…
Apparently ZIL members could not stay well behaved for long. Somebody had to say something playful.
“…but the toilets are still small.”
“Yeah, but that’s Japanese superautomated toilets with dozens of functions, not Soviet hole on outhouse floor.”
“21st century technology, not 1st century.”
“Nope. Romans had auto flushing toilets in the 1st century,” Stacy could not help interjecting. “They redirected water via aqueducts and kept it running to wash away the waste in public toilets.”
“Great. So 21st century vs 21 centuries BC.”
Stacy decided not to play the role of a pedantic nerd and correct anyone a second time. Actually Mohenjo-Daro already had a proper sewage system in the 25th century BC. Its residents would have found Soviet outhouse toilets primitive.
“Well, even if we could afford to use so much water, flushing toilets wouldn’t work for a country that is mostly permafrost underneath.”
…
“Wait, we don’t get any bathtub on board. Even a k-slum had sitting bathtubs.”
“We do have a banya on board with space for six people. How many homes come with a banya?”
“Yeah, you can’t complain. Not when we have two showers on board with handheld and overhead showers, and lots of adjustable stuff.”
“There are multiple showering options?” Marilyn asked. “I didn’t notice, and I’m pretty sure I showered every day!” All she remembered was a water pipe with no shower head. Like in a barracks.
“When you first got on board the ship, they hadn’t done all the finishing. Now they’ve set things up with new permanent fittings. Looks great.”
“There are ceiling mounted rain showers now. Totally awesome.”
“What’s a rain shower?
“Its… how to describe it? You need to experience it yourself!”
“Never mind, it doesn’t rain in Uzbekistan anyway.”
“It does rain!”
“Not enough to be called a shower though.”
“Don’t get mad, Marilyn. It also doesn’t rain enough in Kazakhstan to get us the rain shower experience. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Warm loving tropical shower…”
“Actually, for all the mockery, I’m pretty sure everyone is the same as you, Marilyn. Never been to the tropics before.”
…
…
“Incredible. We’ve come so far, and we’re still living in a modern k-slum.”
“One that cost about $200 million USD to put into the air,” Stacy intervened again just to watch her teammates’ expressions.
“Two hundred million USD? How many rubles is that?”
“Approximately five billion rubles at our current exchange rates,” Naz did the mental sums.
Angel was incredulous. “Our flying komunalka costs this much?”
“To convert into Uzbek som, that would probably add another two zeroes,” Marilyn mused. “Maybe half a trillion som…”
“That’s a lot to pay for a flying k-slum,” Naz said. “Khrushchev would probably turn over in his grave.”
Mischief making was clearly still in progress.
“It’s a very high tech k-slum,” Riley stated with the firmness of an IT manager who didn’t want others to disparage her work. “Every room is wired with local area network ports. You could grab a laptop and work from anywhere in the ship including your bed if you got bored with your own desk.”
“Yeah, post-Soviet era, Capitalist functionality. We’ve got to be a very competitive workplace,” Angel said with determined gesture.
“Even the kitchen has a computer terminal. Talk about work obsessed! We’re the slaves of capitalist… I mean, computers!”
“What year is this again? If this was the year 2050,” Riley mocked, “The Soviets would be using stolen technology current in the capitalist world nearly fifty years ago.”
“Ah, memories,” Marilyn said with a smile. She wasn’t strongly against the Soviet Union, since post-Soviet Uzbekistan had not turned out to be particularly great anyway.
The word memories triggered something in Riley.
“You won’t believe our digital storage capacity,” Riley said. “It’s insane, even by Western capitalist wealth standards. You’re talking about half a petabyte on this ship.”
“Is that some Lithuanian way of referring to terabytes?” Angel responded, unfamiliar with the word petabyte.
“Half a petabyte is 500 terabytes which is half a million gigabytes,” Naz explained.
“That’s indeed insane!” Angel was shocked. “It’s probably more than all the computers in my school put together.”
“Jokes and jibes aside, our Benefactors are serious folks. Our computing and storage capacity is on par with that found in a small institute of higher learning. Or a polytechnic with a couple thousand students,” Riley said. “At going rates of about $200 USD for 1TB, they’ve spent a hundred thousand USD on just hard disk storage alone. They say we should be doing field research, and this is the kind of computing power that can handle almost anything needed for fieldwork.”
Riley didn’t say that as the computer technician, she would probably have a lot to do to keep the system running well.
…
…
Marilyn decided she needed to bring back the topic, and continue mock-mocking Soviet housing.
“Our bedrooms are small with modest wardrobe size. Looks even smaller than k-slum bedrooms.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re doing better than the first class passengers on the Hindenburg,” Naz defended the airship unexpectedly. “I’ve seen photos before, and their cabins were half the size of ours. And they had to share an upper bunk with others too!”
