Building Up - jedcline's 2006 NanoWriMo

day 7 of 30 2006 Building Up

Day 7 of 30 2006 jedc

A real Stanford Torus space settlement for 10 times as many people, built somewhere further up and so far out of the protection of the Van Allen belts, would orient its plane of rotation to maximally use its mass to shield from solar storm particles, and get agricultural sunlight in by way of a sloped optical mirror surface; but here in the somewhat radiation-protected Low Earth Orbit, given as simple a design as possible, the orientation was to let the sunshine in through shuttered windowed panels along one side of each agricultural section. The louvered shutters could then be adjusted inside the windows, to control and re-direct the incoming sunlight energy for the growing plants.

That was the first problem they found: the sunlight came in horizontally with reference to the ground level formed by the centrifugal force of the spinning wheel-shaped habitat. The plants closest to the window got the most sunlight, shading the ones behind them. This had not been found during the test period when operating on the ground before launch, since the Sun did its normal arc over the sky as it has always done there. But up here, the Sun was essentially motionless, sunlight coming in from the side wall window areas. Like houseplants in the windows of homes on the ground receiving morning or evening sunshine, the plants up in the wheel habitat grew to an orientation tipped over, toward the motionless light source to the side. This effect was discovered when activating one of the agricultural segments, even while the wheel was in the non-rotating mode for now, while repairs were being made.

So while sections were cut out of the original space bus casing, they also cut some strips of habitat tank casing to be used as terracing walls, and brought it into the remaining, still open to hard vacuum, section built to serve agricultural purposes. They brought in twice as many strips as would be needed there, intending to use it in both agricultural sections, once the whole wheel was pressurized.

Outside the huge, now-motionless wheel, Improv and Catalia in their space worksuits cut a patch panel for sealing and strengthening the exterior wall where the ragged gap had been torn by the exiting edge-on bulkhead. Deciding that it would be easier to do some of the interior repairs from the outside, they cut away the jagged area of the hole, big enough to enter and work in there. At that point they decided to also melt the original but severed fiberglass security cable, to be replaced by the new whole cable brought up with the agricultural shipment, back together so as to still be able to encircle the perimeter of the wheel, but would be loosely anchored to the shell, and so would be usable as an overhead cable from which to hang and ride along so as to be able to travel around the wheel's outside even when spinning full speed. That would enable some repairs and inspections, not to mention a bit of an amusement thrill ride. A cable was dangled from near the hub airlock to tie to this added perimeter cable to access it, but also they used the opportunity to use the two doorframed hatches from the two spent space buss modules to make the double doors of a new airlock there, to go direct out to access the outside even when spinning.

When they had the service plumbing pipes and utilities repaired in the below-floor part of the damaged area, and the new airlock built, they sealed the new section on the outside to cover the exterior hole up. Then they repeated the placement of the fiberglass cable around the perimeter of the wheel, using the new cable. They also secured the "cablecar cable" loosely around, using newly placed hangars spaced around the wheel.

Finishing this as quickly as possible, to minimize the distress to their new companions in space including fish and quail, wearily they went through the hub airlock, disassembled their worksuits from around themselves, advised everyone to take up positions near what would become the floor, and they once again fired the reaction motors mounted on the outside of the wheel, and it again spun up to partial gravity, to the 1/5-g as before. They had yet to complete removing all the bulkheads, along with the venting of any remaining propellant trapped in those sections, so the lower centrifugal force was still needed. Besides, they only had enough remaining propellant to eventually spin up to 3/5-g, anyway. Someday re-supply of rotation motor propellant would be allocated and sent up; but that would not happen for some time. A quick tour of the machine shop and agricultural area to assure that everyone was more or less secured with having a bit of gravity orientation, the pair were soon fast asleep in their quarters, a well earned long rest.

The agricultural workers were getting their first practice in the moonwalk-like gravity locomotion movement. Water in the fish tanks again had a top surface, bubbles would now rise, making aeration of the water easier, although still slow motion. Being mostly ground birds, the quail's stress levels clearly were going down too, with there finally being a "down" and a ground surface. They built a small terraced section from raw materials stored in the original supply section of the machine shop, and planted a few seeds along them, a head start. Their mission profile had not expected such an extended duration without full 1-g artificial gravity, so it was not known what seedlings would do at 1/5-g; but they were going to find out soon. They also began a manual routine of opening and closing the louvered shutters so as to provide a simulated day-night cycle for any circadian rhythms that might be happening in the agricultural area. Eventually they would find what could be grown productively in endless, high intensity sunlight; but for now, the directive was to simulate as near as earth-normal conditions as possible.

The next morning, the task of removing bulkheads was resumed, a long and tedious task, still as risky as before. They had learned to examine the winch cable end connections, putting that on each day's checklist. Then the routine began again: crack the bulkhead bolts, wait until most of whatever gas pressure remained inside had vented out down past them, down the corridor and spokes and out into space. Then finish removing bulkhead bolts; haul the bulkhead down the corridor to nearest spoke shaft, winch up the shaft, take it outside the hub and lash it to the outside of the hub. Return to the freshly opened module section, open each bin or storage section to verify no remaining propellant in there. Then go down to the next bulkhead, and do it all over again. Boring, routine; but no time for not paying attention to what they were doing. Memory of the effort expended because of the broken winch cable and errant bulkhead. And that bulkhead was somewhere out there in space, not something a spacecraft would survive if hitting it. Luckily space was very much bigger than the bulkhead, so chances of missing it were quite favorable. But not 100%. There was a lot of "space debris" left over from earlier space launches by many nations. Adding to the hazard was not something to be done if at all possible. So they slowed down that dull and routine task just a little, to pay a little more attention to each step. It was not just winch cable breakage that could cause calamity.

