Topic: Designing an Earth base

[MTBox]

"it's a series of solar collectors that focus light into narrow tunnels"
"Solatube" is already on the market. Good tech, for day time.

Definitely need Secondary access for emergencies, when primary is blocked. This is a huge concern in my current location. We (these neighborhoods) have one means of moving in/out by road; if it got blocked by fire, there is no getting over the river via a different route (except, we could swim for it, I guess). And now they are putting a school at the bottom, near the river, as well.

[junki]

Radio mast; communication and monitoring equipment: Could be placed on the peak, if it can be made secure over time. It would be a means of checking in with other facilities, and picking up other communication.

I'm not sure if there are satellites to link with

US Navy has old all-analog geostationary satellites, which can be used with simple 300 MHz radios, no special equipment, arrangements or large antennas needed. You hear mostly portuguese now, and some encrypted transmissions too. Other nations have launched similar stuff. Uncontrollable from the ground. Unless they are physically shot down, I guess some of those will stay operational for decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Satellite_Communications_System

[2397]

Kessler syndrome is another factor. Which could happen by itself at this point. But especially if someone decides to blow up more satellites.

"it's a series of solar collectors that focus light into narrow tunnels"
"Solatube" is already on the market. Good tech, for day time.

Definitely need Secondary access for emergencies, when primary is blocked. This is a huge concern in my current location. We (these neighborhoods) have one means of moving in/out by road; if it got blocked by fire, there is no getting over the river via a different route (except, we could swim for it, I guess). And now they are putting a school at the bottom, near the river, as well.

I try to avoid dead ends for the most part. There could be a narrow path out from the other side of the living quarters, and it could be where the sewage outlet goes.

It might be cost-effective to build an elevator instead of the staircase, which needs more space. But they need to be able to manually access any surface and mechanism.

[2397]

What sort of excursion gear would be necessary, when the atmosphere provides about 15% oxygen, and contains 2,000 ppm CO2? The latitude makes it easier to work at night in summer. During heatwaves, the temperatures could still be up to 35°C. Excluding peak temperatures, limited to walking and not carrying heavy loads, I'm guessing that they could be outside for an hour without serious difficulties.

If they have to spend more time and effort to make repairs, gather resources, trade, they need something that can either supplement oxygen, scrub CO2, or both.

It's about the same amount of oxygen as there currently is at 3000 meters elevation, but it seems worse to have less oxygen by lower ratio, than having less oxygen because there's less air.

2,000 ppm CO2 is enough for a permanent headache. Although miners have to deal with much more than that, judging by this system which is advertised as keeping levels below 10,000 ppm. 5,000 is a typical exposure limit, averaged across 8 hours. Maybe I don't have to worry about the CO2 part. Or enough CO2 could be displaced by the extra oxygen.

So a small mask and oxygen tank? A ventilator that uses about 10% of the tank, 90% air. Or injecting oxygen into the nose while otherwise breathing regularly. Could have an electric ATV with a cabin, and bigger tanks.

[MTBox]

Not a tank. That's about equivalent to 8,000' elevation now; although you can live there farily easily, it might be nice to provide a concentrator as part of a work toolbelt; you see people carrying these at the store and eating out. Instead of hauling a Tank, it is more like a large backback unit or large purse and they have a cannula ("nose hose") attached. 

[2397]

Wondering about how to create various substances.

Vegetable oil would likely be the substitute for mineral oil for machinery and moving parts. It could be a component to produce soap with, too. Hopefully trees are still growing.

It would've been useful to have access to seawater.

In a way, they'll be more protected from infectious diseases than most humans are today, though they won't have access to emergency services or routine checkups. Or most medicines. Possibly some reserves to be extremely conservative with.

I was wondering if ethanol should be excluded for behavioral reasons, but maybe they need it as a disinfectant. Maybe other infamous recreational drugs will be needed as painkillers.

Birth control and abortifacients could be necessary. "Natural" abortifacients are pretty brutal, and I don't know much about synthesizing hormones. Given that people manage to manufacture anabolic steroids on their own, it might be doable for them to produce estrogen and progesterone.

