From the Ground Up

Rockets are very tall. They are usually stacked from the bottom up with the cargo or human compartment at the top.  To get from up there to down here at ground level usually requires an external elevator (before launch) and in a colonial environment, some means of coming back down from way up there.

This image illustrates that. 

The problem here is the same as having a sticky door on the habitat or transport airlock (as did the space-walking astronauts, Anatoly Solovyev and Aleksandr Balandin). What happens if your re-entry point is not functioning? In this case there are three possible issues to be dealt with.

1.      You are being lowered down and the hoist fails mid point

2.      You are on the ground and the hoist fails leaving you grounded

3.      The hoist is working fine but you cannot re-enter the airlock due to a malfunction.

In any of the three issues you are immediately left with the prospect of running out of life support before a resolution is made available. If you are returning from a work detail you are probably already low on air and suit electricity so time is of the essence.

The solution to these issues is:

1.      External life support hook up capability to your suit design

2.      Ground level supplemental life support station (J-Pods)

3.      Ground level habitats. (Not star ship based living) (see also - J-Pods)

4.      Manually operated independent auxiliary hoist mechanism

Having two airlock ports on the star ship is a possible solution (redundancy) provided both utilize totally independent systems with no communal space. Although redundancy is a work around in this case the need for ground based emergency life support and shelter is still a critical need.

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