USCSS Nostromo

"This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo... signing off."

- Ellen Ripley

The Nostromo, registry number 180924609, was a commercial towing vehicle (tanker/refinery) produced by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It's crew consisted of Captain Dallas, first officer Commander Kane, Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley, flight navigator J.M. Lambert, Science Officer Ash and engineers J.T. Parker and S.E. Brett. Accompanying them as the unofficial ship's mascot was Jones the cat.

In the early part of the twenty-second century, it was sent out to transport 20,000,000 tons of mineral ore from a refinery processing station in the Solomons and return it back to Earth. Due to the distance between Earth and the Outer rim, the crew complement were required to put themselves into hypersleep for the journey home.

As the Nostromo passed through the Zeta II Reticuli system, the ship's mainframe computer, "Mother", intercepted a distress beacon originating from a planetoid that would later be identified as Acheron. Per its programming, the computer awakened the crew and submitted a new set of instructions to Captain Dallas. They were contractually obligated to investigate the source of the transmission and render aid if required. Upon reaching the planetoid, the crew took a drop-ship to the planet's surface. Due to the intense weather conditions, the drop-ship suffered minor structural damage, forcing them to remain on the surface for 17-25 hours while Parker and Brett affected repairs.

By the time they eventually returned to the Nostromo, they had unwittingly brought with them a dangerous alien life form, which had already killed Commander Kane. This xenomorph grew to over seven feet in height and began systematically killing off the rest of the crew. After the death of Kane and later Captain Dallas, Warrant Officer Ripley took command of the Nostromo. She accessed Mother and queried how they would be able to neutralize the alien intruder. At this point, Ripley learned that Science Officer Ash was in fact an android sent by the Company specifically to procure the alien specimen. The crew was considered expendable.

Ripley, Parker and Brett were forced to destroy Ash, but they were no closer to destroying the alien that had been hiding in the ship's air shafts. They decided to take their chances in the Nostromo's shuttle and set the self destruct sequence on the ship. The alien soon killed Parker and Lambert, but Ripley (with Jones in tow) succeeded in activating the self destruct and escaping aboard the life boat. She barely escaped the blast radius from the Nostromo's explosion.

Notes & Trivia

 * The name, Nostromo, is taken from the 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad.


 * The Nostromo's registry number is revealed in the beginning of the film when the computer screen first activates.


 * By the economic and commercial standards of the 2179, the Nostromo was valued at 42 billion (adjusted) dollars.