Building Up - jedcline's 2006 NanoWriMo

Day 10 of 30 2006

day 10 of 30 "Building Up" jedc 2006

The next day they went out to inspect the new hub and its immense 10 meter diameter magnetic levitation superconducting bearing. They had started it rotating the previous afternoon, and it was still rotating, and sensors measured only a loss of 0.001%. So it was off to an effective start. What it would do when it coped with the combined masses of two mile-diameter wheels twisting on each other at times, was yet to be determined.

They went into the center of the new hub, and inspected the six bulkheads that they needed to remove now, preparing for the arrival of the new wheel's six spoke module sets. It would be interesting to see how the hub's bearing responds to the additions of unbalanced motionless masses, as the new wheel's habitat modules were robotically built up by the teleoperated dockings. Their role would be merely to observe, not participate in, the assembly of the new wheel. No one had been present when their own wheel was built up by such teleoperated dockings, and none were expected needed for the new one. If and when they needed to use their shaded side airlock, they would have to pass through the cleared hub module to the far end of the newly added hub's airlock's open hatches, was all. The six holes into space, were created by their removal of the bulkheads; they stopped the rotation of the new hub, activated the small feedback loop motor that would keep the hub motionless for the easier docking of the spoke modules.

They thought of volunteering to take out the bulkheads from the upcoming modules as they were docked, but decided to wait and see if they were directed to do that. Ownma Corporation really ought to send up another pair of space adept workers along with more space worksuits anyway.

Returning indoors, Catalie chatted with Idealiana via the internet chat system, while Improy checked through the latest directives from Ownma White Sands. When they got back together over lunch, Catalie reported that Idealiana's tenth birthday was going to be spent in Girl Scouts summer camp in the mountains. Improy reported that any new space worksuits would have to be made up here, since the facilities that had built the two they now used, had long been scrapped. They had found documentation for their manufacture, however, and had forwarded a copy up to them. There were some things that the station's shop could make right away, but the specialized fabrics and flexible joint materials and fabrication technology was going to have to be developed from scratch. It made sense to have their own fabrication capability for spacesuits up here where they were needed; but some foresight ought to have been prepared for that eventual capability need's fulfillment. He would try to recommend a change in the new module equipping for that, but Ownma did not have any real way to process ideas and recommendations that were unsolicited from non-management employees.

It was like the Suggestion Box on the wall in employee sections of Earth-ground corporations, where the suggestion forms put into the slot in the suggestion box merely slid down into a wall chute down into the basement's trash dumpster; the intent merely to make employees think they were smart enough to think of an idea on their own, and thus work harder, even though Management personnel were clearly the only real smart ones. Maintenance of social stratification was key to sustaining the wealth of those inclined to be bullies, and egos were honored supreme, as part of that game.

Having space worksuits made, was obviously not currently part of Ownma management endless partying, at the moment. So Improy asked Catalie to set up the requirements for facilities for long term manufacture and maintenance of space worksuits. She replied, after a sip of coffee, that they could start with testing the use of emptied food containers of all kinds, along with finding out what duct tape would do when exposed to the space environment, holding such containers together. And send down a requisition for bolts of the special fabrics that might be adaptable for the suits, along with specs for fabrication of the fabric's industrial equipment. How about the complete infrastructure for making and forming materials like Kevlar and Teflon, could they get them from the ground? Improy muttered that he would send requisitions, while he was distracted by the thought of having to patch his space worksuit with duct tape and tin cans, looking like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz story, while he was trying to perform an emergency space rescue.

Just before they got up from the lunch table, he noticed that there were only about half as many people there in the cafeteria as usual about this time. So, back at the Coordination Center, he checked into what was happening, and found that many of the station personnel were still in their quarters, had not showed up for work that day; a huge increase in people on sick leave.

The station's doctor, his wife, and the nurse were all among the ones on sick leave, Catalie found. She chatted with the doctor, one of his many callers of the moment; he said it seemed to be a rapidly spreading flu epidemic, and was also spreading down on earth surface. Apparently some of the latest space bus load of people arriving brought beginnings of the illness with them, unknowingly. And the epidemic was looking real scary down there on the ground; they had no suggestions for use in the space settlement's version of the problem. Call back in a few weeks, they had told him, might know more then. And so their station doctor said that for now everybody was on their own, and even he was down and out at the moment, could not help anybody else, although he was trying things out on himself to see if any of their medications on hand would help. Aspirin made it worse, was all he had found so far. He thought that might be because the normally small internal bleeding aspirin causes, might be letting the pathogens into the bloodstream through those small lesions past the protective lining of the stomach.

Catalie did a check of the current population roster, found that indeed all of the latest space busload were out sick, and the people they had contact with since arriving were also more likely to be out sick today. She tuned into the web newscasts from the international news sites, and found that it was top news all around the world. The 1918 epidemic was nothing compared to what was happening now. More ominously, a few of the normal web news sites had not even published today, presumably because of lack of staff to prepare it. Even though much was done in home offices these days, they were not able to do the work in their own homes, so they must be real sick for that to happen.

She noted that the epidemic was spreading less rapidly in Asia and Mexico, but was just as severe an illness when it did strike there. Researchers were sharing data worldwide, which she followed as much as possible.

Improy called her and asked for help outside, there was a new kind of vehicle arriving. Out in their space worksuits, they found the unmanned vehicle was already hovering near the airlock, its nose cone swung out for docking access. It appeared to be a module that was permanently part of its tug booster engine module, and it itself had airfoils on it, and it was all covered with re-entry tiles. It was the first of a modification that was entirely re-usable, for delivering supplies without having to leave behind the 40 meter long 10 meter diameter fuselage each trip. This would make re-supply much cheaper, an entirely reusable launch system that would not require extensive refurbishing between trips, or so it was hoped. They would see how this one survived its trip back home. Meantime, they had to manually unload its contents. Going back into the airlock, they requested ground control to resume docking. They were not sure why it had not actually docked on arrival, but it had given them a chance to look it over first.

