Ocean Magazine

I am thrilled to be the winner of the 2012 Ocean Magazine writing contest. This very short narrative began as some notes scrawled in a notebook, then typed on my blog, then edited a few times before submission. The other day I received two copies of Ocean, and a card mentioning I'd won -- a nice surprise.

The narrative is a little other-worldly in that the chronology is a little mixed, and it's not always entirely clear what's going on...that is by design, as, just like mountain climbing, or sailing on the Pacific on a strange, primitive raft, or dragging my sled through shifting mists or auroral glows in Iceland or Alaska, all of these experiences have seemed strange and other-worldly -- especially in hindsight, when I close my eyes to sleep, sometimes, and images or sounds of these experiences bubble up...Did I really do that? Was I ever really there?

The hours and days thunder by -- every moment infinitely more precious than the brightest or heaviest gold!

2psi Test

After a nearly sleepless night, rolling around while thinking about various pressure, electrical and gas issues, I brought the system up to 2psi today, with most connections, including coolant hoses, connected and running. Despite sealing off the helmet's exhaust valve, I was still losing pressure there (so my seal was no good). I think I'll remove that hardware; leaving just a hole in the helmet will give me a lot more options than I currently have with the extant valve, which has been a problem from the start. Removing the valve without damaging the helmet will be a challenge. I also have to finally replace the suit gas pressurization fitting as it leaks very, very slowly. I've recently read that all pressure vessels have leaks; pressure suits, aircraft and even spacecraft have leak rates and the issue is simply to get that rate down low enough that it's sustainable. Right now my leak rate, through the unsealable helmet vent and suit pressurization fitting, isn't survivable...so in short I've slipped backwards a bit, though at least I know exactly what I need to do next. The good news is that my use of epoxy to seal through-fitting plugs for electrics and the coolant hoses actually worked, which feels good.

Details

Just a few PSI in the suit puts significant stresses on the various components. This is fascinating stuff! Above you can see the helmet hold-down cables: I removed the originals that came with the helmet, for a number of reasons, and replaced them with my own 1/16" steel cable, which I swaged on each end. The cable attaches in front to a strap sewn into the crotch of the suit, and then rises up through the fittings on the L and R sides of the helment, and then descend the back of the suit to two fittings on the mid-back. This prevents the helmet from rising up over the head when pressurizing the suit. The photos show the back of suit with its cables, and closeups of the chinzy split rings I used for the front connection, coming apart under the pressure of just 2psi, and a closeup of the hold-down cable having shifted out if its hold-down track pulley fitting! This is probably because I reversed this fitting, for various reasons, but will now return to their normal position. Every time I pressurize the suit and solve problems like this, I am learning life-saving design lessons! Another photo, added just a moment ago, shows the blown-out split rings from the helmet hold-down when I brought pressure up to normal, with the hold-downs somewhat cinched down. Completely destroyed. A reminder to always wear eye protection when dealing with pressurized gas. The failure was simply a dramatic 'pop', one of more than a few I've heard on this project, and something I don't want to hear again.

Seat Pressure Test

Rather late tonight, as I was cleaning up the tools, I decided to put the suit in the seat and pressurize. All well! Went up to 3+PSI. One slow leak, where I expect it. The other main slow leak problem has been solved. The cinches to pressure restraint garment elbows and knees, to give the suit a bit of shape, work! The arms are held down by bungee cords at the moment, but that's just for convenience for the moment. The great thing is that all of my fittings--suit gases in / out, cooling in/out are airtight. The main problem now will be to get the upper part of the suit's restraint garment a bit closer tailored to my shape, and then start building the liquid oxygen breathing gas system, which is going to be very simple and robust.

Prokofiev

It doesn't get much better than this!

Electrical Control Box Placement

These days I think, every day, 'What can I do today to advance the project, even if just a little?' Tonight I took an hour to build a wooden/cardboard replica of the main electrical control panel, and mounted it on the right armrest; here you see the pilot's eye view of the box, which will have six switches (I need to build into the box a switch protector so they're less likely to be turned on/off accidentally). My pressure suit will be very crude--though effective--so mobility will be low, demanding that I design things so that I don't need to move my arms around too much. This means placing all controls / actuators as close to my hands as possible. This arrangement would put the main electrics control box very close, allowing me to turn on and off the main electrical components with a slight hand gesture.

Right now it looks like electrical actuators will be on the right hand side, and gas management will be on the left. Burner / balloon deflation controls are another issue, to be dealt with after I work out the gas management controls.

New Year's Day 2012

So close to done with the textbook that today I took a break from it to build and paint a mockup of the balloon car frame. This will eventually be aircraft aluminum, but for the moment the wooden mockup allows me to start final configuration of all the systems; fuel, burners, life-support module, communications, emergency pack, bailout platform, solar panels, and a few others. Happy New Year!