including three decks, four holds, stores, engines, and lots of pipes and ducts; its escape ship is called Narcissus.

(On a side note, many moviegoers have often mistaken the four-towered refinery as being the Nostromo itself and the Nostromo, when it detached itself from the refinery, as the shuttle Narcissus.)

The crew is seven. In the order credited, they include Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Engineering Technician Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Chief Engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto). There is also a tiger-striped orange tabby cat named Jones. The ship's computer is called "Mother" (occasionally spelled MU-TH-UR).

In the year 2122, the ship is on a course returning to Earth from Thedus, using a form of FTL drive that requires the crew to spend most of the journey in "hypersleep," a form of suspended animation. While on the return voyage back to Earth, the ship's A.I., named Mother, intercepts an unknown transmission from a moon (LV-426) orbiting a gas giant, causing her to interrupt the course of the journey and wake the crew. This leads directly to what was assumed to be the first encounter between humans and the aliens, although the movie Alien vs. Predator shows an earlier encounter with the aliens in the 21st century (the true validity of which is debated among fans, based mainly on whether the movie is considered a crossover or a genuine part of the Alien canon).

After accidentally bringing the alien aboard, the crew is killed by the xenomorph one by one. Ripley learns from Ash (actually an android planted aboard by Weyland-Yutani) that after the crew was awoken by Mother to investigate the rogue signal that a special order was issued to Ash to bring the alien back to the Company for study and possible commercial exploitation. The rest of the crew is killed and Ripley activates the Nostromo's self-destruct system. Ripley and Jones manage to escape in the Narcissus, along with the alien, whom Ripley finally ejects into space.

The whereabouts of the Nostromo and her crew remained unknown for the next 57 years; it simply never returned, and was listed as missing and presumed destroyed. The final fate of Nostromo was learned in 2179, when the off-course Narcissus escape ship returned Ripley, Jones the cat, and the Nostromo's logs to civilization.

Specifications

Specifications
USCSS Nostromo (Lockheed Martin CM-88B "Juggernaut-class" Starfreighter)

• Complement: 7 (3 officers + 4 crew members)
• Displacement: 50,000 t (Standard); 45,000 t (Light); 63,000 t (Full Load)
• Dimensions: Length: 1,095 ft (334 m); Beam 705 ft (215 m); Draft 320 ft (98 m)
• Velocity: 0.42 LYSD (Unladen) / 0.12 LYSD (Towing heavy cargo)
• Acceleration:
• 27.9 s Rest - Onset Critical Momentum
• 8.9 s Onset Critical Momentum - Hyperdrive Engage
• 6.5 s 1c - 24c
• 8.5 s 24c - 68c
• 15.5 s 58c - 153 c
• Endurance: 14 Months (Standard) / 24 Months (Maximum)
• Primary Power System: One (1) Laratel 2.8 terawatt WF-15 fusion reactor
• Faster Than Light Propulsion: Four (4) Yutani T7A NLS stellar drive towers
• Sublight Propulsion: Two (2) Rolls Royce N66 Cyclone thrust tunnels w/ Bi-Polar vectoring; 7,290,000 short tons force (64.9 giganewtons) thrust each
• Two (2) Weylan L46 chemical maneuvering engines; 850,000 short tons force (7.6 GN) thrust each
• One (1) Yutani J38 auxiliary thruster module /w Two (2) Lockmart TL-30 thruster groups
• Primary Logic System: MU-TH-R 182 2.1 terabyte AI Mainframe w/ 2.0 terabyte MU-TH-R 146 Backup Mainframe
• Operating System: OAM (Overmonitoring Address Matrix) Release 2.2 with 2120 Patch
• Sensors:
• Two (2) 2-Meter aperture telescopes capable of optical, spectrographic and infrared resolution
• Gas Chromatograph
• Centimetric Navigation and Landing Radar
• Synthetic Aperture Ground-Mapping Radar
• Hyperspace Mass Counter
• Weapon Systems: (None)
• Embarked Craft: Two (2) Starcub-Class Shuttlecraft

Alien series | Fictional spacecraft

Nostromo (Alien)