No response from ground control. Bad sign. So they pulled the vehicle into alignment with the docking port; Improy stayed to watch so that it did not drift out of alignment while Catalie went down to the far end of the new hub section to re-enter the station. She activated the emergency docking mechanism sequence; then, joined by Improy, they opened the airlock hatches and began hauling the shipment into the hub area, loosely floating around secured by netting for now. They had to hurry, and get the vehicle loose, as that was the only real access for space busses or anything that remained, now that the new hub assembly was using up the other airlock dock. Finally they released the vehicle, and for now lashed it to the outside of the hub cylinder, added to the huge array of old space busses and supply modules already lashed there.

Dinnertime and they were comparing notes, Improy had not been able to find anyone to help haul the new supplies down to the wheel rim storage, so he had moved a few containers, called it quits for the workday. She was following the medical crisis, and news was that the pathogen seemed to be caused by a sharing of genes between the Cytochalasin B immune-lowering fungus found in pasta, and an influenza virus. So it was being spread both by way of airborne and food vectors. They had been spending most of their time recently in their worksuits, and did not eat pasta, so for now were spared the illness. She had to prepare this dinner herself since the cafeteria was not open, the cook and other workers there all were too sick to operate the eatery.

By the next day they were the only able-bodied people in the station, and they could not run it by themselves. And sharing the same air with the others, eventually there would be some spores that would get past the air filtration system and they would be sick too. The facility's medical staff no longer answered their calls. "We are going to have to play doctor ourselves" Catalie commented over breakfast, examining the latest reports on the terminal there. "What can you and I do that the rest of the world has not done, that would fix this mess?" complained Improy. She replied that one thing to their advantage is that they knew what did not work. It acted like a bad case of the flu, but one in which the person did not get better at the normal rate. Therefore was likely the fungus immune suppressor was the cause of its lingering nature. Improy remembered some experiments in electrohealing which had attracted his attention even though it was not an approved medical thing. He hurried over to his closet and brought out a signal generator, and got on the computer terminal. "Those early experiments came up with a Cytochalasin B frequency of 77 KHz frequency followed by a 91 KHz frequency, and the signal was applied through metallic conductors held in the hands, covered with wet paper towel material for a few minutes." Soon he had wired himself up and had applied those signals to himself, pointing out to the dubious Catalia that the 10 volt signal could not even be felt. She was quick to repeat the signals on herself. But they had not been sick before, so all this test had indicated was that it did not hurt them. "There are a bunch of signal frequencies to destroy flu pathogens too, but they mutate fast and so is unlikely they are easily found," he continued. Let's see if we can find anyone who is willing to hold these electrodes for a few minutes.

By evening time they had gotten 45 people to do the electrode thing for ten minutes each. There were over twice that many yet to try it. The doctor would not try it, he just lay there in weak misery like the others. The next morning they went around to see if the same people were interested in repeating the electrode thing, and found that each of the ones who had tried it earlier had been even more sick in the night, but drinking a lot of water, they were now actually feeling better, and seemed to be in a normal recovery from the flu. All of them were eager to try it again. Improy had them do a third signal, an offset pulse waveform of 30KHz for ten minutes, which he had read was a general helping signal, according to the same research data. The next morning the 47 of them were up and around, the only ones in the station doing so. Catalie went to the station doctor, advised him of the happenings, and he weakly held his hands up a little as if to hold the electrodes, so they applied the three signals to him.

Catalie made a direct call to Idealiana, down on the ground, at Girl Scout camp in the mountains. They were unaware in the mountain camp that there was a crisis worldwide rapidly going on; she would ask the camp cook to not make the sphaghetti for dinner after all. Catalie said it looked like a little electrical gadget might be very helpful; Idealiana reminded her Mom that Girl Scouts no longer just learn how to start a fire by rubbing sticks together, but also such things as how to do some machine shop and simple electronic design and construction. So Improy got on the connection, sent the electrical gadget's schematic and usage tips so far found, and Idealiana signed off and headed for the log cabin where hand tools and electronic hobbyist stuff was kept. Catalie and Improy collapsed into bed, what a hard day and what would tomorrow bring?

In the middle of the night, there was a weak knock on their door. They were surprised to find the doctor there, using a walker; he asked to be given the signal generator and shown how to use it, immediately. Breakfast the next morning, they discovered that there were some emails from the doctor, as well as from those who had originally agreed to try the electrodes; with their help, the signals were being applied to everyone on the station. And the doctor advised his colleagues down on the ground of what had been discovered, that seemed to be helping a lot up here. He was advised that although people were not dying down there of the illness immediately, that they were perishing from lack of care, no one was left strong enough to care for the others, even to provide water. The few doctors still online began to search for the resources to generate the three signals. Then there was communication silence.

By the time a week had passed, all the station's staff were up and about, although most were still weak. They all showed up for turns holding the electrodes once a day, and time to chat while doing so. It was like their coffee breaks before, but they called it their "healing breaktime." Some web news sites were coming back online, and the first messages out were descriptions of the required electrical equipment and its use, asking people to search these things out, or build them where the skills existed. There was a massive effort to get the equipment for use by everybody, but there was little still functional, without personnel that had not already gotten the electrical signal sequence at least once. Yet, things were on the upturn now.

posted by Unknown @ 9:47 AM