“Wait, k-slums at least had easy access to lots of other socialist facilities. Like shops, schools, childcare, clinics within a short distance.”
“We definitely don’t get that on board here.”
“Oh no, we do. Next door to the biology lab – my office – there is a well equipped medical store. Probably beats most Soviet era clinics.”
“And we have tons of stores. There’s no need to visit any market for months if we don’t want to.”
“Childcare is out of the issue though. What if we want to have kids?”
“Are you kidding? This is an all-female team. Who’s going to help you make babies?”
Everyone laughed.
“But consider this. We have quadruple glazing, and underfloor heating. This kind of luxury you can’t get anywhere…”
Stacy had to ask.
“Naz, quadruple glazing? Isn’t that overkill?”
“Passivhaus standard is triple glazing,” Riley said. “Is quadruple glazing intended for use in the Arctic or something?”
“No, not that,” Naz said. “But our Benefactors – or their planners – seem to have considered everything. Our windows actually consist of two sets, an inner and an outer. They didn’t use custom made or custom fit, so everything is done with commonplace specs and replaceable. In fact our stores have a few windows so that we can replace them ourselves.”
“Surely it’s not that replaceable,” Angel said. “I am not a mechanical or civil engineer, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen people’s homes using windows with rounded corners.”
“The window frames are harder to replace. That’s why we have spares. But getting people to cut acrylic with rounded corners, and then mounting these, is not hard. So we can take out windows with damaged panes and replace the acrylic, then put back the window without too much difficulty.”
“Why rounded corners in the first place? I confess I don’t know these engineering matters,” Stacy said.
“Sharp corners – like those used in the first commercial jet the de Havilland Comet – have a tendency to put stress on the airframe.”
“But we will always be traveling at a far slower speed than any jet.”
“True. But there will still be stresses from air pressure differentials when we ascend and descend. I suppose that’s the main reason for not wanting to subject our gondola to unnecessary stresses.”
…
“Using two sets of double glazed windows should not cost any more than a single set of triple glazed windows. And the double glazed ones are much easier and cheaper to replace. It also gives us some flexibility, since we can open the windows in winter to improve ventilation, or in summer to cool us down.”
“This isn’t a jet,” Riley remarked thoughtfully. “Of course! If we don’t have to deal with dramatic pressure differences, we can open windows if we want!”
“Hang on,” Marilyn spoke up. “According to the manuals, the ship can still be sealed airtight. It’s not just for keeping out the cold or any possible pollution hazards. If we’re going to ascend to altitude, we will need to maintain a higher pressure inside than outside for us to breathe comfortably. And that’s probably the reason for having two layers of windows. In the event that one layer is damaged, we can still maintain our air pressure difference.”
“Could have been done like they do on jet planes, with a single window of three layers,” Naz mused. “But definitely that would be something we can’t replace on our own. Any breakage will result in whole airship having to flee back to the manufacturers for the real experts to service. The current setup is cheaper and more easily fixed in the field.”
“On jet planes they have a little hole in the middle. That’s for venting pressure or something?” Stacy asked.
“Yes. As well as for wicking moisture. But if we can open our inner windows, we don’t need to do that already.”
…
“But now here’s the question. How much altitude is Marilyn saying we can ascend to?”
“Documentation says that an airship has no real limits,” Marilyn said. “Could be many kilometers up. Just that I wouldn’t want to be doing that, because it would really get uncomfortable inside.
“Do we have a pressurization system like a jet?” Stacy asked.
“Nope. We’re an airship, so we’re unpressurized.”
“Then how does ascending to 2-3km affect our breathing?” Riley asked. Like most Lithuanians, she had spent nearly all her life at a low altitude.
“It doesn’t really affect,” Naz said. “Because most air molecules are found 2-3km from the earth’s surface. So at these altitudes normal people have no difficult breathing.”
Naz asked Riley: “You’ve flown on jet aircraft before?”
“Yes.”
“On commercial flights, internal pressure is equivalent to 2 plus km altitude. You’re not actually breathing sea level air pressure equivalent. But the jet will be flying at 10-11km altitude, so pressure outside is much lower than inside.”
“Oh… so that means that if we ascend to 2-3km in this airship and we don’t have a pressurization system, it’s no different from flying in a commercial jet?”
“I would say so. And at 2-3km altitude, the pressure difference with the outside of our airship is nowhere as great as between the interior of a commercial jet versus the air outside the jet at 11km altitude.”
“I can’t remember the function, but I think it was an inverse proportional curve,” Naz told Riley. “Midpoint was roughly at 5km.”
“You can’t breathe properly at 5km. It’s about 50kPa,” Marilyn interjected. “That’s about the limit for human settlement, and we’re talking about altitude-adapted folks like Tibetans and Aymara people. For low altitude people like us, we had better stay below 3km.”
