From: marmiteNOTSPAM@dualboot.net
Henry Spencer wrote:
> In article ,
> John Buehler wrote:
>>An immediate solution that springs to mind for a lot of this is to
>>have infalatable bags surrounding the trusses and other 'exterior'
>>components of the station that need to be reached. It would provide
>>for a lot more room to move around, and would permit maintenance of
>>the entire station without any spacewalks. I'm assuming right away
>>that this idea has major flaws to it...
>
> Unfortunately, providing those bags with protection against space debris
> and micrometeorites, temperature control, adequate ventilation (which
> can't be taken for granted in free fall the way it can be on Earth), etc.,
> is not a small job. The idea is not ridiculous but it's not nearly as
> simple as it looks.
Neither of you are thinking of the problem correctly.
If you're going to have a pressurized volume in space
that's supposed to be at least a semi-shirt-sleeve
environment then you might as well just go all the way
and make it a permant part of the station's pressurized
volume. Bring the truss inside an inflatable hull.
Of course, this somewhat defeats the purpose, as would
the bags, of having exterior support structures, and
you're going to need the structure to pass through
the pressure hull regardless.
Besides which, with any station there will always be
an outside and there will always be parts there that
need servicing. The only way to build a habitat
without any outside parts is to have the outside be
the "border" of an atmosphere held in place by some
force or other, such as gravity. But, barring new
developments in force fields and whatnot, this
solution rather defeats the purpose of having a space
station.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
