Pallas — a large asteroid in the main belt. No permanent UN administrative presence; operates under consortium law and consortium money. Home to the Rusty Anchor, a miners’ bar known system-wide. By 2147, the Ark is under construction in high orbit near Pallas, drawing crews, freight, and attention from mining operations across the belt. By 2164, Ark engineer Pietro Galli lists Pallas as his address on UN Patent Office filings covering the Ark’s hull configuration. The 2165 Colonial Census recorded ~39,000 residents — a company-town profile similar to Vesta. By 2175 the settlement also feeds the Ark’s agricultural shells: soil production from Pallas host-rock waste per the Cradle protocol began in 2167 (scaled to sealed 100 m² modules in 2171), with 3,100 tonnes of living soil in production or storage as of 1 June 2175 and first planting in a shell scheduled for 2178, per the Ark Project’s Project Notice ARK-PN-2175-01.
Sources
- TWN: What’s Actually Being Built at Pallas (2147)
- TWN: Dr. Nathaniel Argus Names Himself the Ark’s Funder and Voice (2149)
- Pietro Galli — Superconducting Magnetic Decoupling Collar, Patent UNPO-L/2166/0317 (2166)
- Martian Radio “Iron Orbit”: The Ark Publishes Its Specification (2168)
- UN Colonial Census Bureau — The Settled Sphere, 2165
- The Ark Project — The Cradle at Pallas: Organic Soil, Not from Earth (2175) — Pallas-made soil for the Ark’s agricultural shells