Each newly opened module was something to be explored a bit, a minor diversion from the routine. They had already opened up at least one of every module configuration, so it was not that new. Each of these modules had been built down on Earth, assembled into a wheel shape, been occupied by a teeming population of a thousand busy people out in the New Mexico desert summertime; then each module was disconnected, bulkheads installed, hauled to the launch pad, set vertically on top of the engine tug flyback module, filled with extremely cold liquids, booster airbreather latched on, then jammed hard upward by the engines, juggled this way and that to orient to end up on target to dock with the previous members, then docked to the one which had arrived before it, then waited there in the space environment until another module came up and docket at its other end. And now the people were pulling bulkheads off of it. The internal configuration of each module, installed equipment, and stored materials had all been selected to survive the freezing of cold fuel, launch shocks, and exposure to hard vacuum.

Or at least that had been the intention. Occasionally they would come across something that had been put in place during the debugging process, getting all the systems to cooperate together. Not all of these got documented and removed for later re-installation, and upon opening the module up, shattered remains of things like rubber balls that had been frozen in liquid oxygen then launch vibration had squeezed it shattering it into many pieces, which had to be cleaned up.

Eventually, they finally came full circle, around the wheel to the bulkhead which had pressurized occupied living space on the other side of it, which had been their first cleared area. So they went up to the airlock on the other end of the hub, and closed it, then closed all the emergency airlocks remaining in the areas of the wheel that were still not pressurized. One at a time, the released the compartment's stored air from the tanks sent up with each prefab module, until it was up to pressure. In a few more hours, the entire wheel with its spokes and hub, were all pressurized, and temperature within occupancy range; the air cleaners declared the air was pure enough. So they removed the bolts from the last bulkhead, and took it to the machine shop for raw material for fabrication, as it would be difficult and wasteful of effort to take it outside and lash it down with the other some 400 bulkheads stored out there.

It was celebration time. All 47 of them gathered in the restaurant-kitchen area, and the chef prepared the fanciest meal she could with the limited foodstuffs on hand. Wine was dispensed from the plastic shipping bags, and a toast was given for all their achievements. Lively music from the vast music library onboard was played a bit loud, and with the help of the wine they learned how to dance in 1/5-g, partying for hours until spent they went to their quarters, weary but in a good mood.

They all took the next day off, vacationing except for minimal monitoring duties. It was back to work the next day, and Improy and Catalie were again partially suited up in the hub's Embarcadero, ready to receive or rescue another space bus load of 33 people, a full test of the modified docking thruster settings and feedback control values. This time, immediate variation in the feedback parameters would be done by Catalie as she watched the realities of what the docking progress was doing each instant. The people inside were only wearing seat belts and shoulder straps, and so was the same risk of phase shifting from internal resonances situation that had nearly cost the lives of the first bus load.

As Catalie watched on the camera monitoring screen, the newly arrived module accurately targeted the docking assembly, within the allowable alignment parameters. Contact was made, triggering the docking clamps to latch, she did not have to do anything. Opening the airlock, Improy went in to greet the new arrivals; the hub door closed and sealed, then the outer door opened inward, then the door was opened into the space bus. All seemed calm so he had Catalie open the inner hatch, and soon the new crew members were entering their new home, 33 more people, mostly couples.

Down on the ground, the "space bus" modules were being built as fast as possible, now that a proven design existed, at a rate of three a week. So that set the rate of population increase for the next couple of months, about 100 new arrivals per week.

A launch of fuel for the spin reaction motors was delivered, and was something new for Improy and Catalie. The fuel supply module arrived and docked, but then instead of passengers, Improy suited up and went out to connect the transfer lines of the two liquids, and pumped the propellants through the tubing, down one of the spokes utility channels, and into the fuel storage tanks near the reaction motors. The emptied module was lashed as the other spent modules, a large supply of raw material had accumulated outside the end of the hub, and this new one joined the collection of spent space bus modules.

Finally it was time to go for full artificial gravity. Everybody was alerted to find a stable place, backs toward a support surface, although the actual acceleration was not all that great; the mass of the wheel was huge. The agricultural workers monitored the water sloshing in the fish tanks, and the antics of the quail as their world started doing something weird again. Eventually a full 1-g was achieved at floor level, which felt quite sluggish after acclimating to the 1/5-g for so many weeks.

The quail seemed quite puzzled about it all for awhile, but soon their legs regained strength, and coordination was back as before. The two agricultural segments were terraced with the strips cut from the first modules and stored in the second agricultural module; a full set of seeds was planted. Soon, quail eggs were produced, and put into incubators; the quail as yet were not comfortable enough to hatch them themselves, but in time it was hoped they would do so. Meanwhile, incubators and brooder equipment was put into use, to expand the quail population to match the expected grain harvest soon to appear, in the very plentiful sunlight which was always bright like high noon and never a rain cloud to interfere.

posted by Unknown @ 4:26 PM