Riley pulled up a graph and looked. “If we ascend to 5km in an unpressurized craft, but from 2km we keep all our windows and doors tightly sealed on the way up, our interior will have 50% more pressure as the outside. Think that is doable?”
“Doable,” Naz said. “Pessure differential is much greater for the cabin of a jet aircraft at normal cruising altitude. Maybe four times more pressure inside than outside. And our gondola is just as solidly built.”
“Wait, how do the windows survive this?” Angel suddenly spoke up. “Graph says it’s 80kPa at 2km altitude. At 5km it will be 50kPa outside. So if we ascend with totally sealed windows and doors, there’s now 30kPa worth of pressure on the windows. From our air trying to get out.
At 30kPa pressure, we’re looking at 300grams of pressure per square cm. There’s more than a hundred kg of pressure on every window.”
“We definitely can’t open the windows if we do this,” Stacy said. “I don’t have 100kg of strength in my arms.”
“Even with this modest pressure differential- much less than exists on a cruising jet – it would be dangerous if any window broke,” Angel warned.
“So I think we’ll have to compromise. If we’re ascending to 5km, we should go for, maybe 70kPa internal air pressure. So we only seal the windows at 3km altitude. It would be slightly uncomfortable to breathe this high altitude air, but when we ascend to 5km the pressure differential won’t be so big. Then there’s much less risk of us being sucked out if windows broke,” Riley mused as she quickly did some mental calculations. “I think any human is capable of resisting that level of pressure pulling us outside.”
“Furthermore, we should consider this,” Marilyn said: “When the air pressure outside is low, we’ll start having to burn fuel just to generate aerodynamic lift.”
“I think the main reason for ascending really high, is to cross mountainous areas.”
“Highest parts of the ex-USSR are in the Tengri Too and the Pamirs. More than seven kilometers up.”
“That’s impressive. And we can do that in this airship?”
“Not advisable, and lots of prep work and calculations will have to be made. But theoretically possible.”
“I hope our Benefactors never ask us to carry out some mountain research assignment. That would be very uncomfortable.”
“We definitely won’t be able to hover for long over high mountains,” Marilyn said. “Due to the insufficient lift requiring us to burn fuel. Over the Urals is entirely fine. Altai area also. Chukotka – dunno who would want to go there, but we can make it. For the Kavkaz region I’ll have to do lots of homework since we need to ascend to 5km, so we’ll have to move carefully.”
“We could always make a sea approach and avoid crossing the Kavkaz ranges directly.”
“That would make my work a lot easier,” Marilyn said. “I think ground that is two kilometers above sea level is about as high as I’d like to go. Remember that we are an airship, so we still need minimum of 300 meters of clearance above that ground to be safe.”
“I don’t know how good our AI is,” Riley said. “But I understand that location of all radio masts and whatever supertall spiky structures that exist in the former USSR, have been programmed into the system.”
“Which is of doubtful use,” Marilyn pointed out. “Remember all the closed cities, military bases, secret test sites and what not. I haven’t a clue what we will come across when traveling in an airship.”
“Ostankino Tower was the highest structure in the USSR, so that is about as high as it gets. Surely anything higher – no matter how hush-hush military and located in some remote place – would have been noticed,” Naz commented.
“Ostankino’s 540.1 meters high,” Riley checked the computer. “I think it is safe to say that at 550m above ground, we really won’t run into anything in all of the former Soviet Union.”
“Unfortunately it won’t be comfortable for cruising,” Marilyn said with the attention of somebody used to warmer climates. “Russia is cold enough normally, and at 550m we’re going to be 3.6 degrees celsius colder than ground level. Cruising at 300m will be 1.95 degrees colder. That’s much more practical. At these altitudes there’ll be a bit of pressure difference between inside and outside already.”
“If it’s that cold we can do heating?” Angel asked.
“Yes and no. Yes because we have that capability. No because it will be much too expensive.”
Riley was doing calculations on the kitchen computer. “If the average k-slum flat is 40 square meters, the total gondola floor space on the MMM is equal to over fifty k-slums. Our heating systems on this ship are surely a lot, minimum 30% more energy efficient than Soviet era housing at a minimum. Our ceilings are comparable to a k-slum in height. But we’re going to be up in the air, subject to wind chill from all directions, and the surrounding temperature will be at least 2 degrees lower. So maybe net off, heating will cost us the equivalent of 50 k-slums.”
“I get the point,” Angel folded her arms. “If we assume that one fifth of the average income goes to heating, the five of us are going to have to spend ten times the average person’s income just to have heating on board!”
“It won’t be as bad as this I hope,” Stacy said. “We’re supposed to be getting a steady stream of research and data collection assignments which pay quite well, because nobody else has the same data collection capabilities in the field.”
