Space Station Utilities

When you think about paying your utility bill, that generally means paying for the electricity you used, the water pumped into your house, the sewage system, and trash removal . How do those work on your station? I discussed electricity ideas earlier in the engineering post but what about the other utilities?
In the many Star Trek series they had a replicator system that turned the trash and sewage back into usable items by breaking the trash and sewage down into atoms and storing the atoms until they were reformed into clean items requested at a replicator. With the major push for recycling going on in the world now, such an invention could happen. Somehow every form of waste could be recycled into usable products on your station or you could set up your station to automatically separate the recyclables from the burnables and sewage. While the recyclables are recycled or sent elsewhere to be reused, the burnables are burned or melted down, the bad smoke purified and the ashes kept with the sewage to be sent by cargo ship somewhere else.
As for the water on ship, that would likely need to get purified and reused or created somehow. A simple way to do that would be to turn the dirty water into steam, purify the steam, and turn it back into usable water, maybe add some vitamins to the drinking water system.
Another set of systems that fit under the term “utilities” on a space ship is what I referred to as the communications department on a ship. The department is in charge of making sure everyone has every ability possible to talk to anyone off station and anyone on station and you probably want to think of at least a basic explanation of how before continuing to create your station. Do your people communicate by video over the network, by a communication device on them somewhere(Star Trek phone like device that as well as a button on their breast that caught their voice and transmitted it wirelessly while Babylon 5 had a similar device on the back of their hands for station personnel), by a halogram of some sort, or by another method.
No matter how you decide your utilities work on your station, figure out how the people on station would get help if something breaks. No matter where you are or what century your story is set in, things can always break. You may be in a state-of-the-art station newly built and tested to perfection, but there are always unexpected glitches in the system, whether too much hair or trash in the pipes backs up the sewage system every once in a while or a virus has the replicators only creating discolored food or one type of food. Such glitches would seem disasterous to civilians and a help desk should be manned all day, everyday to calm them down until the problem can be dealt with.

What Dock System Does Your Fictional Space Station Have?

If you watch science fiction movies or television series, you may have noticed two different docking systems shown. On Star Trek: Deep Space 9 the space ship docks on the outside of the ship. It connects its door to a door on the station that extends and creates an air tight seal. That enables people to leave the ship through a hallway pressurized safely so that they don’t die from leaving the ship in space. On the television show Babylon 5 and the five movies that spun off it, the docks were quite different. In that show the ships entered the station, turned their navigation over to the station and the station parking the ship in a pressurized cargo hold that people could safely walk through. Both ideas have their pros and cons but let’s think about the internal dock theory first. The show depicted a number of problems from the pilots panicking and trying to navigate their ships in the tight areas, usually causing massive accidents that shut down those parts of the docks for days or weeks to the long hours of preventative maintenance and preservation the dock workers had to put in to keep the corrosion from space at a workable level. No other place on station, other than the hull, has so much contact with space and the changing pressures between space and livable. As a result the systems would need constant maintenance to remain operational. Star Trek: Deep Space 9 seemed to show no problems with the system other than the clumsy driver every once in a while that parked the ship wrong and screwed up that docking mechanism. However, that system left a limited number of docks, although large ships could dock straight to the station while large ships had to wait outside Babylon 5 and their crew and cargo where shuttled in by station shuttles. Also, the Babylon 5 method offered more protection to the docked ship. If Deep Space 9 was attacked, all the ships docked with it would be sitting ducks for enemy fire, although the station has a force field that encircles the ships in the station’s defense capabilities. (Is there a ship too big for that field to protect? Just a thought that never seems to be discussed on Deep Space 9 that you may want to answer before your station is attacked if you have this type of docks.)
Another type of dock system is a modern one where ships attach themselves to buoys or a certain place in the water and the people are ferried in to land in smaller boats. The practice is called “anchoring out” and happens when big boats want to pull into a harbor with waters too shallow to support the large ship.
No matter what type of docking system you decide to go with for your space station, the schedule will usually be hard to keep up, depending on your station type and location. If your station is a military outpost or a research center of some sort it may not get much traffic other than the yearly supply ship that brings new workers and fresh research material, you may not need a schedule or much in the way of docking either. If your station is a trade center for a few systems, as most stations are, you will need a schedule saying what docks are open, what docks aren’t, when they’ll be open, and when the expected ships will arrive as well as plans for if unexpected ships arrive out of schedule. It is a harbor workers worst nightmare to be in charge of that schedule and it takes a number of operators in a tower to direct and enforce the schedule at airports. Space pilots hate to wait their turn and always want to jump the line or convince people that their business is more important than those around them. Space ships can come at all hours since in space the clock on station is the only time around. The docks need to be scheduled to be at least partly open all day long which means more schedules and more complaints. Oh well, what’s a boss to do but listen to complaints at assigned jobs?

What Type of Command Center Does Your Station Have?

