UES La Perouse

UES La pérouse
Date of completion: 15 december 2114
Launch: July 14th 2115
Destination: Sirius
Fate: crash landed

The UES La Pérouse was a colony ship that founded the first human colony on the sirius system. Named after french commodore and explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouseit was the combined efforts of the government ruling the former French Republic and a consortium of 3 french multinationals to ensure the preservation of the French culture through colonisation of nearby systems. The decision came after the UES Hakobune successfully created humanity's first extra-sol colony, spreading fear through the former republic of having it's waning influence shrink further in a turning age for mankind. The ship was laid out in The Kourou spaceport, French Guyana in 2110. Hastily designed using Hakobune's most successful features, the ship's production was finished in 2114 and launched the next year. Headed for the sirius system, the ship's faulty navigation system was unable to correctly assess the power needed to land on it's destination and, using earth-like parameters, the ship crash-landed on july 14th 2120 killing 40% of it's crew in the process.

History

France and space travel

The former republic of France was a pioneer in term of space travel. Not wanting to rely on it's more powerful allies, French leaders such as Charles de Gaulle kick-started the nation's space program using former nazi scientists left out of Operation paperclip or soviet capture. With the technology acquired and the economic boom following World War II, the french were able to build their own launching platforms in former french Algeria and primitive rockets such as the Diamant rocket series and soon, the first European rocket series Ariane. Following the independence of Algeria, a new European launching platform was built in Kourou which was deep inside a forest covered region of the country's oversea territories. A hundred year later, the former republic now part of the United Earth Federation was shaken up by the announcement of UES Hakobune's successful mission to colonize Proxima centauri.

The need for new colonies

During the last century, the french had managed to keep their world-wide soft power using their former colonies, middle eastern countries and eastern europe's high society. It was an unstable but persisting equilibrium that Hakobune's mission menaced. French representative Louis cartier met with the CEO's of Dassault Aerospace, Chesnais group and EADS in Evian-les-bains to discuss a possible expedition to the Sirius system. pressed by the announcement of several new ship constructions, the representatives decided upon building a variant of the Hakobune using the blueprints of the ship. Several new factories were built in Toulouse and Cayenne to accommodate the gargantuan task at hand and the enormous cost of the operation was well received by the population as the prospect of being a settler and/or working in the newly opened factories made the pill easier to swallow. The ship's construction went swiftly and some critics concerning the lack of tests and quality control were emanating from the bustling capital yet didn't affect the hastened production of the ship, which was launch on july 14th of 2115