StarDestroyer.Net BBS

We actually need more than one door.

We need a door from the habitat - which is all nicely climate-controlled for human comfort - into the rest of the salt mine(s) we take over, and yet another type of door sealing off the salt mine, including the "warehouse" corridors, from the Big Bad Stuff Outside.

Knock yourself out designing one, this is supposed to be group participation.

Broomstick wrote:We actually need more than one door.

We need a door from the habitat - which is all nicely climate-controlled for human comfort - into the rest of the salt mine(s) we take over, and yet another type of door sealing off the salt mine, including the "warehouse" corridors, from the Big Bad Stuff Outside.

Knock yourself out designing one, this is supposed to be group participation.

To be exact we have to have three doors.
One is the disguised entrance because we want to build someone people will see and keep going but can take a beating. Second we want a much stronger but not 100 ton steel door that's designed to be... bunker quality, two inches of steel reinforced joints... something you might see in a small town bank vault. Something that can be broken into but not quietly.

The last should be the fuck you this is a Vault one thousand ton steel Armageddon stopper.

The design that's been rolling around in my head is for whatever cavernous entrance the mine would have. Essentially, giant door lifted via hydraulics, relatively slow to open but can drop like a rock. Built into the door is a smaller, more utilitarian airlock bulkhead that can be held at ground level when the door is in the regular closed state, or submerged into the base of it when the door enters a lock down state. From the exterior no mechanism would be visible, just a polished metal slab sitting in a metal base, buried in the side of a cliff or whatever. Even when not in lock down, the airlock door would not be very conspicuous, so from a good distant one wouldn't be able to see any entrances. As a way of camouflage we should install a few dummy doors on the exterior as well, basically sheet metal of the same size and shape bolted to the ground and hillside/cliffside wherever it may look similar to a cave or mine entrance.

Also thinking of cladding it with something that reflects neutrons and a few other nasty radiation reflectors. Perhaps add a DU layer or three for gamma ray shielding. After all, we have no idea what might be out there.

Additionally for defense I could put some fire hose nozzles embedded in it, and weapons for the more determined foe.

Easiest solution might be an entrance tunnel we could flood with water. Pretty good radiation shield as well as a damn fine intruder deterrent.

EDIT: On further reflection, though, anyone wandering up to the front door a few weeks after the shit hits the fan (I think we established in previous threads that anyone turning up on Day 1 was being let in no matter what) would be a stroke of good fortune instead of a security risk; they might have useful information about our nearest neighbours and be willing to carry a message for us.

So, I bought myself The Day of the Triffids on DVD from eBay last week, the BBC series from 1981 and the only one to stay within shouting distance of the original. I recommend it; it's kind of like a zombie apocalypse series without breaking as many laws of physics and biology.

But anyway, it raises some quite important questions about a scenario like this, especially for the long term.

Basically, we're not just going to need a school a few years down the line. In a generation or two we're going to need a university. We're going to need to accumulate tools, books, lab equipment and above all else people while we can; we won't be able to depend on salvage indefinitely, and we also need to take the long view about rebuilding some sort of society.

The upshot of which is that as soon as reasonably practical, we're going to have to find and establish relations with neighbouring groups of survivors. We've got members from nearly all walks of life on here but we're going to need specialists from outside, particularly anyone who can teach others once they're nearing retirement age. That goes for less obvious stuff like English or history too.

The original RAR! was that Q would offer a reset after 10 years (assuming anyone survives). But yes, long term you have to think of re-establishing an actual civilization. One major obstacle is a lack of people - much of modern civilization requires a LOT of people interacting across broad distances. Depending on the nature of the Apocalypse we might be able to establish contact with other surviving groups (some of which are bound to be Not Nice At All) or we might be all that is left.

That's one reason for building extra capacity into the habitats - after 10 years we'll have had a few babies arrive, and we'd hope some influx from outside.

Assuming we're going to be a center of preservation (of life and everything else) we need two things: knowledge that remains accessible (that means hardcopy as well as electronic) and basic tools, the sorts of tools that allow you to build other tools.

I will leave those as discussion topics for the rest of this thread.

Zaune wrote:Easiest solution might be an entrance tunnel we could flood with water. Pretty good radiation shield as well as a damn fine intruder deterrent.

EDIT: On further reflection, though, anyone wandering up to the front door a few weeks after the shit hits the fan (I think we established in previous threads that anyone turning up on Day 1 was being let in no matter what) would be a stroke of good fortune instead of a security risk; they might have useful information about our nearest neighbours and be willing to carry a message for us.

