Safety issues and equipment are a big concern from me IMTU. I play a fairly gritty game and see space as a dangerous place. So here's a dilemma I'm facing:
If I read the deckplans correctly for a Free Trader, there is an iris valve between the brdige and the crew common area. An iris valve on a ship automatically seals if there is a loss of pressure (as in the case of a hull breech).
Assume the following:
-The ship has been damaged and lost power to the forward compartments (including crew common area and bridge)
-Rescuers (in vac suits) are in the depressurized crew common area and, reading the redundant mechanical gauge (because the electronic instruments are inoperative), see that the bridge still has pressure.
-Pounding on the door and feeling for tapped responses from the other side produces no result so it is assumed bridge occupants are unconscious, injured, or unable to respond. An unknown number of persons are on the bridge, may or may not be conscious, and may or may not be in rescue balls.
-There is insufficient time or materials to restore power or pressure to the crew common area or bridge.
-No power to the forward compartment means you'll have to use the manual door release (a lever, contained in a panel besides the door, which is connected to a hydralic line) to open the door with muscle power alone. This will take 5-10 seconds to open it wide enough for a man to crawl through.
How do you rescue those people on the bridge?
-The iris valve isn't an airlock, so opening the iris valve gaurentees the bridge will be explosively decompressed. If this happens, you have between 15 seconds to a little over a minute to get people into a rescue ball or similar pressurized, oxygen environment before they start suffering permanent damage or death.
Possible answer:
-portable, collapsable airlock. A device which when expaned is similar to a open-topped, 7' square, 5' deep box with a sealable entryway on the "bottom". The open end connects to contact points on doorways and iris valves of standard design and forms an air tight seal. A 5 lb "pump" will pressurise and depressurize the interior from an internal air reservoir. Up to two people can stand inside at a time. The side walls are constructed of 3-layered plasticized cloth that is air tight and durable. Support beams are of extensible design and made of titanium tubes. Compacted and stowed the portable airlock weighs 35 lbs and is the size of a large backpack.
This would allow rescuers to enter the bridge in this example without fear of depressurizing it. The trickest part is how to seal the thing against the bulkhead surrounding the iris valve in an airtight fashion. Don't know how to handle that one.
Anyway - that's the only solution I've come up with. Anyone have a good alternate idea? Any problems you see that I haven't pointed out?
If I read the deckplans correctly for a Free Trader, there is an iris valve between the brdige and the crew common area. An iris valve on a ship automatically seals if there is a loss of pressure (as in the case of a hull breech).
Assume the following:
-The ship has been damaged and lost power to the forward compartments (including crew common area and bridge)
-Rescuers (in vac suits) are in the depressurized crew common area and, reading the redundant mechanical gauge (because the electronic instruments are inoperative), see that the bridge still has pressure.
-Pounding on the door and feeling for tapped responses from the other side produces no result so it is assumed bridge occupants are unconscious, injured, or unable to respond. An unknown number of persons are on the bridge, may or may not be conscious, and may or may not be in rescue balls.
-There is insufficient time or materials to restore power or pressure to the crew common area or bridge.
-No power to the forward compartment means you'll have to use the manual door release (a lever, contained in a panel besides the door, which is connected to a hydralic line) to open the door with muscle power alone. This will take 5-10 seconds to open it wide enough for a man to crawl through.
How do you rescue those people on the bridge?
-The iris valve isn't an airlock, so opening the iris valve gaurentees the bridge will be explosively decompressed. If this happens, you have between 15 seconds to a little over a minute to get people into a rescue ball or similar pressurized, oxygen environment before they start suffering permanent damage or death.
Possible answer:
-portable, collapsable airlock. A device which when expaned is similar to a open-topped, 7' square, 5' deep box with a sealable entryway on the "bottom". The open end connects to contact points on doorways and iris valves of standard design and forms an air tight seal. A 5 lb "pump" will pressurise and depressurize the interior from an internal air reservoir. Up to two people can stand inside at a time. The side walls are constructed of 3-layered plasticized cloth that is air tight and durable. Support beams are of extensible design and made of titanium tubes. Compacted and stowed the portable airlock weighs 35 lbs and is the size of a large backpack.
This would allow rescuers to enter the bridge in this example without fear of depressurizing it. The trickest part is how to seal the thing against the bulkhead surrounding the iris valve in an airtight fashion. Don't know how to handle that one.
Anyway - that's the only solution I've come up with. Anyone have a good alternate idea? Any problems you see that I haven't pointed out?
Pressure inside, suddenly no pressure outside and, POP!
