Day 8 of 30 2006
day 8 of 30 jedc Building UpImproy and Catalie were out riding on their "bicycle built for two," which they had had built in the machine shop for machinists' practice in the new environment; the wheel rims were overhead instead of below them, however, as they were hanging from the fiberglass rope around the outer perimeter of the giant space station wheel, the spectacular universe getting seen in its entirety a dozen times during one full circle trip around to their starting point as they pedaled. Enjoying this outside sport, they were radioed that Ownma management was on screen in the control room, demanding to talk to them. Since it took 30 minutes to climb back up the half mile to the hub airlock to get back in the normal way, they elected to go through the special airlock they had installed where the hole had been made by the out-of-control bulkhead months before. Ownma management seemed to have an uncanny sense of the most inconvenient time to make their demands, and this time was no exception. They would have to return to their bicycle by the same route, but no matter; more adventure. Even this time was going to be a bit scary.
Stopping their bicycle below the outer hatch, Improy accessed the control panel so as to have the internal air pumped down to 1/4 atmosphere, saving some of the precious gas. But they were in a hurry, so they vented the remainder into space, then he had to stretch from the bicycle pedal base to operate the airlock hatch, swinging it up inside. At this point he had to briefly unhook his safety tether clip, stretch up again to hook it again on the internal safety hook. Catalie handed him her safety tether clip too, he connected it then he had to pull himself up into the hatch. The outward centrifugal force was slightly greater that 1-g there, so it was like being suspended from a high ledge and having to pull oneself up and get up onto the ledge. He helped Catalie similarly scramble up into the hatch, the immense universe was where falling would go to, a very long ways "down" to their senses. They closed the outer hatch, let air into their chamber, opened the inner hatch, and hurried down to the control center, still in their space worksuits, helmets tilted back.
This time, it was Theo's face onscreen, whose form of egomania at least was rooted in the theoretical foundations of things. "We are going to build a second wheel next to yours, with a connected hub bearing assembly joining your wheel with the new one. The direction of rotation of the new wheel will be opposite yours, and so the combined hub shaft assembly must accommodate the gyroscopic torque forces when the combined wheels have their orientation changed in space. Soon the hub bearing assembly will arrive there, and you will have to figure out how to very securely attach it to your airlock on the shaded end of your hub. The next modules docked up there will be the six spokes, and then the modules will be brought up to form the second wheel's ring. All that will get done without human help up there, just as your wheel was first built up there without human presence there. Once you have the new secondary hub connected through the bearing assembly, the hub modules will arrive for you to attach to yours through the bearing. Then the next shipment to you will include a new pair of space worksuits and pair of people who you will train to do your job, but over in the new wheel." The screen went blank, no chance to ask questions. Ownma management did not consider employees as capable of asking worthy questions, so why would they allow time for questions?
"At least we won't get stuck with doing hundreds more of the bulkhead removal processes," Improy muttered. Catalie's thoughts were off in a different direction: "Why didn't they tell us that another wheel was to be part of this facility? Sure, that kind of design has long been envisioned, so as to be able to spin up and back down, by torquing at their hub bearing instead of expending reaction engine propellant mass to get spinning. It would have been a lot easier to have built the hub assembly that way right from the start." Improy replied that one thing that Ownma management did well was to plan far ahead; but they also played their cards close to their chest, as the saying goes. "This must be a new project direction; or else they did not expect us to succeed at this task so it would have ceased long ago if we had failed." Catalie went on "How will the added wheel receive sunlight for its agriculture? Either all agriculture will have to be done in our Sun-facing wheel, or the whole pair of wheels will have to be kept in a slanted orientation, so that some sunlight will come in past the edge of our wheel, for partial sunlight each revolution. What a crazymaker to plants, to have the sunlight come in sweeping rapidly from a steep angle during 20 seconds, then going into total darkness for 40 seconds until the next 20 seconds of intense sunlight. Will they adapt?" Improy replied that the livestock will have to be provided artificial lighting, powered indirectly by solar cell panels sticking out so as to not be shaded by our wheel, not very efficient use of their solar energy resource.
Relaxing after dinner that evening, Catalie went on as if the conversation had not been interrupted, "If they had just wanted to be able to spin up and down by pushing against an opposite wheel, much smaller mass could have been used at each airlock site, and just spun up much faster, to the equivalent reaction. So they must have other purposes in mind."
That their guesses were almost entirely wrong became clear when they received the construction plans. Both wheels would be mirror images of each other, including the incoming of sunlight through the side panels of one side. Both wheels would be fitted with a huge flat mirror at a 45 degree angle to the wheel. That meant that the whole dual wheel would have to be edge-on toward the Sun, and the two mirrors sticking out from each hub would have to be de-spun constantly to be motionless reference to the direction of the Sun. It still would take reaction motor propellant mass to make up for losses in bearing friction, unless they could use nearly frictionless maglev bearings there instead of roller bearings. Why go to all that trouble? One wheel was surely enough to research out the interactions of all the kinds of machine and living systems.
Catalie began to have suspicions that Ownma Corporation was going to move them somewhere else; but where, and why? There were a bunch of places that came to mind. "Where do you think we might be getting sent to, in our small city of a double wheel, Improy?" she asked out loud.
He looked startled for a moment, a far away look in his eyes. Then replied that nowhere that would not need more shielding than was economical to ship up here by reaction engine powered vehicles. "GEO would be the lowest energy boost. Then there would be the Lagrange points L4 or L5, at the distance of the Moon. And then there was the possibility they were going to be sent to orbit Mars, no turning back. None of those destinations had any benefit he could see for Ownma Corporation. And without shielding ... wait, what if all those spent space busses were placed between the edge of the wheels and the major source of solar particle radiation? And, edge-on, part of every rotation would be shielded by the rest of the wheel's mass, further reducing average exposure. Yet, cosmic radiation comes from all directions." Her reply was that she wondered if their daughter Idealiana would continue to chat with them everyday via the internet if they went to Mars, the round trip transmission delay becoming a real slowdown to chatting. "Maybe they would send us to L-1, the balance point between the Earth and Moon, and anchor our dual wheel city to the Moon for stability, since only a fiberglass cable's strength would be needed for that." Actually, would maybe risk using the wheel's mass as a counterweight to hold the tether up, an unacceptable risk to the city, in her opinion. "Maybe they just want to get our huge mass so far away it will never possibly come down as a meteor to the ground."
With such thoughts, they drifted off to sleep, in well earned snuggling restfulness.
posted by Unknown @ 3:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home