From: daellis94@gmail.com   
      
   On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 3:24:18 AM UTC-4, alexandr...@yahoo.com wrote:   
   > > The pressurized crew section would, of course, occupy only a relatively   
   small portion of the vessel's internal volume.  Any other compartments outside   
   of this pressure hull would either be totally unpressurized or would contain   
   compressed fluid or    
   reaction mass.     
   >    
   > Why? You could pressurize the whole ship without requiring too much extra   
   mass for the pressure bottle. The larger the volume, the more efficient   
   (mass-wise) it is to pressurize it, since envelope mass grows with radius   
   squared, but volume grows with    
   radius cubed.   
   >    
   > Whole-ship pressurization would do away with suit acclimation time, would   
   allow much tighter passages to be used (space suits are very bulky) and vastly   
   increase DC crew agility (space suits are very heavy).   
   >    
   > Of course, if the whole pressurized envelope pops, everybody inside is in   
   serious trouble. Then again, if that happens, chances are the ship is already   
   destroyed.   
   >    
   >    
   > On a side note:   
   >    
   > > What I'm trying to sort out is how damage control might be taken care of   
   on board this vessel.   
   >    
   > What weapons will attack the ship, and what protection does it have? It's   
   possible that any impact will disable the ship, and the purpose of damage   
   control is to ensure any surviving crew continue to survive until whoever wins   
   the battle gets around to    
   rescue them. Alternatively, the ship is built to survive attacks and keep   
   fighting, with DC performed to restore functionality to combat-critical   
   systems.   
      
   As has already been mentioned, thickness of the pressure hull does increase as   
   the radius of the vessel increases, so that does mean a larger pressure hull   
   would require a greater thickness of metal.     
      
   Do keep in mind, also, that if weapons fire damages a portion of the ship that   
   would normally be pressurized, it stands to reason that the damaged   
   compartment would be exposed to vacuum.  While other compartments can and   
   would be sealed off (like the    
   bulkheads on a submarine), venturing into these damaged areas for repairs   
   would require protection against vacuum conditions.     
      
   As for ship durability, the ship is designed with thick armoring over only a   
   very small number of mission critical systems, including the relatively small   
   crew section, main reactors, etc.  The majority of the vessel would be almost   
   unarmored, taking    
   after the all-or-nothing armor plans of American battleships during the World   
   Wars, only, perhaps, rather more uncompromising.  Everything not armored would   
   be designed more with redundancy and compartmentalization in mind, aiming to   
   contain or minimize    
   damage rather than prevent it completely.     
      
   One thing to note, however, is that the armoring of the hull would not,   
   necessarily, be one-and-the-same as the thickness of the pressure hull.  I'm   
   not certain how the exact layers might be arranged, but the armor, which would   
   certainly be outside of    
   the pressure hull, would involve a lot of spaced composite layers.  As such,   
   it wouldn't, necessarily, be contributing to the structural integrity of the   
   actual pressure vessel.   
      
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