Utopia Planitia


 * For the construction facility, see Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards.

Utopia Planitia was a vast lava plain on the planet Mars. It was the location of the Utopia colony as well as the surface structures of the starship construction facility, the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, one of the Federation's most extensive construction yards. Probably, all surface-based facilities were also part of the Martian colonies.

Utopia Planitia was colonized prior to 2069. 

Benjamin Sisko was stationed on Utopia Planitia between the death of his wife (at Wolf 359) and his posting on Deep Space 9. While on Utopia Planitia, Sisko worked on the prototype USS Defiant (2370) – the first in what was to be a fleet of warships to defend the Federation from the Borg. After work on the project slowed, and design flaws became apparent, the project was shelved. 

Tom Paris' idea of a perfect date was a visit to the hills overlooking Utopia Planitia in a 1957 Chevy. The Doctor took this advice and programmed such a scenario on USS Voyager's holodeck for his date with Denara Pel. 

In 2370, in an alternate quantum reality, a partially-constructed starship was housed in the surface facilities of Utopia Planitia.

Background information
The Utopia Planitia plain was also the landing site of the 20th century Earth probe Viking 2.

The painting of the surface facilities in was by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda. Asked if construction indeed was intended to take place on the surface of Mars, Okuda answered: "Yes, that was the intent, although I like the suggestion that it might have been a training facility. It was something that Rick and I put together in Photoshop. I don't recall exactly who did what, but I remember that the upper image uses a bunch of simple paper models that we made for use as a generic futuristic city buildings for exactly this sort of image. Rick may remember more about this. I do recall that we wondered how the components would be brought into orbit, whether they'd be beamed up, hauled up by space elevator, or carried by a huge orbital tug. (...)

"It [surface construction] certainly would be difficult, and I personally think that it would be more likely that the major component assembly would be done in orbit. I believe that Rick felt this way, too. Still, impulse engines routinely accelerate starship masses (many tens, even hundreds of thousands of tons) to large fractions of the speed of light in very brief times. This suggests a propulsion technology many thousands of times more powerful than anything we have in the 21st century. Also, structural integrity fields would need to protect against these accelerations, which conservatively would exceed 1,000 gees. As a result, I'd contend that lifting major starship components into orbit from the surface of Mars would be well within the reach of Star Trek's postulated technology." 

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