I considered water but frankly I feel that it would be better spent for more productive matters. Unless we're near a good source of non-potable water, such as the ocean or any particularly dirty/salty lakes.

On the second point, the door does have an intercom and keyboard with screen for communication on it. I think it's a safe enough assumption that anyone civilized would at least try to leave a message.

This list from Open Source Ecology might be a good starting point. (They were hoping to put out open-source blueprints for everything on that list, but their reach has apparently exceeded their grasp.) I reckon if we had a couple of everything on that list and a decent cadre of people who knew how to use them, all we'd need were raw materials and fuel. Metal's not going to be hard to find, and neither is sand for glass, so the only tricky ones are plastics and something to power our vehicles and occasionally a generator; biofuel and bioplastics are one option, but they'll use land and resources that we might not have in abundance.

Speaking of vehicles, we're going to need something relatively primitive as a standard design. Mk1 Land Rovers or original Wilys Jeeps would be good, they were designed to be maintained with nothing fancier than a socket wrench and a screwdriver, and making replacement parts shouldn't be all that hard either. And for the really long term, it might not be a bad idea to see if there are any used narrow-gauge locomotives going for a reasonable price.

Methane or Alcohol. You'll have food scraps and various other "wastes", most of which produce either the gas or can be processed into alcohol. Fecal matter and decomposing plants both release the gas so depending on how you grow your vegetables and fruit, will depend on how you use the waste from them. An Aquaponics system (probably the best system in this case as you'd also have a source of protein in the fish) would mean you could use the left over for alcohol production or possibly biofuel (I don't actually know much about biofuel), more traditional garden beds would need compost which is where you'd put your green waste. These options would mostly depend on how you plan on recycling your wastes. A Biocycle septic system would be one of the best options. And using Aquaponics means you'd have plant waste to make alcohol.

That's definitely worth investigating but I don't know how well it would scale. We're going to need to run at least half a dozen three-ton trucks, a couple of 4x4s and maybe even a light aircraft or helicopter, and that's just for the initial search-and-salvage phase.

That's one reason I think we ought to plan for laying some light-rail tracks; we can generate electricity any number of ways that don't require hard-to-obtain resources.

Could we wire up dynamos to exercise bikes and similar stuff in the gym? That way we can stay fit and generate power.

Cool idea, but probably horribly complicated to implement for not a lot of actual benefit.

Zaune wrote:Speaking of vehicles, we're going to need something relatively primitive as a standard design. Mk1 Land Rovers or original Wilys Jeeps would be good, they were designed to be maintained with nothing fancier than a socket wrench and a screwdriver, and making replacement parts shouldn't be all that hard either. And for the really long term, it might not be a bad idea to see if there are any used narrow-gauge locomotives going for a reasonable price.

Well, hell, the original Model T was a marvel of primitive engineering, and as standard equipment, had a power take-off that enabled its use as a portable power generator for various tools, and did not require paved road. It also ran on not just gasoline but also kerosene (which makes it likely they could use biodiesel) and ethanol. Not hugely powerful by today's standards, there was a certain ruggedness, ease of repair, ease of modification, and flexibility in regards to fuel that might all be great assets in this hypothetical post-apocalyptic scenario.

Zaune wrote:That's definitely worth investigating but I don't know how well it would scale. We're going to need to run at least half a dozen three-ton trucks, a couple of 4x4s and maybe even a light aircraft or helicopter, and that's just for the initial search-and-salvage phase.

The problem with biodiesel is three-fold: glycerin, gelling, and utilization of fats which, in our agricultural production system (such as it is), will be on the low end. The glycerin can be turned into soap and refined (at an energy cost) so it can be utilized for a variety of other things, but biodiesel produces large enough amounts of the stuff that it becomes a waste product more than a resource. Gelling is a problem, and it varies with the feedstock. With animal fats used as a starting point gelling can start to occur at just slightly below room temperature, but since we'd likely be using plant stocks (if we go this way at all) gelling will probably not be a problem below freezing... but if we're on the Great Plains of the US that will be a problem at least half the year. And finally, biodiesel is generated from fats/oils, which will be in relatively short supply since we're not going to be able to support much livestock (if any) in the bunker and we'll need them in our diet and for other various uses.

Ethanol will work, but it has a lower energy density than gasoline or diesel. That's not necessarily a problem if we can produce relatively abundant ethanol and plan accordingly. It would even work for large trucks.

