A walk in the park

A walk in the park – BCP Q&A

 So, you have put on your environmental suit, determined how long you can remain outside your colonial habitat before your air runs out, and loaded up with the tools to do the job. You have done this so many times that it has become no more than a walk in the park. 

However, what about all that other stuff, the what-ifs? Are you properly prepared for that, was your suit designed to cover the what-ifs? You certainly hope so. 

So, let’s start our day on Mars and consider all those other things that could cause you to have a bad day.

 1)     Enter the airlock on the habitat

a)     What happens if the outer door does not open

i)      Is the outer door on an automatic sequence that can be overridden manually?

(1)  Can I easily get back into the habitat if the outer door won’t open

(2)  Is the manual handle reliable and strong

(3)  Does the airlock contain a tool kit so I can perhaps repair the airlock or force it open while trapped inside

(4)  Does the airlock have a communication panel to let people in the habitat know that there is a problem

(5)  Does my helmet have a cable patch connection to that communications panel?

ii)    Assuming I can eventually exit the damaged airlock

(1)  Is there another airlock available to let you back in should repairs take a long time to accomplish

iii)  If you get stuck in the airlock after it has purged the interior atmosphere is there a way of getting more air to you if it takes a long time to free you from the airlock

(1)  Is there an air station in the airlock where you can connect additional air to your suit

(2)  Is there an umbilical connection from the habitat into the airlock to provide you with additional air for a prolonged period of time?

(3)  Is there a method of keeping you warm in the airlock should night time temperatures set in before you are freed?

(4)  Is there an electrical panel you can plug your suit electronics into to maintain your life support systems for an extended period of time?

(a)   Does the suit even have that capability?

iv)   Is there a pressure differential valve built into the airlock to re-equalize the airlock pressure to habitat pressure.

(a)   Is it manual or automatic

(i)    Is there a secondary pressure equalization method should the first one fail.

(ii)  Is that manual or automatic

2)     OK, no air lock problem. Let’s step outside and start heading to the work site.

a)     Does your helmet have a heads up display?

i)      to monitor your remaining air  time

ii)    Does it monitor internal suit and external air temperatures

iii)  Can it measure wind speed and direction. (Dust storms on Mars can last for months at a time so wind is an issue.)

iv)   Is there a directional indicator (compass)? (Getting lost in a dust storm would be deadly)

b)     Does the work I am doing (geology for example) require true color vision.

i)      Was my helmet visor designed to color compensate for the Martian atmosphere

c)     Is there external Microphones on my helmet so I can hear what is happening around me (safety issue)

d)     Do I have an external light source should dusk set in before I get back?

e)     Does my helmet have a secondary internal air valve should the first one experience a “freeze up” situation?

3)     OK, helmet seems good, now the suit

a)     Do I have a repair patch easily accessible should I tear the suit

i)      How many patches, I could easily tear the suit in multiple places should I fall down a slope

b)     Tripped and fell, sprained or broke a leg that will mean I an not getting back to the habitat before my air runs out

i)      Does the suit have reliable helmet to habitat communications

(1)  Can I talk with my co-worker / buddy who is on the job with me

(2)  Is there SAT-Phone capabilities as a ridge between my work place and the habitat could interfere with ground based communications. Did we even consider Sat Com satelites should be in place for the first colony

ii)    Doe my suit allow my co-worker to share his air supply with me through an umbilical hook up

iii)  Do I have external “pony bottles” available that will hook up to my suit for additional air

iv)   Can a co-worker share their electrical supply with me should mine fail to maintain life support functions

v)     Is there a way for someone at the habitat to do an “emergency air run” on a vehicle to quickly bring extra air to me (More on vehicles in another post)

c)     If I become trapped or delayed in my return for any reason (injury, dust storm, etc.) can my O2 scrubber in my re-breather system be easily changed out by me while wearing the suit.

4)     OK, suit is good, what about that dust storm? Sheltering in place is not an option as we have limited air, and storms could last to long, so…

a)      How do I find my way back to the habitat?

b)     Helmet light and compass are helpful, but…

i)      What can be done to the habitat to assist me

(1)  Does the habitat design include a visual beacon such as a search light or strobe light to assist in my return

(2)  Are there “rescue” type vehicles that could be sent out to look for me

ii)    Is there a “buddy Line” built into the suit so my co-worker and I do not get separated in the storm

 As you can see, a simple walk in the park could lead to a very bad day in an environment hostile to life. A simple twisted ankle would have limited consequences on Earth but on Mars, it could be a deadly occurrence.

 As an experienced commercial diver I was faced with these types of questions each and every time I donned a dive suit. As a Business Continuity Planning professional I was faced with looking at a given situation, determining potential risks, extrapolating those risks beyond plausibility and planning for the worst case scenario.

 A person in a colonial environment on a hostile planet needs to think like a diver and a BCP professional in everything they do. A developer or designer also needs to think the same way as a simple oversight in a design or concept can mean failure, or worse.

 Many habitat and suit designs you find on the internet are more artistic and fanciful than practical or safe. I will provide some more insights into these habitat concepts in later posts.

 Elon Musk has been quoted as saying that the first colonists to Mars must be prepared to die. As a diver, if your thoughts at the start of the day are “I might die”, then you should not be a diver. You have to trust in your training, those around you, the work plan and the technology designed to keep you safe. Dying does not enter into the conversation.

 Going through the BCP Q&A that this post has for the ‘walk in the park”, and doing it at every step of the concept, design, build process you should be able to eliminate everything except the unpredictable. Do the BCP Q&A correctly, and there should be no unpredictable risks.

 During this process, every question creates a new question to be answered. The example I have shown still has many more questions to be answered but that would require getting into actual engineering designs.

 As an exercise, and to test your Q&A abilities, think of a simple everyday action you take, then extrapolate that outward determining what could go wrong, and how can you prevent it.

 If you are an astronaut, think of one thing in your environment and extrapolate that out to determine if the designers and technology you rely on were actually built as safely as they could have been, or was something missed in the design concepts.