Information I'd love to know

cthia wrote:

stewart wrote:
1) I remember that show.

2) evacuating the atmosphere from outer hull compartments was to reduce the impact (pun intended) of secondary damage from an explosive depressurization. That's why Abby and her Bosun Frank Musgrove were surprised / professionally disgusted at the lack of preparedness they saw aboard SLN Charles Babbage during their Boarding SAR after Spindle.

-- Stewart

Thanks for the info stewart. Somehow, I only peripherally paid attention to the depressurization. Question, is their textev or some Pearls regarding that?

Such as how is the problem of Caisson disease(the bends) solved? Drugs, suit? Which suggests that changing out missile crews and readiness may be even more involved than I thought.

There are a few mentions here and there about it.

Ashes of Victory: Ch39 wrote:It was obvious no one had seen them coming, and that meant there'd been no time for the Peeps to set general quarters, evacuate atmosphere from the outer hull segments, insure internal hull integrity . . . get into their skin suits.

Mission of Honor: Ch24 wrote:Passages like this one were specifically designed and intended to be depressurized when the ship went to action stations as a means of limiting blast damage when the armor was breached.

Changer Of Worlds: Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington wrote:He and Honor both wore skinsuits as Regs required, since the bay was sealed only by a single hatch, not a proper air lock. When the ship cleared for action, the bay would be opened to space, the emitter assembly would train outboard, and the powered ram would move the entire weapon outward until the emitter head cleared the hull and could bring up its gravity lenses safely.

And Caison disease, or the "bends" is only a problem if you drop pressure too quickly.

I doubt drugs are part of the solution; the "disease" is a purely physics issue; a matter of how pressure affect dissolved gasses. But if the skinsuits don't lose pressure then pumping down the compartments shouldn't affect the sailors. And I'd assume that skinsuits work at nearly normal internal atmospheric pressure (given that the bridge crew doesn't don helmets until a depressurization event occurs) - which eliminates the need for lengthy preheating.

Where-as the spacesuits Shuttle astronauts used work at (IIRC) about 4.7 psi (vs 14.7 at sea level); so astronauts had to do a length 100% oxygen pre-breath to get the nitrogen out of their blood before reducing the pressure that low.

cthia wrote:

stewart wrote:
1) I remember that show.

2) evacuating the atmosphere from outer hull compartments was to reduce the impact (pun intended) of secondary damage from an explosive depressurization. That's why Abby and her Bosun Frank Musgrove were surprised / professionally disgusted at the lack of preparedness they saw aboard SLN Charles Babbage during their Boarding SAR after Spindle.

-- Stewart

Thanks for the info stewart. Somehow, I only peripherally paid attention to the depressurization. Question, is their textev or some Pearls regarding that?

Such as how is the problem of Caisson disease(the bends) solved? Drugs, suit? Which suggests that changing out missile crews and readiness may be even more involved than I thought.

Johnathan S wrote:There are a few mentions here and there about it.

Ashes of Victory: Ch39 wrote:It was obvious no one had seen them coming, and that meant there'd been no time for the Peeps to set general quarters, evacuate atmosphere from the outer hull segments, insure internal hull integrity . . . get into their skin suits.

Mission of Honor: Ch24 wrote:Passages like this one were specifically designed and intended to be depressurized when the ship went to action stations as a means of limiting blast damage when the armor was breached.

Changer Of Worlds: Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington wrote:He and Honor both wore skinsuits as Regs required, since the bay was sealed only by a single hatch, not a proper air lock. When the ship cleared for action, the bay would be opened to space, the emitter assembly would train outboard, and the powered ram would move the entire weapon outward until the emitter head cleared the hull and could bring up its gravity lenses safely.

And Caison disease, or the "bends" is only a problem if you drop pressure too quickly.

