Crater Map

Another illustration draft for the space book; a selection of the best-known impact craters on planet Earth. Over millions of years, many impact craters--from space objects such as meteorites--have been eroded away by wind and water, giving humanity a false image of the Earth as being relatively safe from space debris.

Schedule

With two books due immediately, a talk on the horizon and an interview with PBS's Bob Edwards set up for 05 October, my mind is whirling. Next year, I thought today as I walked to the office, I will take a little less work, and spend more time on the balloon project and, finally, writing the Iceland book. For the moment, write, write, write, and when I'm done for the day I can relax with Boccherini's "La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid", which I really enjoy (you might recognize it from the movie, 'Master and Commander').

Pressure suit project: tonight, install helmet hold-down cable, adjust left thigh constriction problem, design seat restraints for ground tests. Coolant pump is in the mail, it will arrive just in time! I'm tempted to sew in the coolant tubes to the undergarment, but I need to see how the pump works with the existing tubing before doing that.

Master Power and Voltmeter

Installed the master power switch (still waiting for the power indicator light to arrive in the mail, but it's easy to install) and the DC voltmeter (to the right of the master switch I'm activating). Two hours just for these little items, but slowly, piece by piece, the system grows toward utility! Eventually the whole control board will have to be taken apart and built into something more workable as a cockpit, but for the moment, getting it to work is the goal, which both identifies exactly every switch and gauge needed, the weight of the whole system, and gets me intimately familiar with the system. There's no substitute for building it myself, because in the event of a malfunction that intimate knowledge will give be the best possible chance of knowing what's gone wrong, and how to bypass or solve it.

Spore Dispersal

Draft of a figure for the space book: different kinds of spore dispersal, by short and tall fungi. The laminar air flow parallel to the ground is avoided by both fungi's spore-dispersing methods, which puts spores into the more turbulent air flow, resulting in longer-distance dispersal.

Comet

Draft drawing of a comet, for the space book. Click to enlarge; on the upper right is a Boeing 747 to give an idea of the scale. This is a medium-small sized comet core (the tail is not visible). The image needs some work, but it's coming along.

Testbed Work

In the upper image, the testbed from the front; below, from the back, showing the installed liquid coolant tank (clear plastic cylinder with orange bands) and the 12v battery (small black block with yellow strap--this is just a motorcycle battery, but I'll switch to a larger battery(ies) later). Next up; install the coolant pump, the panel lights and other electrics. Then, back to the suit itself.

As i began the project, I planned to have as few indicators (gauges etc) as possible, but with a breathing gas and suit pressurization system, two altimeters (one low-altitude, one high-altitude), temperature and various pressure gauges (not to mention the VHF aviation radio, also to be installed) I'm ending up building a large control panel, but there's just no way around it. You quickly run into a lot of interesting issues in building such a system, including minute details regarding the placement of each display and control.

Right now, all of this is built into a wooden testbed equipped with wheels so it's easy to move around while making tests; later, it will all be built into a cockpit assembly mounted on the balloon car itself. But, for the moment, I'm sorting out just exactly what I do and do not need, and how much all of that is going to weigh...then, when that is known, the task is to build a balloon that will lift the whole package--with me installed as the pilot!--to 50,000 feet. Since I'm finishing up two books right now, I only have about 8 hours per weekend to work on this...so the going is slow.

Electrical System

Starting to build the electrical system, which will run on one or several 12v batteries. A few years ago I designed and installed the 12v system on my friend John Haslett's 30-foot sailboat, and the book I used--Casey's Sailboat Electrics Simplified was so good that I still remember it, and picked up a copy to guide me along. On the distribution panel (click image to enlarge) you see, from the top, switches for the VHF radio, a low-amperage light (red, to prevent loss of night vision) to illuminate the instrument panel, breathing gas (oxygen) heater, propane fuel heater (to clear frozen fuel line...it could be -70F where I'm going!), suit heater (should not be needed at all, as the pressurizing gas in the suit is an excellent insulator, and military high altitude balloon pilots, it turns out, more often overheated than became cold!) and suit coolant pump, which will circulate cooling fluid through hoses sewn into my pressure suit liner. Getting the power to do all of that from 12v batteries is going to be a challenge, and I am considering a solar panel array to keep the batteries charged. I'm also researching chemical methods to keep the propane burner fuel lines from freezing, as I'm skeptical that the 12v system will actually have enough power to keep them cleared. Casey's book is a wonder, and I recommend it for anyone working with a system like this. The suit I'm leaving alone for a bit, just thinking through some fixes to a couple of issues. The electrical system is a nice diversion. It is thoroughly fulfilling to design and build something that works!