I do NOT recommend a helicopter. While their VTOL capabilities are nice, as is hovering, they are not even as efficient as light aircraft and they are hideously complex and maintenance intensive. I just don't think we will have sufficient people to keep one or two of them flying. Light aircraft can be flown on ethanol (provided they are equipped with an appropriate engine)

External combustion, a.k.a. steam power, might be a useful tech to utilize, as it would work both for light rail and heavy hauling, as well as post-bunker farm equipment. Steam engines are less fussy than internal combustion engines in regards to fuel, and have been fired with not just wood and coal but also oddball fuels of various sorts.

If someone's making replica Model Ts then that'd be extremely useful, but I don't think buying actual museum pieces would be a good idea; we'd be using this stuff pretty hard, to say nothing of the chunk it'd take out of our generous but definitely finite budget.

I daresay you're right about the helicopter, but we might need that VTOL capability. I should think even an ultralight needs two or three hundred yards of flat ground to land on, and if we ended up using an old mineshaft in the Rockies somewhere then that might be a problem.

And I'd lean towards making steam power a last resort unless we had a convenient source of something other than wood to burn; we don't want to go overboard with the lumberjacking and find ourselves dealing with landslides and soil erosion and the like a generation or two down the line. I think a major criterion for siting the bunker ought to be a nearby water source that was suitable for building a small dam on, that'd give us almost uninterruptible power as well as an ample water supply.

Well if you are running livestock then gas would be a good fuel. Use an Aquaponics system to grow vegetables and produce fish, then all fecal waste can be used for gas production. Off-grid communities have been know to use it so it couldn't be very labour intensive or require a very advanced infrastructure. How long does diesel last? Maybe have a stockpile as a trade commodity with other communities?

Zaune wrote:If someone's making replica Model Ts then that'd be extremely useful, but I don't think buying actual museum pieces would be a good idea; we'd be using this stuff pretty hard, to say nothing of the chunk it'd take out of our generous but definitely finite budget.

More than 15 millions Model T's were built by Ford. Estimates vary widely, but there are probably between 100,000 and 200,000 of them still around. They aren't exactly a rare commodity, even if they are very old by car standards. A quick Google search shows prices ranging from $9,000 to $25,000 for Models T's that are still running - we probably don't want the high end because those are lovingly restores works of art, but clearly you can pick up both originals and no doubt replicas relatively inexpensively. Ford isn't making parts any more, but a lot of other people still are. We could probably pick up some non-running ones and some piles of parts and spend part of the 10 bunker years repairing/reconstructing them, it would be great training for mechanics.

Which is not to say a Model T would be the ideal car for our project, I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of still existing, rugged, easy to repair, simple to run, versatile, multi-fuel vehicles already out there. No need to reinvent the wheel (or the auto).

I daresay you're right about the helicopter, but we might need that VTOL capability.

You're going to need at least a WWII level of tech to keep a helicopter running - can we do that over the long term? They are at least 3-4 times as expensive to run in terms of fuel and maintenance than any fixed wing craft. They have a higher failure rate than fixed-wing aircraft. There is the problem of maintaining currency in the pilot(s) - if the pilot is stuck in the bunker for years he won't be flying it, and his skills will be shit as our simulator capabilities will be sharply limited. Granted, the fixed-wing pilots will face the same problem but fixed-wing aircraft are far more forgiving towards rusty piloting skills than rotorcraft are.

I should think even an ultralight needs two or three hundred yards of flat ground to land on, and if we ended up using an old mineshaft in the Rockies somewhere then that might be a problem.

The answer is "it depends".

Truth is, while the runway needs to be flat in one sense, it doesn't need to be level, slopes can work, too. As long as they're not too excessive. You are correct, most need about 300 yards/meters of run, and most need an additional 300 yards/meters of run beyond that with no significant obstructions (usually stated as nothing above 50 feet/15 meters). There are some single-person ultralights that can do better than that but when I say "single-person" that really means 1 person, no "luggage", and fuel capacity is sharply limited. For aerial surveillance a hot air balloon might actually be most practical if you don't mind being seen for miles around.

However, given the elevation in the Rockies, multiply those runway lengths by at least 2. Do we want to site our bunker in the rockies or somewhere else? This sort of salt mine does exist at lower elevations.

And I'd lean towards making steam power a last resort unless we had a convenient source of something other than wood to burn; we don't want to go overboard with the lumberjacking and find ourselves dealing with landslides and soil erosion and the like a generation or two down the line. I think a major criterion for siting the bunker ought to be a nearby water source that was suitable for building a small dam on, that'd give us almost uninterruptible power as well as an ample water supply.

Fuel is always an issue. If we're on the Great Plains wind will be available, sometimes too available (make sure any windmills have a speed governor) If we're in coal country steam might make some sense. If we're in lumber country we'll be using wood for all sorts of things. Water power is a good thing and has a long history.