I doubt drugs are part of the solution; the "disease" is a purely physics issue; a matter of how pressure affect dissolved gasses. But if the skinsuits don't lose pressure then pumping down the compartments shouldn't affect the sailors. And I'd assume that skinsuits work at nearly normal internal atmospheric pressure (given that the bridge crew doesn't don helmets until a depressurization event occurs) - which eliminates the need for lengthy preheating.

Where-as the spacesuits Shuttle astronauts used work at (IIRC) about 4.7 psi (vs 14.7 at sea level); so astronauts had to do a length 100% oxygen pre-breath to get the nitrogen out of their blood before reducing the pressure that low.

And also results when increasing pressure too quickly. Divers cannot dive, descend, too quickly. At any rate, going from depressurization to pressurization seems to have to be a controlled process somehow. Which suggests that it's a pain in the butt(and everywhere else) during a change of readiness and crew. I wouldn't be so quick to discard an injection of sorts.

Thanks for textev.

cthia wrote:And also results when increasing pressure too quickly. Divers cannot dive, descend, too quickly. At any rate, going from depressurization to pressurization seems to have to be a controlled process somehow. Which suggests that it's a pain in the butt(and everywhere else) during a change of readiness and crew. I wouldn't be so quick to discard an injection of sorts.

Thanks for textev.

It's been a while since scuba certification, but my recollection is that there are other issues with descending too quickly, but the bends is purely a concern on depressurization. Where the accumulated nitrogen in your tissues needs time to defuse away without forming bubbles. Increased pressure (regardless of speed) can't force nitrogen bubbles in; it just lets the nitrogen defuse into the tissues faster.


But anyway, if you're moving from a depressurized area (like the weapons mounts) to a pressurized one you'd have to go through some kind of airlock - and that is a pain. (How much of one depends on how many airlocks there are and how fast they can cycle personnel. Or you could repressurize the entire compartment, then pump it down again; effectively making that compartment the airlock.

Though as long as the skinsuits are at standard pressure (as they seem to be) and the interior pressurized compartments are also at standard pressure then the crew's bodies wouldn't experience any pressure change - so no worries about the bends, or any other pressure related (or pressure change related) medical issues.


However if there is concern about the bends due to sudden pressure change, I just don't see what an injection could do about it. Permeability of tissue to nitrogen in much more of a physics (gas pressure differential) issue than a chemistry or biological process one. Drugs seem unlikely to help; you'd almost need free-roaming 'magic' inject-able nano-tech able to scavenge and impound the excess nitrogen to prevent the buildup despite the pressure differential.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:And also results when increasing pressure too quickly. Divers cannot dive, descend, too quickly. At any rate, going from depressurization to pressurization seems to have to be a controlled process somehow. Which suggests that it's a pain in the butt(and everywhere else) during a change of readiness and crew. I wouldn't be so quick to discard an injection of sorts.

Thanks for textev.

It's been a while since scuba certification, but my recollection is that there are other issues with descending too quickly, but the bends is purely a concern on depressurization. Where the accumulated nitrogen in your tissues needs time to defuse away without forming bubbles. Increased pressure (regardless of speed) can't force nitrogen bubbles in; it just lets the nitrogen defuse into the tissues faster.


But anyway, if you're moving from a depressurized area (like the weapons mounts) to a pressurized one you'd have to go through some kind of airlock - and that is a pain. (How much of one depends on how many airlocks there are and how fast they can cycle personnel. Or you could repressurize the entire compartment, then pump it down again; effectively making that compartment the airlock.

Though as long as the skinsuits are at standard pressure (as they seem to be) and the interior pressurized compartments are also at standard pressure then the crew's bodies wouldn't experience any pressure change - so no worries about the bends, or any other pressure related (or pressure change related) medical issues.


However if there is concern about the bends due to sudden pressure change, I just don't see what an injection could do about it. Permeability of tissue to nitrogen in much more of a physics (gas pressure differential) issue than a chemistry or biological process one. Drugs seem unlikely to help; you'd almost need free-roaming 'magic' inject-able nano-tech able to scavenge and impound the excess nitrogen to prevent the buildup despite the pressure differential.

