From: nuny@bid.nes   
      
   On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 12:18:30 PM UTC-7, Mikkel Haaheim wrote:   
   > Sorry, I don't know of any on line calculators off hand. For what you want, I   
   > think you need a fairly long but narrow corridor, with a 1 m hole at one end   
   > of the corridor. The astronaut should be closer towards the end with the   
   > hole. This way, the hole is large enough for a semi-explosive decompression,   
   > the length of the corridor provides a large supply of air to push the   
   > astronaut, and to keep the outgassing going enough for momentum to build up.   
      
     Yes. The idea is a stiff wind, not a bullet in a gun barrel.   
      
   > The narrowness of the corridor will allow her to block a fair amount of that   
   > air so it is more difficult to simply blow past her without imparting some   
   > momentum on her. The hard part will be explaining why there is such a long   
   > stretch of corridor without sealed bulkheads.   
      
     Depends on how the ship/station is arranged. Large workspaces or storage   
   areas, that can't be partitioned off into smaller volumes, are occasionally   
   necessary.   
      
   > Rough estimate: the width of the coridor should be no more than 1.5 m, and   
   > the deck height no more than 1.8 m to 2 m. The length behind her should be at   
   > least 100 m... Shorter if it is branches off to lateral corridors in the   
   > section behind her, or if the coridor opens into a large chamber...   
   > Essentially, you want to funnel'a large volum'of air behind her, and have her   
   > act as a kind of blockage to that funnel. You want her to be about  5 m or so   
   > from the hole, giving the air time to act on her body. Again, you have to   
   > explain the lack of bulkhead doors. Perhaps borrow a page from the Titanic:   
   > no one thought anything would be able to penetrate the extremely thick hull,   
   > so they figured that partitioning would be too costly of an unnecessary   
   > expense.   
      
     Or, whatever causes the breach tweaks the spaceframe such that the airtight   
   bulkheads can't actuate.   
      
     Or, she's near a "man door" (personnel-only hatch)in the outer bulkhead of a   
   large cargo space; many cubic meters of air behind her and a small vent to   
   concentrate the airflow.   
      
     Why it's a single hatch and not a double-door airlock, and getting the hatch   
   to fail would be the issues there.   
      
     Not having an airlock in any case is an issue, unless it's say a station   
   that's meant to be added on to periodically, and the hatch was intended to   
   connect to another section that isn't there yet.   
      
   > Keep in mind, I am not doing the calculations here. This is not even back of   
   > the envelope... But it should give you a rough idea of the kind of situation   
   > you need.   
      
     I concur.   
      
     Also, it's usually best not to go into too much detail. What you wrote about   
   a long corridor is sufficient for any story purpose.   
      
      
     Mark L. Fergerson   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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