Riley was thinking fast.
“But I – at least, based on Baltic regional costs – also estimate that our heating costs alone would be in the $80k USD range. Since all the solar power we get has to go towards maintaining the cloaking, and I expect to have to buy fuel in winter to maintain the cloaking.”
“Whew!” Angel almost whistled. “Our Benefactors promised to pay three quarters the heating cost, but even that would mean we have to fork out $20k USD between ourselves.”
“And if we travel to even colder places…” Marilyn’s big green eyes turned and focused on Stacy, “it could very well be $40 or $60k USD to pay for heating. Hundreds of millions of som. Stacy, that’s plenty reason not to travel too far north!”
“All right, so we should avoid flying too high to save on heating. We should also have a rule against traveling at night, except over ground that we have already covered or which we have a very high degree of confidence is properly mapped,” Stacy suggested. “Or we do night traveling only at higher altitudes where we can be sure there are no human structures.”
“Works fine with me,” Marilyn said. “I’ll have to stay up if we travel, and I think it’s too dangerous to be flying blind no matter how good the autopilot is.”
Stacy had not answered Marilyn directly about where to go, since she didn’t know if there would be missions that they wanted to take in colder places. She was not keen on refusing missions even if the heating costs would be expensive. But she noticed that Marilyn wasn’t too calculative either.
“And just a qualifier,” Riley raised her hand. “My estimate of $80k USD, maybe 2 million rubles at the current exchange rate, only works if we don’t go any colder than Southern Siberia. I really dare not imagine how much more expensive heating will be if we spend time in Yakutia or Chukota.”
“Actually, there might be winter assignments,” Marilyn said. “My Benefactors only alluded briefly to these so I’m wondering. Maybe we would get stuff like counting seals or polar bears. You know, collect samples of polar bear poo for analysis.
Really hope we don’t do anything that encourages our Benefactors to give us high altitude or latitude assignments!”
Stacy smiled and leaned her head on one hand. Simple data collection work could always be delegated to untrained native people, who would get valuable currency in exchange for doing work entirely within their capabilities. ZIL’s Arctic assignments would probably involve the more advanced capabilities present on the MMM, such as doing onsite chemical analyses of water and soil pollutants.
“Hey, back to cloaking,” Riley was saying. “If we uncloak, we save a huge amount of energy. But it comes with danger.”
“We could turn off cloaking when in unpopulated places far from military bases or sensitive installations,” Stacy said. “And turn it on again only if we feel threatened.”
“That would work quite well I think,” Marilyn said. “There are many forests where we can drop our altitude to just above the treeline. Won’t be anybody around, and our shadow won’t cause problems.”
And so the ZIL members worked out how they wanted to do things. It wasn’t as easy or free as they would like. Despite what Americans might call the ‘cool’ factor of having an ultra expensive, super big mobile home, actually life on board the MMM was still subject to many practical restrictions.
Freedom? Stacy smiled to herself. No matter how many freedoms one had, one was always subject to resource constraints. The ZIL team had been given such an incredible place to stay for free, outfitted with the latest technology, able to go anywhere and hidden from enemies or petty government tyrants using a cloaking system. Stacy figured that only 1 in a hundred thousand people on earth would ever have the opportunity to live in a $200 million home, let alone one like this which required access to cutting edge technology and skilled workers to build it.
But still there were still a lot of things they couldn’t do or found it unwise or unwieldy to do.
Most travel would be done during the day. If they were to travel at night, they might have to ascend. And they would still need to pay careful attention to their radar to avoid collisions, since other aircraft could not detect the airship if it was cloaked.
And there were places they could safely hover without being noticed, and other places where they couldn’t hover. So they couldn’t go just about anywhere they desired.
Stacy and Marilyn went through various maps and figures together.
Roughly half of Russia, and more than two fifths of Belarus was forested. It would not be too hard to find a forest to hover over in these parts. But many other countries had much less tree cover. Ukraine was only one-sixth forest. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, not even one twelfth, and mainly thin forest at that. Worst off was Kazakhstan – the second biggest ex-Soviet Republic – which had almost no forest. What little tree cover existed, was mainly concentrated in border regions. Unlike in the Kavkaz region where at least the MMM could hide in mountain shadows, there was nowhere to hide across the vast prairies of Kazakhstan. The MMM’s shadow would be obvious and cloaking would not work.
…
As the group broke up, Marilyn got hold of Naz. “Naz, did you know that taste buds don’t work well at higher altitudes?”
“I didn’t know that,” Naz said. “But that means we’re not going to enjoy our food as much if we fly too high?”
“Yes. Now that you know that, would you like us to be cruising at 2.5km instead of 0.5km altitude?”
“Never!” That was Naz’s predictable response.