Space Battleship Yamato (spaceship) - Construction

Construction

According to the fictional continuity of the Space Battleship Yamato anime series, the wreck of the World War II battleship Yamato, sunk near Okinawa, was used to hide a military spacecraft created by the Earth Defence Force in the late 22nd century. At this time Earth was under attack from an alien race, the Gamilas, who were raining down radioactive asteroids that evaporated Earth's oceans and rendered its surface uninhabitable. The new space warship was built "inside" the wreckage of the ancient battleship, which was partially buried in what was now a dry seabed, thus concealing it from the view of the orbiting Gamilas vessels.

The new Yamato spaceship was originally conceived as a "Noah's Ark", designed to transport the best examples of Earth life to seed a new world away from danger. A message from the planet Iscandar was received, containing plans for a space drive called the Wave Motion Engine, which would give a spacecraft immense power and enable it to travel faster than light. The message also urged humanity to travel to Iscandar (148,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud) and obtain a device which would cleanse Earth of its deadly radiation.