Subject: Sci if buffs, I need help
Author:
Posted on: 2009-12-29 21:59:00 UTC
In my fic I have a scene where the protagonist boards another ship by breaching the airlock, but I never really thought about how this would be done. If you simply destroyed the airlock with a bomb, the adjoining room would probably be sealed off to prevent the atmosphere from escaping the ship. In your fandoms, how do people usually breach an airlock?
...dock against the airlock, then come through your airlock, maintaining a hard seal so no air escapes.
I guess you could wear a spacesuit and cut through the interior doors as well, or go through an inner airlock that doesn't seal you out, but there are obvious problems with both approaches.
I've mainly seen the first one, sometimes the second one. Third is rare, but not impossible.
You could cut through the hull, using an airlock designed to allow you to do so without depressurizing the compartment, or just cut through the hull in a spacesuit.
the thing that gets me is that an airlock is made of two doors and both of them would probably closed. You would have to cut through both of them and then leave the enemy ship with no way to stop venting oxygen. For some reason I don't totally understand this doesn't seem right. I'm trying to find a way to board the ship, steal all of the cargo, and leave without depressurizing the ship (Although the engines are disabled.)
You just kind of have to deal with that. The dock method is the only one that doesn't seal interior doors automatically, but they'll probably seal the interior doors anyway. Unless you can hack the airlock open, you'll depressurize at least one compartment unless you fix the door.