We should preserve information on these technologies even if we aren't directly using them.

InsaneTD wrote:Well if you are running livestock then gas would be a good fuel. Use an Aquaponics system to grow vegetables and produce fish, then all fecal waste can be used for gas production.

Don't forget all the human fecal waste we'll be producing.

How long does diesel last? Maybe have a stockpile as a trade commodity with other communities?

Diesel has a finite lifespan as various sediments and gummy stuff forms in it, and you can also get fungus and bacteria growing in it. The general rule is 12 months as a temp of 20 C or slightly lower.

Gasoline has a longer shelf life IF properly stored, and that means sealed, airtight containers. Exposure to air or water over time will result in chemical changes in the gasoline which can cause problems, and also reduce how well it burns, possibly to the point where it will no longer work in an engine. Failure to seal it properly means the more volatile compounds in it can evaporate, again, reducing it's efficiency as a fuel. There are fuel stabilizers available to help increase the shelf life of gas/petrol.

If we're going to store anything fuel-wise it should be gasoline. Either we can make biodiesel or we don't use diesel. Ethanol is easy to make. Methane can be generated from animal waste. We should probably keep at least the capacity to make diesel on a small scale, likewise the other manufacturable fuels.

Human fecal waste does, but if memory serves, you can't have urine in with it if you plan on using it for such things. Better off with a "Biocycle" septic system. Though they require servicing every six months and chlorine to work properly which might make them useless for a vault. They do recycle normal household sewerage to about 90% clean water. Ideal for watering trees and plants in gardens. I have heard that the right filters can make it clean enough to drink, though I'm not sure I want to test that theory.

There are several things we can do with feces/urine. Recycling is probably a good thing, even if what we use the water for is the hydro/aquaponics and watering the "gardens". Feces can be reprocessed into fertilizer, and in fact this is being done right now, see Bay State Fertilizer. I suppose you could have a toilet that separates solids and liquids, recycling the fluids and reprocessing the solids (and if you think there won't need to be some separating done with livestock you obviously haven't kept animals).

I doubt we could achieve a 100% closed system, but if we stock for 10 years of supplies (which will be a HUGE amount) and then recycle as much as possible we'll have a comfortable margin for inevitable losses, waste, and the possibility of trading surplus if there are other nearby survivors.

How about pressurized air instead of fossil fuel burning vehicles?

Broomstick, real Diesel has a nigh on infnite life span, quite a few people who restore old land rovers have fired them up on the original fuel after being sat in a hedge for 10 or 20 years. Gasoline on the other hand has a life of about 6 months if that these days, mostly due to the volatile chemicals evaporating. If you were going for long term usage of either fuel I'd suggest Diesel engined vehicles with Bosch injection pumps to allow for possible bio-diesel use. (The older CAV types unfortunately sieze after a while of running biodiesel / veg oil, and also leak with prolonged exposure to bio-diesel). Petrol vehicles also require electrical components to be replaced on a semi regular basis where as diesels of the right age require once in a while servicing of injectors and pumps and that's about it.
If I was suggesting a vehicle for long term usage it would be Series 2a Land Rover, they made loads of them, and the major parts last nigh on indefinitely so finding spares should be easyish as they are fairly common in the states as well.

krakonfour wrote:How about pressurized air instead of fossil fuel burning vehicles?

It's been tried.

fordlltwm wrote:Broomstick, real Diesel has a nigh on infnite life span, quite a few people who restore old land rovers have fired them up on the original fuel after being sat in a hedge for 10 or 20 years.

Then why all the problems with diesel sediment, bacterial/fungal growth, absorbing of water, etc? Sure, you might fire up an old land rover but how does it keep running on that old fuel, and how soon do you need to replace the fuel filter after you do it, the filter being what catches the junk before in goes into the engine?

Now, a sealed tank - which those old land rovers might have if they aren't corroded and the cap properly screwed on - without a lot of air/humidity in it might be fine (and that also applies to gasoline), but on a large scale this is asking for trouble. You can't count on either diesel or gasoline remaining good for long periods, that is, over a year. Just because the engine fires doesn't mean the fuel is going to burn well/efficiently, and it doesn't mean there isn't crud in the system gumming up the works.

Petrol vehicles also require electrical components to be replaced on a semi regular basis where as diesels of the right age require once in a while servicing of injectors and pumps and that's about it.

The important qualification is "diesels of the right age", which probably also applies to "gas engines of the right age". Up to date engines of either type rely on computers do get most efficient fuel burn.

Zaune wrote:

krakonfour wrote:How about pressurized air instead of fossil fuel burning vehicles?

