SOUP Addendum Two

Wide and cylindrical with a flat bottom, the new shuttles more closely resemble a Dirigible from the 1930s than the disappearing jet technology of recent years. Gone are the huge sweptback wings, replaced by relatively small stabilizing arms and rudders. Also gone are the huge and vastly expensive land-grabbing airports of twentieth century design. The terminals remain of course, for centralization and security, but the hover technology has rendered the miles and miles of paved runways an obsolete concept of an earlier age. In fact, smaller craft of the shuttle design have allowed exploration of otherwise inaccessible areas, allowing any small, relatively flat surface to serve as a takeoff and landing area. The Pulse engines provide lift and thrust, first floating the craft vertically off the apron with bottom mounted propulsion, then forward and upward with rear directed energy. The unearthly quiet engines are cheap and powerful, returning what they take to fuel themselves, adding no harmful residue to the existing damaged atmosphere. Pulse technology scoops the solar particles from the air, concentrates and aligns them magnetically into a stream, passes the stream through the shower head (as the newly designed solar accelerator is colloquially called), then downward or backward as needed. The shower head also channels a small amount of the concentrated stream through an internal turbine to produce electricity and heat for the craft, as well as a minimal amount to be stored as primer for the start-up procedure. Spacious and curvaceous, the Pulse has allowed the shuttles to become luxury cruisers of the sky.