Alistair Langsford <[email removed] writes:
>Imagine you are in a sealed room. How long does it take a person to die
> because the air gets bad - and why? Is it lack of Oxygen, or the
> presence of impurities?
Yes. :) The people in the room breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon
dioxide (well, some anyway; as anyone trained in CPR knows, a fair amount
of oxygen goes out too.) Eventually, the oxygen partial pressure in the
chamber falls in favor of the carbon dioxide, until not enough oxygen is
left in the room for the occupants to continue respiration. How big is
the room?
If you're really interested in this, check out old submarine stories --
WWII-era and prior submarine crews were *vitally* concerned with this
question. The old "diesel" boats equipped with the German schnorkel
could run their motors underwater, and ventilate with outside air, but
carbon *monoxide* fumes still could cause problems. A lot of research
was done on both, from what I understand. Nowadays, nuclear subs have
enough power to spare for "scrubbing" systems that this isn't the same
sort of problem.
As for the question about the pure oxygen environment, I'll leave that
to the Apollo 1 experts in the crowd. Actually, come to think of it,
carbon dioxide build-up was an important hurdle for the disastrous
Apollo 13 mission as well.
Chuck Hamilton [email removed] writes:
>Fact 1: Planetary defense forts are not covered in Traveller literature. The
>closest thing is "planetary defense battalions" from the boardgame "Invasion:
>Earth", which are not that effective.
The battalions were grav-mobile, and had about the same bombardment factor
as a BatRon (but not same defense/offense). Earth also had three corps-
level PD emplacements, non-mobile, one identified with each starport on
the chit. Those had the highest bombardment in the game and a sizable
defense garrison. Are you speaking from tactical experience?
Also, I'm unconvinced Earth is a fair example...it's possible both sides
were treading lighter than they wanted lest they risk damaging Earth too
much in the fighting, for political reasons at least all around.
Steve Bonneville
[email removed]