I’m away this week, but lucky you, you still get a new page! Hopefully I saw some of you in Baltimore– and welcome to any new readers! If you’re trying to figure out what’s going on you can start at the beginning of the story, or for a less intensive catch-up you can start at the beginning of the chapter.
I’m not one to nitpick, but wouldn’t they have some sort of fire suppression system? In a spaceship that contains a pressurized atmosphere rich in oxygen I figure it’s one of the basic things to have. It doesn’t even need to be that high tech – just some basic pressurized cylinders filled with fire retardant foam that go off instantly when the ambient temperature reaches a certain point. This way each unit will also be self-contained so that a downed generator or main computer will not prevent it from going into action.
Well, he said it first. But the rest of the story goes on, regardless of the fire on the bridge.
Yes, you’re right, they should have a fire suppression system. I wonder what could have gone wrong to cause it to be insufficient?
Interesting side note– while still in Baltimore, I got an opportunity to tour the USS Whidby Island, a 186m long Dock Landing ship (huge!). And one thing I learned was, according to our tour guide, all Navy personnel are trained firefighters! I did not know that.
Well, you answered my question – they did have fire suppression but it was not enough to control the fire.
And unfortunately there are quite a few scenarios in the real world to cause the system to be so inefficient:
First off is executive meddling: “You need six extinguishers for the bridge? You know how much those things cost? Put in three and forget about it…” – real world examples include the Swedish Warship Wasa that capsized a few hundred meters into her maiden voyage because King Gustavus Adolphus added an extra gun deck to the design, resulting in a high centre of mass, the decision of Joseph Bruce Ismay, Chairman of the White Star Line, to mount only 20 of the planned 48 lifeboats aboard the RMS Titanic and the decision of the Navy Board to alter the tail fin anchoring point of the rigid airships USS Macon and USS Akron to an intermediary rather than a main structural ring in order to make the design more “visually attractive” that ultimately was responsible for the loss of both…
Another reason could be simple misunderstanding of the dangers involved, sometimes coupled to the above mentioned reason: “It’s a command bridge. It’s not like they’re working with volatile chemicals, right?” – real world examples of note include NASA’s decision to continue normal flight operations in the case of missions STS-51-L and STS-107, leading in the loss of shuttles Challenger and Columbia because of underestimating the risks posed by, in one case, a frozen o-ring, and in another, the damage caused by a piece of foam insulation striking the leading edge of the wing. Another space related disaster is the Apollo 1 fire in which three American astronauts became trapped in the capsule and subsequently died because the door was not fitted with a rapid-opening system.
Last but not least, we have poor maintenance end exploitation practices: “Ain’t like anybody’s gonna care if I splotch paint all over this sensor thingy here, right?” – in real life we find the Aeroperú Flight 603 crash of 1996, caused by a maintenance worker forgetting to remove a piece of tape placed over the port side pitot static port, which in turn lead to a loss of cabin instruments. Other notable incidents are the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster and the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown, both of which can be ultimately attributed to human error and improper procedures.
The Apollo 1 fire brings up an interesting possibility: too much oxygen.
On Earth we are surrounded by 15psi of Nitrogen-Oxygen atmosphere (other gasses, too). However, NASA discovered it could reduce the pressure in a space capsule to 5psi if they used pure oxygen. This meant they could reduce the amount of air they carried with them (saving valuable weight) and a capsule wouldn’t have to be built as strongly (building a 5psi pressure vessel is easier than building a 15psi one).
Unfortunately, testing the pressure vessel for leaks on the ground meant pressurizing it to about 20psi (5psi of difference). They used pure oxygen for this test and that created a very hazardous environment (things that normally don’t burn suddenly do).
I can’t help but think the space vessels in Galaxion all use Nitrogen-Oxygen atmosphere at 15psi (maybe a little less). Fires are still dangerous, but not as much. If an oxygen line burst or an emergency oxygen tank exploded, that would up the oxygen content a bit (not to Apollo 1 levels, but maybe enough to overwhelm the fire suppression system). The latter case might also prevent the crew from donning oxygen masks and using halon to put out the fire.
There’s also another question: we don’t know how common space faring is by this time.
If I were allowed to draw a parallel, the first great iron ships to be built , like the SS Great Eastern, back in the 1850s, were not only engineering marvels, but also cutting in terms of safety equipment- watertight partitioning both transverse and lengthwise, automatic watertight doors, full double hull, steam cutoff valves, the works.
By comparison, by the time Titanic came along, less than 50 years later, ship construction on this scale was the norm and economic factor prevailed over safety equipment .
Titanic herself, although partitioned in 16 watertight compartments had the cross bulkheads only going up to E deck instead of A deck (as with the Great Eastern) and only double bottom instead of double hull, which would both be the deciding factors that led to her sinking.
Ironically, Great Eastern herself suffered a collision with a rock that opened a gash at least 60 times the size of the damage that that sank the Titanic, yet she arrived safely in port with her passengers none the wiser…
Can it be that this is also the case with spaceships of the Hiawatha’s generation? Maybe starship construction and operation has become so routine that proper safety equipment is thinned down in places where the risk is perceived as lminimal and where there haven’t been this kind of incidents (catastrophic fires) until now, because normal ship operations can not, under any circumstance, overload the systems to such a degree.
In a way, we can argue that placing the warp engine on any existing starship is a bit like strapping a high grade rocket motor on a rowboat – you are up for a terrifyingly fast ride into uncharted territory.
Sorry about the above and previous walls of text, but I’ve been told that not only am I to verbose for my own good, but also overly pedantic and needlessly interested in bringing to light all the little technical details.
So, in the end, I might just as well live up to my reputation then…
And hey, at least they *have* fire suppression. Does NASA?
Halon. Kills fires dead. People too if they aren’t wearing breathing apparatus.
And yes, Tara, we are. After the Forrestal burned, it was a bitter lesson learned. A lesson I got to watch in all its ugliness during Fire Fighting and Damage Control during boot camp. If you have any questions about this stuff, by all means, ask me!
Hi Tara!
Hope that Baltimore was a much better convention than Toronto this weekend!
– Kevin
Can’t blame them for being worried about the communications array, it does look a bit funny.
I don’t think that’s the comm array they’re building. My guess is that’s a proximity sensor point to secure that specific ridge the two engineers are climbing to. The two officers that are climbing are the ones talking about the communications array. It seems the Hiawatha’s main comm suite is working, but they’re just not in range of anyone who could get their signal, or there is no one who can listen to their signal, depending on which theory level of alternate universe you wish to believe.
I just realized something. There’s a lot of “Life” and “Hyperspace”, but recently there has been little “Love” (the admiral’s flashbacks being the exception). I was kinda expecting a lot of interaction between the survey team members. Or, at least, between the bridge officers.
I would like to see a bit more interaction between Zandarin and Aria since their names are at opposite sides of the alphabetical spectrum…
It’s quite possible we might, if Tara is sticking with the original storyline…
Of course, creating an unstable hyperspace warphole conduit across the galaxy probably stresses the electrics just a wee bit more than the standard fire suppression system is specced for.
It probably would. Despite the continuing the concern over the possibilities that Murphy’s Law can inflict, even when everyone does their jobs as they’re supposed to.