I'd presume that they're in private hands of the companies that were involved in manufacturing the earliest models and now produce the ships as they are. Since they're barely a century old, there's probably concern about designs and improvements being stolen, which would double down on private ownership but also severely restrict access.

[Leave it to a curator to be making these sorts of guesses that revolve around archival documents and overprotective owners. Also leave it to the curator to have his face sour immediately at the mention of war.

He glosses over it though, quickly as possible.]

It may have been a little of column A and a little of column B. With the mountains being not as well explored and accessible, perhaps the designs were in the works already, represented more specialized versions of the standard models.

What do you think the original designers intended then, if not this particular purpose?