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Safe space habitat Was:the drive to explore



 
 
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  #2  
Old May 29th 05, 11:18 PM
David Dyer-Bennet
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Earl Colby Pottinger writes:

That a dumb mistake will kill the person making it, I can easyly see.
(Cycling an airlock without checking your air supply will kill you, but only
you). What fundemental design problems are there that will let a single
person endanger the lives of the mojority of people in a space colony?


It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.
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  #3  
Old May 30th 05, 12:55 AM
Wayne Throop
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:: That a dumb mistake will kill the person making it, I can easyly see.
:: (Cycling an airlock without checking your air supply will kill you,
:: but only you). What fundemental design problems are there that will
:: let a single person endanger the lives of the mojority of people in a
:: space colony?

: David Dyer-Bennet
: It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
: ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.

Yes, but that's not *any*body being able to endanger the whole
station, such that things are constantly on the knife edge of disaster.
That's more like it is here, where an airline pilot or refinery operator
or bridge designer could cause really nasty disaster.

Xref: Niven belter habits of motionlessness, supposedly because
they could touch something and create a disaster. That always
struck me as a bit over the top. Especially now in retrospect, a couple
decades later, where there are fewer knobs and slides and toggles
and whatnot to bump into in technological doings.

Xref: Birdman timefiller on Cartoon Network, where Birdman's
control console has the "get cup of coffee" button next
to the "launch doomsday weapon" button.

"Belter tans" also... hrm. Feh.

Of course, on a space habitat, a collision could in theory kill
everybody in the hab, rather than just the people the ship bumps into
directly. Though contrariwise in reverse, presumably habs would be
designed modularly enough that that would have to be a *huge* event to
knock holes in *every* sealed environment in the whole thing.

Xref: re surviving an atmosphere loss:
Gully Foyle surviving the wreck of his spacecraft.
Roughly: "I kill you Vorga. I kill you filthy."

Xref: re modular design:
the rather robust starship in van Vogt's "Mission to the Stars".
(and/or, "The Mixed Men").

So. One could design a space habitat so a little error could cause
loss of atmosphere throughout. But then, one could design a town and
a flood control dam so a little error could cause loss of dryness throughout.

Xref: Johnstown.


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw
  #4  
Old May 30th 05, 02:43 AM
Rand Simberg
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On Sun, 29 May 2005 17:18:22 -0500, in a place far, far away, David
Dyer-Bennet made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Earl Colby Pottinger writes:

That a dumb mistake will kill the person making it, I can easyly see.
(Cycling an airlock without checking your air supply will kill you, but only
you). What fundemental design problems are there that will let a single
person endanger the lives of the mojority of people in a space colony?


It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.


Only a poorly-designed "space station."
  #5  
Old May 30th 05, 04:39 AM
lal_truckee
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Rand Simberg wrote:
On Sun, 29 May 2005 17:18:22 -0500, in a place far, far away, David
Dyer-Bennet made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


Earl Colby Pottinger writes:


That a dumb mistake will kill the person making it, I can easyly see.
(Cycling an airlock without checking your air supply will kill you, but only
you). What fundemental design problems are there that will let a single
person endanger the lives of the mojority of people in a space colony?


It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.



Only a poorly-designed "space station."


Just like properly designed and constructed up-to-code high rises don't
fall down when hit by an airplane.

Don't forget those space habitats will be constructed by low-cost
contractors with lots of corners cut.
  #6  
Old May 30th 05, 07:11 AM
Wayne Throop
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::: It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
::: ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.

:: Only a poorly-designed "space station."

: lal_truckee
: Just like properly designed and constructed up-to-code high rises
: don't fall down when hit by an airplane.

Yes... though the hab designers have the advantage that the
pieces of the hab won't be accelerated to smack into a hard surface
(or equivalently (or possibly even more accurately depending on
perspective), a very large hard surface won't be accelerated to smack
into them) after an impact and structural failure. So in some ways, it
might be *more* survivable than a building collapse.

Depending on various details and timescale considered.


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw
  #8  
Old May 30th 05, 07:33 AM
George William Herbert
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lal_truckee wrote:
[...]
It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.


Only a poorly-designed "space station."


Just like properly designed and constructed up-to-code high rises don't
fall down when hit by an airplane.


Building codes don't say anything about aircraft impact,
other than the ones for nuclear reactor safety domes.

It's a generally accepted design feature of large highrise
buildings that they should survive the impact forces of
a jetliner crash. Stuff thought likely enough to end up
in building codes usually has a lot more rigorous thought
attached to analyzing the consequences, such as post-impact
fires and the like.

One of the difficulties is that the design of buildings has
to take into account a lifespan of 100 years for successful
large buildings; when planning for things to change, it's
hard to predict in 1907 how large and how much fuel the
A380 jetliner will carry. Or how large an earthquake fault
will turn up near your bridge.

Don't forget those space habitats will be constructed by low-cost
contractors with lots of corners cut.


Or by the eventual residents, who are going to be doing some
tradeoffs about creature comforts and cost and the like, but are
monumentally disincented to cut corners.


-george william herbert


  #9  
Old May 30th 05, 12:19 PM
Dave O'Neill
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Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
(David Johnston) :

I'm still betting that in an artificial habitat where one false move
can endanger everyone else's lives and everyone lives pretty
much hand in pocket (as I'd expect in a start up space colony), Earth
will look like wild anarchy by comparison.


Then they deserve to die for building such a dumb design.

None of the base designs I have seen can endanger everybody because of one
dumb mistake. Infact, I don't think you can endanger the lives of all the
people on the relatively primative ISS with one dumb mistake.

That a dumb mistake will kill the person making it, I can easyly see.
(Cycling an airlock without checking your air supply will kill you, but only
you). What fundemental design problems are there that will let a single
person endanger the lives of the mojority of people in a space colony?


Well, obviously this kind of discussion would be one of the first steps
to avoiding dumb design. Although dumb design does have a habit of
being spotted late

Life support, communications and power (heating/cooling) seem to be the
ovbious starting points. The weak point shouldn't be the mechanical
design, however, I've seen some fanatastic cock ups on control systems
engineering that made it all the way through commissioning until
somebody did a combination of "dumb" things the control system
designers assumed could never ever happen.

There are many real world examples around this which could be massively
fatal in space, so I think you'd want the systems design to be based
around military/nuclear industry standards rather than typical control
systems software engineering - but that will make life more complicated
and expensive.

Then there are human "design" errors. Typically having people
"disable" safety features in order to do something quicker - happens
all the time, especially in older facilities where people are in a
hurry. That or over-riding safery features and alarms because they
don't have time to figure off what fault keeps making them go off.
Perhaps allowing somebody to open both airlock doors in a section at
the same time.

This is actually a really good thought exercise...

Dave

  #10  
Old May 30th 05, 06:19 PM
Rand Simberg
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On Mon, 30 May 2005 03:39:37 GMT, in a place far, far away,
lal_truckee made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.



Only a poorly-designed "space station."


Just like properly designed and constructed up-to-code high rises don't
fall down when hit by an airplane.


That wasn't bad piloting.

Don't forget those space habitats will be constructed by low-cost
contractors with lots of corners cut.


Not mine.
 




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