Tainted Atmo

[Liam Devlin]

Hmmm. Might be a good RP-prank in a closed undersea habitat adventure using heliox--the voice thing.

Jacques Cousteau's little station, some years ago iirc was among the first to utilize this mixture, as well as proving men could dwell under the sea for long periods of time.

 

[Malenfant]

Don't you just need Heliox if you're actually out there doing SCUBA though? If you're in a solid structure at the seafloor that is watertight and structurally strong enough to withstand the external pressure then you can just have a normal 1 atm N2/O2 mix inside it can't you? I guess that assumes you're not going to leave it for EVA though, ISTR that the bigger pressure difference would cause more problems.

Dang, my memory of all that underwater stuff I did for Under Pressure is all fuzzy now...

 

[Anthony]

If you're in a solid structure that maintains low pressure (such as a submarine) you don't need heliox. If you're in a diving bell or other undersea habitat that maintains pressure equilibrium with the outside (thus eliminating decompression when re-entering the habitat from outside), you'd need an appropriate atmosphere for high pressure.

 

[Malenfant]

Ah yes, I thought it worked something like that...

 

[Liam Devlin]

All humor aside...(for now!)

It may not make you squeaky chipmunk voiced but the other side affect they noted (JC's boys in the Undersea habitat) was the loss of their sense of taste and having to use inordinate amounts of ketchup & sauces to taste the food they dined on while being in the heliox habitat.

 

[BillDowns]

As long as it doesn't cause impotence

 

[kafka47]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Hmmm. Might be a good RP-prank in a closed undersea habitat adventure using heliox--the voice thing.

Jacques Cousteau's little station, some years ago iirc was among the first to utilize this mixture, as well as proving men could dwell under the sea for long periods of time.

Liam, you might think me Evil, but it just occured to me, why not try to pull this one in a LARP?

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by BillDowns:
As long as it doesn't cause impotence

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Now that's an atmospheric taint for an Amber Zone or Red Zone rating!

Brilliant!

 

[Qstor2]

An IRL example -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060720/ap_on_re_us/denver_smog

 

[aramis]

The long term sat-shacks tend not to use heliox, from what I've read. It's not that 5 bar of nitrogen and 0.2bar of Oxygen is toxic; it's not. (Though 1 bar of O2 and 4.2 of N would be...)

The problem is that, at that pressure, your blood and tissues will have saturated N2 that will desaturate when the pressure lowers...

So the change to a lower pressure is the problem.

Heliox reduces decompression time by reducing the saturation of N2, so that you don't get the bubbles.

Also, you can't just use surface mix, since you'd rapidly hit O2 toxicity at 2.5 bars...