I have NO scuba certification except for diving into a 12 foot pool and snorkeling.

You may well be correct about descending too quickly causing different problems. I simply know that it is a problem.

And you answered my initial question. Skinsuits are the suits that alleviates the concern. Although, if it were possible to still accomplish the task at the same proficiency, I'd prefer skinsuit and battle armor. At least for psychological reasons. Call it an emotional placebo.

cthia wrote:"cthia"]"cthia"]"munroburton"]

The individual weapon compartments are sealed off and depressurised before combat, to prevent hits from causing collateral damage in neighbouring compartments and the core hull.

I don't think exploding missiles were a problem in the capacitor era, but the MK23s and MK16s now have a fusion reactor that has to be started before launch, which theoretically poses that risk, especially if there's incoming fire. The Sag-C and Nike have extensive cofferdamming around their launchers.

But that also sounds as if the missile crews are stranded in a less protected part of the ship. I imagine them looking out of gun slots into space. Okay, not so dramatic in reality. But still.[/quote]

SWM wrote:They are in less protected parts of the ship. They are out at the missile loading compartments, between the inner and outer hulls, while most of the crew is inside the inner hull.

Little wonder missile crews aren't dying in job lots. They seem as vulnerable as the old gunners on the back of the Rat Patrol jeeps and other vehicles.

Link for those too young to remember the Rat Patrol tv series.
https://youtu.be/YxcmDCo9LLI[/quote]


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stewart wrote:
1) I remember that show.

2) evacuating the atmosphere from outer hull compartments was to reduce the impact (pun intended) of secondary damage from an explosive depressurization. That's why Abby and her Bosun Frank Musgrove were surprised / professionally disgusted at the lack of preparedness they saw aboard SLN Charles Babbage during their Boarding SAR after Spindle.

-- Stewart

Thanks for the info stewart. Somehow, I only peripherally paid attention to the depressurization. Question, is their textev or some Pearls regarding that?

Such as how is the problem of Caisson disease(the bends) solved? Drugs, suit? Which suggests that changing out missile crews and readiness may be even more involved than I thought.[/quote]


-----------------

Thanks Jonathan as well.
For some other text evidence see Let's Dance and Caldron of Ghosts and Crown of Slaves for the forced boarding actions when a pressurized compartment is opened to space.
Much ugliness happens.

-- Stewart

Re: the question about closing up the missile/weapons crews.

Look closely at the following image:

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/F ... -427887199

Beneath each weapons port, you can see a faint outline, sort of like a removeable panel. That's pretty much what it is. Behind each of those panels (which are as thick as the hull armor and made the same way) are the weapons crew compartments - seen more clearly in this image:

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/R ... -427890521

It's the box centered below and between the rotary magazines, and you'll note that the box has RCS thrusters. The weapons crew compartments are designed to be jettisoned in the event of an abandon ship being ordered. That's what the armored "plugs" are for. They blow off and the crew compartment follows, possibly/probably helped along with grav-based acceleration like missiles (we haven't gotten that far in the design yet - most of what you see is basically a feasibility study and components are simply blocked-in... rough sketches, more or less). This is because it was determined that weapons crews probably wouldn't have the time needed to get to escape pods, so it was decided to make the entire compartment an escape pod, when necessary. Sort of like how the F-111 ejects the entire cockpit, as opposed to individual ejection seats.

The crew compartments are evacuated of atmosphere, and everyone is in skinsuits, the gap around the compartment is also a vacuum, and the compartment itself is armored, as well as the walls around it. The vacuum is to prevent atmosphere-transmitted shock waves from getting through to the crew. There are no physical connections (except maybe power cables and such) between the compartment and the rest of the ship, once the airlock has been sealed and retracted. Probably held in place with grav arrays/plates or some form of tractors.