It's been tried.

Sorry, I knew that. I was just thinking in the context of a low-tech restart of civilization, where relying on a fossil fuel supply isn't the smart thing to do.

Fungal growth is a modern phenomenon due to the brilliant idea of putting bio fuel in everything.

Petrol engines need semi regular replacement of spark plugs, condensors, points, coils, distributor caps and plug leads. As opposed to a filter and an injection equipment overhaul every 50,000 miles or so for an older diesel.

Thread necro but I figured this might be fun to stick some pics in.

Broomstick wrote:Probably spent more time thinking about this today than I should have, but here are some thoughts about the medical services on our 1,000 person (give or take a few) ark:

* Yes, we're going to be sterilizing stuff because we can't resupply. So we'll get autoclaves and equipment that can be re-used where possible. We'll probably still have some disposable stuff, but it will be the exception and not the rule.

With the use of chemicals, sterilization requires less than one hour of time.
However, if we're using steam autoclaves and the like, this means 1-2 hours worth of steam time. And dedicated personnel...... This used to be done by nursing staff but I see no reason why clinic assistants can't do that.

Essentially, you need to clean your syringes and stuff first, then you fill it up with hot water, boil it using electricity(modern autoclaves do it much faster than the antiques shown here) and then immerse your equipment for an hour.

Ooh.



And for funsies, somebody is going to have to resharpen the needles. WITHOUT getting poked by it:D

It takes a few minutes per needle for experienced staff but yeah.

Sterilisation used to be done by night nurses, ditto for needle sharpening, although clinics used to have a clinic assistant whose sole job was to autoclave and then resharpen, repackage equipment. Remember, sterilization isn't enough, you need to PACK it so as to ensure it stays sterile.


And in an era where you don't have disposable paper(hmm......... anyone knows whether recycled paper might work?), that means cloth. And steam. Modern machines require up to 90 min of errr......... I think its 80 degree Celsius to properly sterilize some bug resistant material, otherwise, normal temp is I think 60. Anyone knows this for certain?


Anyway. All this adds up to fuel and power consumption for 1 thousand people.

* There are some things we just are not going to be doing. Organ transplants, major heart surgery, and modern cancer treatment are examples - we won't have the personnel or the base civilization required. We can provide palliative care for most conditions. For early skin cancer we can cut it out. But realistically we can not maintain what is required for advanced early 21st Century medical care. Our capacity to deal with trauma will likewise be limited. Broken bones, yes, many times of lacerations, some types of gunshots, etc. but major trauma care as currently defined will probably be beyond this facility.

If you have milk bottles, a fridge, adequately typed blood groups and a database, you can transfuse whole blood.
And with coconuts, you get an adequate source of short term saline, alternatively, you can simply prep your own saline industry inside a bunker.

But this will require space inside said salt mine and more drain on fuel.

The only real limitations is more of drugs and the lack of surgeons.


However.... palliative care.......
First, we need to define the population group. We're not going to get that many cancer cases that decline dramatically, but palliative cases from the apocalypse is another story. Radiation poisoning? Or simply dying from infection?
We have some existing posters with health problems..........so that means ESRF care and either heart failure or COPD.

That means a couple of things.

Oxygen. You can do that using oxygen concentrators nowadays.
Drugs. And that's the big problem.
You need a wide supply of drugs to provide palliative care. There's the basic painkillers, so, you need large doses of paracetemol, NSAIDs, stuff to protect you from painkillers side effects, and lastly, morphine. A huge array of opoids.
In real life, more than 5 million people go without adequate pain relief because of their inability to access adequate drugs, including actual drug shortages. Some of them are grossly perverse, such as shortages of morphine in countries neighboring the Golden Triangle.......
To give an example of just how profilic such drug use is, we keep more than 100 tabs of paracetemol in my ward of 25 patients. We can use it all up within 2-4 days. Recommended dosing for pain patients is 8 tabs a day. And you need this drug for everything.......
Opoids is however still the biggie. You can simplify the logistics by only stocking certain drug types and optimizing it, but that increases consumption of short term opoids. And for heart failure, COPD, cancer, even Parkinson use painkillers.

And this ignores the other drugs for other symptoms, be it from drying up secretions to sedation drugs.

To put it simply, without a logistic base, you can't really provide effective palliative care for a lot of people. We might be able to stockpile and do it if we don't have a large patient load, but that really depends on what the disaster inflicts on us and whether said injuries/care is a long term or short term issue.
Granted, this is probably me bringing in real life biases into a thread but the logistic issues for palliative care is one of the main obstacles in real life, that along with trained personnel.