Depending on how they ended up there, and what the long term outlook is, maybe being sterilized is the preferred solution.

[junki]

a component to produce soap

Some families still made soap from pig fat and ash when I was a young boy. Awful stench. The end result was just soap all right, though.

[MTBox]

You could introduce a manipulated crop, such as a modified Sweet potato/yam, developed for food production and the byproduct diosgenin, which is a naturally occurring hormone, to create a birth control substance.

I don't see having lubricants and soap without having at least one degreaser, such as an alcohol or ketone. You can make these hard to abuse or even a nondrinkabe product entirely.

And you know that ultimately any resource possible is used to attempt to make hooch, right? That would be part of your story line. If you need to have a still to purify water, it is a still, still.

[2397]

Now I have to actually write this thing.

I'm almost worried I'm making it too low tech, given how much time has passed before the events of the story (in the area of 200 years, given the climate). It's natural that there will be stagnation, once the country or the region collapses, and no longer has immediate contact with the rest of the world. Even regression, deterioration, loss of technology that relied on a long supply chain (and constant replacement). But it wouldn't just fall back into 2030, depending on where it fell from.

Thanks for all the comments.

[MTBox]

"I'm almost worried I'm making it too low tech,"

Please, do! I get tired of, "Look, in the future, we are this advanced and go into Space" and then we run into Space Warriors that wear skins and burn torches onboard their ships. Or, we see post-apocalypse lifestyles, as if woven fabrics lasted forever. You need Low Tech = basic skills and functions. If you don't have a machine shop, how can you have all of that equipment you use and repair, elsewhere? You cannot Three-D print something without the ability to manage the machines, and get raw stock, and recycle every bit and scrap of anything, into something else.

[2397]

How to make sure to cover all exercise needs in the gym? Keeping in mind injuries and other limiting factors.

I've set up the gym to have one section for free weights, one section for matte exercises/suspension training, and there's a treadmill, an elliptical trainer, an exercise bike, a rowing machine, a shoulder press, and a leg press. Which might be overkill. Or maybe the focus needs to be what's most durable.

From personal experience, I'd guess that the machines with pulley systems are the most fragile. But if they can be easily fixed, that's not a concern. The treadmill could be the most difficult to fix, especially since it seems to need an electric motor for optimal use. According to this possibly biased eBay page.

[MTBox]

"How to make sure to cover all exercise needs in the gym?"

Real Life takes care of that. I go out and shovel snow for 2 hours, and my neighbor pays for a service, so that he can go to the gym.

If you need anything at all, I would suggest a "universal machine" = one footprint, one frame, you work your way around its Stations. This is helpful for rehab and range of motion. But nothing takes the place of Real Work. Do you think your people will have a lot of leisure time and not have to at least rotate through menial tasks for work?

[2397]

Maybe it's not that big of a deal. It depends on how much time they can spend outside. Running up and down the hallway might not be that good on their joints. Unless it's designed with that in mind, I suppose. And some people could have specific physical therapy needs.

In the subarctic winter there could be a lot of downtime, since food production scales with sunlight.

[MTBox]

"In the subarctic winter there could be a lot of downtime, since food production scales with sunlight."

Go to Discovery Channel and see if you can find the episode of Homestead Rescue, where the host takes you on a tour of his Alaska neighbor's Food Cache, reviewing methods and his calculation for needs, cycling out the product, etc. It was very interesting.

[2397]

The year is 2197. If I had planned this better, I would've updated this thread then. 2397 refers to a different story, which I eventually decided to make this part of the same universe of.

That's about what I have so far.

I came up with this story to practice writing, before writing what I've been wanting to write about for a long time. For whatever reason I've been unable to commit to writing the actual story. There are limits to how much/often I can write, but considering the amount of comments I write, I figured I'd be able to convert some of that into book writing.

I've decided on a main character, on the how story is told, and a general path. Now I'm going to outline the story as far as I have planned it.

(click to show/hide)

The main character (CA) is in charge of maintaining this mountain complex, to provide some extra space when it's needed, including utilizing the extra growth space. It's not at all unique. It's how people live, at least in this part of the world. The facility is somewhat old, it's had other uses before, but now it's spare. On occasion it could house firefighters.