Note that these images are older versions than the later Star Knight/Fearless images on my other Deviant Art pages. For one thing, the weapons are aligned between decks, which was later changed to staggered. You'll also note that the later images do not show the weapons crew compartment armored plugs. This is because of an offhand comment David made at one of our meetings, that a weapons crew serves several weapons mounts, and that there is not a single crew per weapon. This meant that I had to change the earlier art, so until we get some hard numbers on how many mounts each crew handles, I've left them completely off.

At battle stations, the on-mount crews are the only crew members, aside from damage control teams and a few other essential personnel, I would assume, that are *outside* the core hull, which is *also* armored, although not quite as heavily as the outer hull. Also note that a Star Knight (or any other heavy cruiser from the early Haven war) is the smallest class to contain a core hull, although that may change with the size creep of more modern ships.

Regarding changes of pressure causing the bends or whatever, that shouldn't be a problem, as skinsuits are basically thin, pressurized spacesuits. One should be able to walk from vacuum to pressure and back again as easily as opening a door without any adverse effects. Recall when Helen and others floated across to a ship. She was wearing a standard skinsuit, or possibly a lightly armored one. Also, how many times have we seen a compartment breached to vacuum in a battle? Sure, some got killed due to debris hitting them, but those that weren't hit were in basic skinsuits, with helmets on, and survived explosive decompression with no side effects.

Anyway, I hope this answers a few questions (and probably generated a few more).

cthia wrote:

stewart wrote:
1) I remember that show.

2) evacuating the atmosphere from outer hull compartments was to reduce the impact (pun intended) of secondary damage from an explosive depressurization. That's why Abby and her Bosun Frank Musgrove were surprised / professionally disgusted at the lack of preparedness they saw aboard SLN Charles Babbage during their Boarding SAR after Spindle.

-- Stewart

Thanks for the info stewart. Somehow, I only peripherally paid attention to the depressurization. Question, is their textev or some Pearls regarding that?

Such as how is the problem of Caisson disease(the bends) solved? Drugs, suit? Which suggests that changing out missile crews and readiness may be even more involved than I thought.

The textev Stewart referred to is from Mission of Honor:

Mission of Honor wrote:Abigail heard someone snort contemptuously and shook her own head. They were inside the superdreadnought's outer armor but still well outside the big ship's core hull. Passages like this one were specifically designed and intended to be depressurized when the ship went to action stations as a means of limiting blast damage when the armor was breached. The fact that the Charles Babbage hadn't bothered to do that said an enormous amount about the Solarian League Navy's readiness states. Or about Task Force 496's pre-battle appreciation of the threat levels it faced, at least.

A more complete description of what the weapons crews go through is found in Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington, in Changer of Worlds:

Changer of Worlds wrote:She and Audrey Bradlaugh, War Maiden's other female middy, stood in the number four inboard wing passage, peering over MacArthur's shoulder into the small, heavily armored compartment. It didn't offer a lot of space for the men and women who would man it when the ship cleared for action, and every square centimeter of room it did have was crammed with monitors, readouts, keypads, and access panels. In between those more important bits and pieces were sandwiched the shock-mounted couches and umbilical attachment points for the mere humans of the weapon crew.
"When the buzzer goes, the crew has a maximum of fifteen minutes to don skinsuits and man stations," MacArthur informed them, and Honor and Bradlaugh nodded as if no one had ever told them so before. "Actually, of course, fifteen minutes should give time to spare, although we sometimes run a bit over on shakedown cruises. On the other hand," the petty officer glanced back at her audience, "the Captain isn't what I'd call a patient man with people who screw up his training profiles, so I wouldn't recommend dawdling."
One eyelid flickered in what might have been called a wink on a less expressionless face, and despite herself, Honor grinned at the petty officer. Not that on-mount crew duties were the most humorous subject imaginable. Honor knew that, for she'd logged scores of hours in simulators which recreated every detail of the local control command position in front of her, and her grin faded as she envisioned it in her mind. Her excellent imagination pictured every moment of the shriek of the general quarters alarm, the flashing lights of battle stations, and the sudden claustrophobic tension as the crew plugged in their skinsuit umbilicals and the hatch slammed shut behind them while powerful pumps sucked the air from the passages and compartments around them. The vacuum about their armored capsule would actually help protect it—and them—from atmosphere-transmitted shock and concussion, not to mention fires, yet she doubted anyone could ever embrace it without an atavistic shudder.

