Spacecraft Atmosphere Requirement?

[ottothesilent]

This may be overly realistic, but I think it would be pretty cool to have an air/O2 resource that is required to go EVA and return to the parent craft (de facto airlock). Not a life-support resource, but something akin to EVA fuel, that is a requirement for full functionality of the craft. 

[Wjolcz]

So basically life support.

[ottothesilent]

No, (read post). A resource that is expended in fixed quantities per EVA to represent an airlock cycling.

[Red Iron Crown]

Not sure I quite understand what you are suggesting. Would the amount of this resource put a hard limit on the number of EVAs that can be done? E.g. Craft has 100 of this resource and it takes 5 to move a kerbal in or out, so that's enough for a kerbal to enter or exit 20 times?

[pandaman]

14 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Not sure I quite understand what you are suggesting. Would the amount of this resource put a hard limit on the number of EVAs that can be done? E.g. Craft has 100 of this resource and it takes 5 to move a kerbal in or out, so that's enough for a kerbal to enter or exit 20 times?

That's what I understand the OP means.

I suppose it's an extension of the old suggestion that EVA propellant gets topped up, and subtracted, from the capsule Monoprop supply.

I can see the logic, not a bad idea from a realism angle, but whether it would have a negative effect on gameplay would (as always) depend on the balance.

[Wjolcz]

17 hours ago, ottothesilent said:

No, (read post). A resource that is expended in fixed quantities per EVA to represent an airlock cycling.

But why? Coming out of a pressurized space into vacuum would be at least catastrphic. When astronauts want to come out of an air lock they first suck the air out of it.

[Red Iron Crown]

2 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

But why? Coming out of a pressurized space into vacuum would be at least catastrphic. When astronauts want to come out of an air lock they first suck the air out of it.

I don't think so, that would require a very powerful and heavy vacuum pump. I think they just vent the atmo out slowly before exiting.

[Wjolcz]

Just now, Red Iron Crown said:

I don't think so, that would require a very powerful and heavy vacuum pump. I think they just vent the atmo out slowly before exiting.

Oh, alright. Always thought they sucked it back into the vessel/station.

[ZooNamedGames]

All I'm going to say is that I think that squad should either finish the long since unfinished feature and have EVA fuel drain from monopropellent or remove it from capsules that don't actually use it. 

To explain that last comment; you can see that the mk2-3 crew capsule and mk3 cockpit has port holes which would appear to be for RCS thrusters however they do not function. So remove the fuel if it isn't used.

[ottothesilent]

7 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Not sure I quite understand what you are suggesting. Would the amount of this resource put a hard limit on the number of EVAs that can be done? E.g. Craft has 100 of this resource and it takes 5 to move a kerbal in or out, so that's enough for a kerbal to enter or exit 20 times?

Exactly.

[Chabadarl]

6 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I don't think so, that would require a very powerful and heavy vacuum pump. I think they just vent the atmo out slowly before exiting.

In fact that depends of the ship. It was often a bit of both but nowdays they tend to avoid venting air (Air is kind of precious up there).  On the ISS, they manage to suck out most of it. Vacuum pump are not that heavy. A simple vacuum cleaner gets a depression of  40kPa which means that you save like 40% of your air with it. I think NASA can do better (Vacum cleaner perfomance tends to depend more on debit than depression). The airlock on ISS allows two people to leave at the same time, so it's pretty big (34m^3 big exactly). Air is heavy : that's 40kg (plus the tank) That's a lot of mass to carry up to the station.

 

That's said, what I think has more impact, realistically speaking, is that it takes a few hours to prepare for a EVA. On the ISS, they spend the night in the airlock to prepare their body for the low pressure and the full oxygen air. 

I think I will love a mod that prevents me to go on EVA every three minutes but forces me instead to wait for a few hours before starting the EVA.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Chabadarl
spelling

[Red Iron Crown]

@Chabadarl I was thinking more about spacecraft, where mass is a greater concern than on a station. Interesting to learn that that's how it is handled on ISS though.