Then a need arises. There has been damage to another facility, and it has to be closed indefinitely for repairs. Bringing about 20 more characters into the story. This allows CA to formally introduce them to the facility, and to explain what their own role is. Which is about the same as everyone else's role at this stage, because it's up to everyone to look after their own needs where they live. With some exceptions. And for a while, they'll be eating a lot of previously dried food, or previously energized food like rhubarb.

It's turning into winter when they arrive (this happened in 2196, so these may or may not be flashbacks after the story starts in 2197). Meaning that there's limited solar energy for farming and other uses. They have the water turbine and a small reservoir, in addition to internal batteries that help stabilize energy flow. A drought during winter would severely limit power generation. As I'm writing this, I'm wondering if it would be reasonable for there be one or more wind turbines in the mix. Shared between a few hundred people, same as the water turbine.

They're not currently on the national grid. The nation, Norway, has been independent for about 30 years. Given the circumstances of a very harsh climate and a reduced oxygen atmosphere, nation-(re)building has been slow and stagnant, existing infrastructure has suffered from lack of maintenance, as each smaller community has had enough with keeping themselves going. There was no revolution. A nuke went off in Moscow, due to someone else's conflict, and that was that. Norway became irrelevant. It also made for an increased need to remain indoors, for a while.

There is a partial national grid. Larger power plants are more interconnected. There is trade. There is life on Mars. Trains are the main form of transport, as being in sealed containers with decentralized power is very helpful. But there aren't trains everywhere.

It's winter. CA has gone from living solitarily, to most rooms being populated during the day. CA had also found a cat a little while earlier that they gave its own room, but now can't. Although they still have the privilege of being the only human in their bedroom, as for now the 20 guests occupy the other 5 bedrooms with associated storage rooms. There's another, larger facility that took in the other 20 out of the 40 who lived in the damaged one. Including parents with children, because that place is more suitable.

After the initial introduction is where I hit a wall. So I decided to try to start the story after some of the events have already happened, then work them in as flashbacks to give the impression of what's changed. And why CA, who has been fine with their own circumstances, isn't that comfortable anymore. The winter means that the guests have to stay there for a long time. It's more difficult to effect repairs, to use their battery-powered machines to drill and move debris, and to manufacture or obtain what they need from elsewhere.

Chapter 1 starts with January 1st. CA is updating and verifying the maintenance logs. Apparently they are the only one who's up early, not having participated in what is a very rare event involving alcohol. Until a second character shows up, and there is some back and forth hinting that this other character has a more positive outlook, in general.

One thing that's mentioned in the flashbacks is cannibalizing parts from the closed facility, to make repairs to the emergency facility. Early March is when the weather starts to look stable and warm enough for a group of them to travel to nearest town for more of what they need, as well as there being more solar energy.

The shortest route is walking only, but there is a hanging rail system along the path, to help transport items back and forth. And there's an old central cabin that's been fitted with solar panels, batteries, AC, and an oxygen system, in case there is a need for a longer break. CA picks out a group, as well as someone to replace themselves temporarily.

In town, events unfold that lead to CA considering becoming involved in national, and possibly international matters.

They make their trades, they talk about the possibility of finally reconnecting their village to the national grid, they return. They start working more on repairs.

CA has a conversation with someone (CB) who has proven themselves to be a great help, and was already a leadership figure among the guests, to ask who they would have take their own place. This ends with CA recruiting CB to go a longer journey.

CA hands the reins to someone else. They make a deal that yet another person has the right to overrule, if the continued living conditions for the cat is threatened, as a contingency plan.

Initially CA and CB visit another town to investigate rumors that people there want to build a dam to raise the lake they all live near and would disrupt the power plants that lie further up.

Eventually CA and CB join a mission to Svalbard to retrieve and clone vital seeds, leading them to go abroad.

CA at some point travels to Bangalore. Where the story ends in a sort of open-ended way.

I couldn't find that episode of Homestead Rescue.