 Lifeboats are small vessels carried aboard ships and stations designed to evacuate personnel during emergencies. Lifeboats are rarely armed but sometimes are fitted with deflector shield in addition to their normal navigational deflectors. They vary in size from single person capsules to huge multi-person commercial lifeboats carried on passenger liners. They are usually only sublight vessels with reaction thrusters, though some mount impulse draives. They almost universally carry high-powered subspace communications beacons. While all escape pods had the same abilities and purpose, different types of pods were equipped with different functions depending on their deployment. Automomous Survival and Recovery Vehicles are a revolution in lifeboat design. The first true ASRV, the ASRV Mk II, was a truncated cube measuring 3 x 3 x 3 meters with a mass of 1.35 metric tonnes, was introduced at the end of the 23rd century in ships like the uprated Constitution class heavy cruiser and the Excelsior class exploratory cruiser. Amongst other materials, the ASRV was constructed from tritanium, frumium monocarbonite and hafnium cobarate. Propulsion was provided by a ventrally mounted impulse engine, with RCS thrusters at each corner for independent maneuvering. Two hatches - one on either side of the craft - provided access, although a specialized version had an extra two hatches. The ASRV's normal crew capacity was four, although it carried provisions for six if necessary. ASRVs Mk II and III are capable of combining, hatch-to-hatch, in clusters nicknamed gaggle mode. In-space survival rates were dramatically increased due to access to more consumables and supplies, medical personnel, and increased propulsion options. |
