Description

Commercial Towing Vessel Nostromo, an M-Class starfreighter property of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, is a tug, a towing vessel, hauling an enormous (some 1.5 miles in length) ore refinery and 20 million tons of raw ore, weighing many times the mass of the Nostromo. The ship itself is still substantial, over 60,000 metric tons and almost 245 metres (800 feet) long, including three decks, four holds, stores, engines, and lots of pipes and ducts; its escape ship is called Narcissus. The ship is fitted with a self-destruct system (for instances involving military cargo that could be hijacked) and separates itself from the ore refinery platform via an umbilical detachment system. The interior features a large 'space jockey' cockpit for all crew piloting functions, a medical bay, dining area, central computer room, engineering areas, a hypersleep chamber and a labyrinthine network of connecting corridors.

(Many moviegoers have often mistaken the four-towered refinery as being the Nostromo itself and the Nostromo, when detached itself from the refinery, as the shuttle Narcissus.)

The crew consists of seven people from various fields. In the order credited, they include Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Engineering Technician Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Chief Engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto). There is also a tiger-striped orange tabby cat named Jones (often called "Jonesy" by the crew). The ship is equipped with an MU-TH-R 182 model 2.1 terabyte AI Mainframe (called "Mother" by the crew).

At the beginning of the first film, the ship is on a course returning to Earth from Thedus, using a form of FTL drive that requires the crew to spend most of the journey in "hypersleep" in order to conserve the ship's limited resources (food/water/air).

At the end of the film, Ripley destroys the Nostromo in an attempt to kill the Alien.

Design

The design of the Nostromo is credited to illustrators Ron Cobb and Chris Foss. Ultimately Chris Foss' highly organic visions of the spacecraft were discarded in favor of Cobb's NASA-like utilitarian renderings. Ridley Scott made his own design contributions as well, adding most of the cathedralesque "refinery" portion, which dominates the craft on screen. Much of the ship's architecture, particularly its interiors and the colossal spires of its refinery structure, are inspired by the cavernous yet simultaneously claustrophobic sensibilities of haunted houses and castles from Gothic Horror films such as Nosferatu.