[TML] lifeboats

[Kirk Bailey]

Lifeboats

A lifeboat is a system designed to insure the survival of the occupants 
until rescue can arrive. In well traveled areas, this can be quite soon. In 
the boonies, you better go find someplace to land and sharpen a stick to go 
hunting with. You DID bring your hunting knife with you, or a survival kit?

Mobility is a limited priority, mostly to get away from the dying ship to 
avoid becoming involved in it's final death throes, and to assist rondevous 
with the rescuing vessel. Short range communication assists coordinating 
rescue- in wet navy shits,this can be shouting, or a walkie talkie, in a 
space shit, a built in communicator with one, or a few channels, and 
moderate range. A moderate supply of canned or bagged food and water is 
contained on board, and in a spaceship, a means of handling body waste- 
which can include a means of extracting and purifying water for re use, or 
cracking for oxygen, or both. modern lifeboats include engines for mobility 
and limited power for utility  features; such as, lights and signal, running 
lights, and a built in radio transceiver. Seating is purely functional, and 
crowded; entertainment is not included in lifeboat design. All of these have 
equivalences in a space lifeboat.

It has been proposed in fiction that a lifeboat can be stored in collapsed 
form, ,using strong flexible plastic for the 'hull' to contain the air, with 
much other structure folding up to conserve space, and a few large systems, 
including a fuel tank- depending on the technology, this could be hydrogen, 
water, or some other substance. Were H2O2 used, a catalytic engine would 
allow the generation of STEAM to run a turbine for electric power, and a 
byproduct of water and oxygen; this would require an external hehat sink fin 
in the event of a inflated plastic hull to condense the steam to water. 
Bubbles of oxygen could then be separated from the water in a spinning 
separator, possibly attached to the turbine axis as is the generator. Such a 
design could be stored in a space far smaller than it's erected and inflated 
size. However, it's ability to reenter atmosphere would be quite limited or 
excluded. Using spray  on a blat shielding would allow it to re enter 
atmosphere- ONCE- if a suitable destination was at hand. As total delta-V 
would be VERY limited, it would not be capable of a significant journey. A 
small computer would also be useful, as would be a limited sensor suite- a 
radio direction finder and a limited radar.

Lifeboats are not ships. they are ways to maintain a heartbeat until a ship 
comes along.


-- 
Salute!
	-Kirk Bailey
           Think
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          | BOX |
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           knihT

Fnord.