Low Life Support Reserves
No matter whether it is inner or outer space the prospect of running out of air is a serious aspect of the issue of sustaining life in a hostile environment.
Divers can use pony bottles, multiple tanks, umbilical air, compressors, diving bells and spare buddy breather regulators to supply emergency air. A planetary colonist has fewer options.
When considering emergency air in a colonial environment the options can be compared to the diving environment but with different apparatuses:
|
Diver |
Colonist |
|
Pony Bottles |
Cumbersome and heavy in a planetary ground environment -
Primary and secondary air cylinders built into a backpack will have to
suffice |
|
Multiple scuba tanks |
Primary and secondary air cylinders built into a
backpack |
|
Umbilical air |
Not very practical on the ground but useable in space |
|
Compressors |
Not very practical on the ground. Restricts range of
movement around the jobsite |
|
Diving bell |
Perhaps a vehicle more akin to a car or truck but still
not practical with an umbilical arrangement |
|
Buddy breather |
Built in attachments (air ports) on the colonial
atmospheric suit with corresponding port sharing capabilities |
Additional life support in the form of heat is often applied to a commercial diving situation by supplying warm water as part of the umbilical a diver may be connected to. This is not practical for colonists as umbilicals may not be a suitable life support system on the ground. An alternative to this is electrical heating or something similar to an astronaut’s space suit. The disadvantage to that is the bulkiness and weight of the suits. These types of suits work well in zero gravity or underwater but on land, not so well. A colonist needs a slimmer more agile and lighter weight suit.
Supplying heat to a colonial suit would probably be reliant on an energy pack (Battery) and emergency life support measures would have to include a means of providing supplemental power external to the colonist’s suit.
This has been previously addressed and would entail external input connections, external sources, outlets in an emergency shelter, from work or transport vehicles and also supplemental connections interior and exterior to an airlock.
In a closed loop air system as would be used by a diver there is an air scrubber compound designed to remove the exhaled carbon dioxide from the system. Once this system has reached its absorption capacity or becomes wet, the medium is of no use to the diver.
A similar closed loop system would likely be employed in a colonial suit and the only viable way to supply supplemental absorption to a colonist’s suit is to hook it up to another suit or a stand alone scrubber system. Simply introducing additional air to the colonist’s suit does not alter the need for CO2 scrubbing and the colonists would soon be in trouble again.
Possible means of external scrubber attachment could be from a service vehicle, as part of an emergency life support panel, or another colonist’s suit. This image is showing a portable air board configuration that could be easily adapted as a means of external life reserve hookup.
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