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"There's no point in making a mistake unless you understand the mistake so that you don’t make it again."
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Emergency Shelter | ||
| A small cubicle that provides a last refuge in case the spacecraft's atmosphere is lost. |
| But all this was of no use to Bowman. There was no one aboard Discovery who could recompress him. He had to reach safety in the next few seconds, by his own unaided efforts.
Fortunately, it was becoming easier to move; the thinning air could no longer claw and tear at him, or batter him with flying projectiles. There was the yellow EMERGENCY SHELTER sign around the curve of the corridor. He stumbled toward it, grabbed at the handle, and pulled the door toward him. For one horrible moment he thought that it was stuck. Then the slightly stiff hinge yielded, and he fell inside, using the weight of his body to close the door behind him. The tiny cubicle was just large enough to hold one man – and a spacesuit. Near the ceiling was a small, bright green high-pressure cylinder labeled 02 FLOOD. Bowman caught hold of the short lever fastened to the valve and with his last strength pulled it down. The blessed torrent of cool, pure oxygen poured into his lungs. For a long moment he stood gasping, while the pressure in the closet-sized little chamber rose around him. As soon as he could breathe comfortably, he closed the valve. There was only enough gas in the cylinder for two such performances; he might need to use it again. |
| Technovelgy from 2001: A Space Odyssey ,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Del Rey in 1968 Additional resources -
|
This minimalist survival room reminds me of the locker in which Gully Foyle barely survived the wreck of his spaceship in The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.
He felt through the locker shelves and located a torn spacesuit. It was the only one aboard Nomad and Foyle no longer remembered where or how he had found it... Foyle got into the suit. It would hold enough air from the locker to allow him five minutes in vacuum... no more. Foyle opened the locker door and plunged out into the black frost of space.
The air in the locker puffed out with him and its moisture congealed into a tiny snow cloud that drifted down the torn main-deck corridor...
Thanks to @nyrath for tweeting about this.
Compare to the escapecraft from The Ethical Equations (1945) by Murray Leinster, the
emergency space-boat from Revolt of the Star Men (1932) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the escape pod from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas, the life tubes from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, the life ship from The Invisible World by Ed Earl Repp and the emergency lifeboats from Triplanetary (1934) by 'Doc' Smith.
'Foyle awoke. His heart hammered and his throat burned. He groped in the dark for the air tank which shared his [locker] with him and checked it. The tank was empty. Another would have to be moved in at once...
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'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
