The Allied Worlds Survey Ship Zheng He is wormhole-going long-range fusion ship. Together with sister ship Marco Polo, the Zheng He was designed to explore space beyond the Ten Stars.

History

The Zheng He is a refit of Buraq, the lead ship of a class high-performance patrol spacecraft used to respond (relatively) quickly to distant emergencies in Allied systems. Compared to the Buraq, the Zheng He has had its armor reduced and weapons eliminated in favor of additional supplies, fuel, and landing craft, and a second habitat ring (taken from a decommissioned Buraq-class ship) for mission facilities.

Propulsion

To accommodate their long-range rapid-response role, the Buraq-class patrol spacecraft use deuterium/helium-3 fusion. (Most fast ships use deuterium/deuterium fusion or nuclear salt water reactors.) Helium-3 is considered a strategic resource by the AW; the same resolution of tensions in the Dirac system that has enabled the reexploration of connected space beyond it also makes the AW's Helium-3 extraction and production capacity more available for civilian purposes.

The drive of the Zheng He is a highly advanced Z-pinch fusion reactor with a direct electrical conversion system to supply both its own confinement magnets and other electrical service needs. The versatile drive can trade off efficiency and thrust to accommodate a variety of missions. Using only the fusion plasma as propellant, it can attain exhaust velocities in excess of 8% of lightspeed (20 000+ km/s). Alternately, thrust up to 0.1g can be realized with the use of supplementary water propellant. The Zheng He is outfitted with equipment for in situ propellant extraction and refining; combined with its high energy-density fuel (D/He3 fusion), this gives it outstanding effective range and independence from fixed infrastructure.

Mission

The Zheng He is intended to establish peaceful contact with the wormhole-connected worlds beyond the Dirac system, hitherto impassable to the Allied Worlds and separating them from the rest of connected space. Of course, the mission is fantastically expensive, and the AW are counting on the Zheng He and Marco Polo not only to establish diplomatic relations and collect geographical information, but to encourage the development of economically viable trade, identifying high-value resources of interest to the newly contacted planets or to the AW. Where appropriate to local techno-industrial development, the construction of infrastructure facilities to support interstellar trade will be encouraged.

The cargo space of the ships is being loaded with high-value objects believed to likely be of interest. They can be traded or dispensed as gifts to secure the cooperation of the civilizations visited. The ships' computer networks are loaded with a great variety of scientific, technical and cultural publications, as well as manufacturing instructions and programs, to be exchanged for their counterparts from other technologically advanced cultures, or for correspondingly precious material goods.

The ships will also have a scientific mission, to investigate the effects and scope of cultural divergence that took place in the long centuries since the fall of the Solarian Empire. Much of the habitat space added in the refits of the survey ships has been to accommodate scientific facilities and personnel, and expectations are accordingly high. A particular focus has been placed on the onboard medical and quarantine facilities, in light of the risks of encountering unusual pathogens.