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mc776Thoughts about a ship (human)
Multiple levels connected by a central shaft. Assume "down" is rearwards. No windows - if you want to look outside, go outside.
Constant radio communication between the crew. There's no air in most work areas and you're in your suit.
Minimum crew and levels: upper (nose) level exploration/ground team/labs; mid levels specialist/intel, then sickbay/meeting room, followed by bunks/shower; lower level system monitors and maintenance.
Physical engine work is done outside the ship, with the coverings open and the radiators out.
Sickbay/meeting and bunks/shower are both pressurized and suits may be removed. If something must be quarantined it is left outside or in the depressurized lab; if someone, they stay in the suit and are prohibited from using the shower. Each crew member has a vacuum-proof bedpan assigned to them and them alone.
(The shower can, of course, be used to clean the suits which insides get nasty after a while.)
Each working floor has 2 escape hatches, orientation alternates between levels.
A central shaft with a ladder in the middle connects all levels, except for a gap to accommodate the airlock. Inside the airlock are rails on the sides that let the user keep a grip when entering and exiting.
Every door must be manually opened and closed. The airlock consists of two main doors each of which which cannot be opened unless the other is closed, and a third independent door that seals off the pressurized levels from the airlock. Depressurization of the airlock can only occur while the third door is sealed, and repressurization only while the main door is set so that the airlock is sealed off from the working levels. When nothing is going on, the airlock is pressurized and sealed off from all other levels.
Bunks are separated by privacy screens.
Everything is secured to the floor or wall. All interface devices can be rotated to suit the user's orientation at the time.
Armaments: rockets, mines, particle beams, probes.
Variant: turn into an aircraft for re-entry and takeoff. All the seats are swivelled so that up becomes forward. The occupied rooms only exit from one side, the other side being the rest of the ship - and the walls on that side are painted green to signify the alternate floor. There is an extra room - the cockpit - that serves for piloting the ship while it is in the air and no other purpose.
Thoughts on those better adapted
The spacers are long and serpentine with hard, thick, dry, slightly yielding exoskeletons that don't let their contents dry out easily. Their skin is bright white except for dark rings around their eyes. Their eyelids are under a big transparent section of skin so they can close their eyes to shield from harmful rays but the eyes don't dry out while open. They breathe through their sides, but only out of a few segments behind the head so the breathing apparatus is nicely out of the way. They have big grippers on the front and back ends, and on the front end near the eyes are antennae/fine manipulators for detail work. These manipulators can be tucked in out of the way when not used. They have four-way symmetry and no concept of up or down separate from forward and backward. Their ships have photosynthetic outsides that turn their crap and molts back into food (though there is always a little waste so they have to resupply and clean out every so often).
They communicate entirely by radio bits and the initial implantation of a preverbal child is a very imporant rite of passage into personhood. They are territorial only for the sake of their community and otherwise have no sense of individual privacy or personal space. A group of five able-bodied spacers is considered isolated and vulnerable, and a lone spacer is to their eyes what a human with no arms or legs is to ours.
Bookshelf test: The lead man grips the shelf with his butt and the rear man grips the shelf with his face. The other end of each then grips the floor (i.e., the surface of the ship they're on). And then they slowly "walk" along. More people are brought to help push or pull or balance if the object is heavy (i.e., massive and they have to work against the ship's acceleration).
The exoskeleton joints have places where they can "lock" or support each other so that the spacer can straighten up and retract slightly to work from a strong, supported position. This can also carry from one spacer to the next if they are willing to lock up heads and butts to form such a chain. ("Human centipeding" is seen as little more than one of those stupid things young people do, but is actually an important way to maintain and synchronize common gut flora.)
Some people prefer to grip the shelf side by side and walk along like a biped; this seems to be a cultural thing and there is often some friction when people work together who have different starting assumptions.
Multiple levels connected by a central shaft. Assume "down" is rearwards. No windows - if you want to look outside, go outside.
Constant radio communication between the crew. There's no air in most work areas and you're in your suit.
Minimum crew and levels: upper (nose) level exploration/ground team/labs; mid levels specialist/intel, then sickbay/meeting room, followed by bunks/shower; lower level system monitors and maintenance.
Physical engine work is done outside the ship, with the coverings open and the radiators out.
Sickbay/meeting and bunks/shower are both pressurized and suits may be removed. If something must be quarantined it is left outside or in the depressurized lab; if someone, they stay in the suit and are prohibited from using the shower. Each crew member has a vacuum-proof bedpan assigned to them and them alone.
(The shower can, of course, be used to clean the suits which insides get nasty after a while.)
Each working floor has 2 escape hatches, orientation alternates between levels.
A central shaft with a ladder in the middle connects all levels, except for a gap to accommodate the airlock. Inside the airlock are rails on the sides that let the user keep a grip when entering and exiting.
Every door must be manually opened and closed. The airlock consists of two main doors each of which which cannot be opened unless the other is closed, and a third independent door that seals off the pressurized levels from the airlock. Depressurization of the airlock can only occur while the third door is sealed, and repressurization only while the main door is set so that the airlock is sealed off from the working levels. When nothing is going on, the airlock is pressurized and sealed off from all other levels.
Bunks are separated by privacy screens.
Everything is secured to the floor or wall. All interface devices can be rotated to suit the user's orientation at the time.
Armaments: rockets, mines, particle beams, probes.
Variant: turn into an aircraft for re-entry and takeoff. All the seats are swivelled so that up becomes forward. The occupied rooms only exit from one side, the other side being the rest of the ship - and the walls on that side are painted green to signify the alternate floor. There is an extra room - the cockpit - that serves for piloting the ship while it is in the air and no other purpose.
Thoughts on those better adapted
The spacers are long and serpentine with hard, thick, dry, slightly yielding exoskeletons that don't let their contents dry out easily. Their skin is bright white except for dark rings around their eyes. Their eyelids are under a big transparent section of skin so they can close their eyes to shield from harmful rays but the eyes don't dry out while open. They breathe through their sides, but only out of a few segments behind the head so the breathing apparatus is nicely out of the way. They have big grippers on the front and back ends, and on the front end near the eyes are antennae/fine manipulators for detail work. These manipulators can be tucked in out of the way when not used. They have four-way symmetry and no concept of up or down separate from forward and backward. Their ships have photosynthetic outsides that turn their crap and molts back into food (though there is always a little waste so they have to resupply and clean out every so often).
They communicate entirely by radio bits and the initial implantation of a preverbal child is a very imporant rite of passage into personhood. They are territorial only for the sake of their community and otherwise have no sense of individual privacy or personal space. A group of five able-bodied spacers is considered isolated and vulnerable, and a lone spacer is to their eyes what a human with no arms or legs is to ours.
Bookshelf test: The lead man grips the shelf with his butt and the rear man grips the shelf with his face. The other end of each then grips the floor (i.e., the surface of the ship they're on). And then they slowly "walk" along. More people are brought to help push or pull or balance if the object is heavy (i.e., massive and they have to work against the ship's acceleration).
The exoskeleton joints have places where they can "lock" or support each other so that the spacer can straighten up and retract slightly to work from a strong, supported position. This can also carry from one spacer to the next if they are willing to lock up heads and butts to form such a chain. ("Human centipeding" is seen as little more than one of those stupid things young people do, but is actually an important way to maintain and synchronize common gut flora.)
Some people prefer to grip the shelf side by side and walk along like a biped; this seems to be a cultural thing and there is often some friction when people work together who have different starting assumptions.