The image I have of it is of an Apollo space capsule.

SWM wrote:<snip>
The image I have of it is of an Apollo space capsule.

Not quite *that* cramped. They can stand and walk to their seats.

MaxxQ wrote:Re: the question about closing up the missile/weapons crews.

Look closely at the following image:

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/F ... -427887199

Beneath each weapons port, you can see a faint outline, sort of like a removeable panel. That's pretty much what it is. Behind each of those panels (which are as thick as the hull armor and made the same way) are the weapons crew compartments - seen more clearly in this image:

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/R ... -427890521

It's the box centered below and between the rotary magazines, and you'll note that the box has RCS thrusters. The weapons crew compartments are designed to be jettisoned in the event of an abandon ship being ordered. That's what the armored "plugs" are for. They blow off and the crew compartment follows, possibly/probably helped along with grav-based acceleration like missiles (we haven't gotten that far in the design yet - most of what you see is basically a feasibility study and components are simply blocked-in... rough sketches, more or less). This is because it was determined that weapons crews probably wouldn't have the time needed to get to escape pods, so it was decided to make the entire compartment an escape pod, when necessary. Sort of like how the F-111 ejects the entire cockpit, as opposed to individual ejection seats.

The crew compartments are evacuated of atmosphere, and everyone is in skinsuits, the gap around the compartment is also a vacuum, and the compartment itself is armored, as well as the walls around it. The vacuum is to prevent atmosphere-transmitted shock waves from getting through to the crew. There are no physical connections (except maybe power cables and such) between the compartment and the rest of the ship, once the airlock has been sealed and retracted. Probably held in place with grav arrays/plates or some form of tractors.

Note that these images are older versions than the later Star Knight/Fearless images on my other Deviant Art pages. For one thing, the weapons are aligned between decks, which was later changed to staggered. You'll also note that the later images do not show the weapons crew compartment armored plugs. This is because of an offhand comment David made at one of our meetings, that a weapons crew serves several weapons mounts, and that there is not a single crew per weapon. This meant that I had to change the earlier art, so until we get some hard numbers on how many mounts each crew handles, I've left them completely off.

At battle stations, the on-mount crews are the only crew members, aside from damage control teams and a few other essential personnel, I would assume, that are *outside* the core hull, which is *also* armored, although not quite as heavily as the outer hull. Also note that a Star Knight (or any other heavy cruiser from the early Haven war) is the smallest class to contain a core hull, although that may change with the size creep of more modern ships.

Regarding changes of pressure causing the bends or whatever, that shouldn't be a problem, as skinsuits are basically thin, pressurized spacesuits. One should be able to walk from vacuum to pressure and back again as easily as opening a door without any adverse effects. Recall when Helen and others floated across to a ship. She was wearing a standard skinsuit, or possibly a lightly armored one. Also, how many times have we seen a compartment breached to vacuum in a battle? Sure, some got killed due to debris hitting them, but those that weren't hit were in basic skinsuits, with helmets on, and survived explosive decompression with no side effects.

Anyway, I hope this answers a few questions (and probably generated a few more).

Thanks for the renders and info Maxx. You're more efficient than FedEx. You deliver dude!

Question.

We all know that there were many wholeasses making asshole decisions, but is there a case where Elizabeth actually had to disavow an officer?