Just as every computer has its headquarters (a server), so every space station has its command center and command crew. It doesn’t matter if the station is civilian, military, or run by some variation or combination. Every station is run by a set of people (I called them department heads in my ship creation series) that are in charge of different areas of the station. Although it would be possible for those people to run the station as a board, it would be difficult to get them all to work together without someone above them making sure station politics doesn’t break down and people refuse to work together. Just as every city has its mayor, every station has its captain, the person overall in charge of the station. That person doesn’t need to be called the captain, he or she may not even have a title. They may be nothing more than a Secretary of Utilities or the manager of a company hired to run the station but he or she has a place to sit and monitor schedules, power plant readouts, personal problems of the crew, complaints about service, make advancement decisions, damage reports, and possibly plan the schedules of dignitaries or important people visiting the station. This person in charge of maintaining the station has many jobs, but one he or she probably delegates as it is one of the hardest jobs on station is maintaining the docks and keeping them on schedule.

What Antennas and Defenses Does Your Fictional Space Station Need?

I mentioned earlier that modern ships need antennas to send and receive messages from all over the world. On space ships it could be difficult to have antennas outside the ship as ships need to be able to move fast through space. Space stations don’t have that problem. Space stations are, by definition, stationary. For that reason we can have bigger antennas and clearer messages from distant planets while ships will need to find other ways to send and receive messages.
Since space stations are unable or very slow to move, they need to be protected. I mentioned ways of protecting planets in an earlier post and those are all good ways to protect a space station as well. Satellites a certain distance away from the station can create a defense grid or warn of an incoming attack. Huge weapon systems on the space station can cause massive damage to incoming invaders. A fighter wing of small ships can keep the enemy far enough away from the space station that it doesn’t get injured from the battle or buy time to activate the weapons on the station or satellites. During times of war a rotating battle group of ships could protect critical space stations. Half of the ships are docked at the space station for repairs and relaxation while the other half is on patrol around the station.
Space stations can have much of the same components as space ships, but they also have many unique needs which we have to keep in mind as we create our fictional space stations. As space stations are often strategically important locations for opposing governments, it’s best to provide heavy protection against losing control of the station.

What Engineering Needs Does Your Station Need?

I’ve already spoken about the engineering needs on a ship but let’s talk about the engineering needs on a space station. Space stations don’t need engines, as by definition they are stationed in one place, but they still need electricity and a lot of it. There are many ways to create electricity and with a space station you have more space to create a larger power plant than a ship that needs to pass quickly through space can handle. You may choose to have small power plants nearby entertainment rooms that need more electricity than most rooms, such as Star Trek’s “halodecks” or casinos in space. Even movie theaters in space would need more power than a typical room on the space station. Something else you may want to keep in mind when deciding the engineering needs of a space station is how useful a backup power supply is. If power goes out on a space station and there is no backup, it would be a disaster. Most tools in the future will run on electricity of some kind. Batteries may work for a while but only for so long. Also, things like life support and food would quickly get used up on a station of over a thousand people with no new air and most stations hold more than a thousand people as the skeleton crew to run the space station. It would probably be best to have a separate power plant that runs the vital systems separate from a system that can be overtaxed by commercial needs and possibly blow quite often, depending on what ship is in port and how much people try to squeeze from the system to make a little more money.
One last note on the engineering needs of a space station: although stations may not use engines, many seem to need thrusters at times to maintain orbit around the planet they often orbit. Thrusters are much easier to supply and maintain so you may want to think about where they are located to get the best and fastest movement in an emergency.

What is the Purpose of Your Fictional Station?

What your fictional space station is used for dictates how it looks, to an extent, as well as what rooms are needed.
If your station is a hospital it probably has the typical hospital colors, depending on your species, and you’ll have to decide how typical hospital wings are worked into your design. Does your station look like a building with different squares coming off the center diagnostic area or are the sick children merely put on different floors than the dying adults or pregnant mothers? A hospital would likely have less of a need to have a huge Operations Department but the Administration Department may be the second biggest Department below the Medical Department on your station. If your station is a trade hub it may have a huge diplomatic area or business area with a few hotel variations but a small group of people caring for and running the weapons while a large department runs the docks, keeping ships on schedule and paying their dues. If your station is an amusement park in space, you are going to need a lot more electricity and hotel areas than if your station was merely a port to stop in to repair broken parts before continuing on to the next port. Each type of station would play a part in how it looks and how big it is as well. A child’s amusement park may look like a cartoon character’s head while an adult’s amusement park may look like another part of a person’s anatomy, depending on the species, and the repair port may not look too pretty but have cranes sticking out of the station at every angle.
As you decide the purpose of your fictional space station remember to keep in mind the effect it will have on everything else onboard, such as the look of the station from space and engineering needs.

Thoughts on Creating a Space Station

We’ve spoken of the various rooms and programs you need to think of in creating your fictional space ship as well as speaking earlier about creating a new planet and society. Now let’s look at the last major challenge for a science fiction writer to create: the space station. Generally a space station is bigger than a space ship but it still needs the same rooms as a space ship, at least for the basics. Even if your story is based around a single space ship and its crew, remember that every ship needs to pull into a port sometime, even if only to repair or refuel. In a reality based story your crew would likely pull into a port somewhere at least once every two years, probably closer to twice a year at least, unless they are in a hostile area or repair and refuel on planets. If you are writing the story of a single ship, then you may think that these next few posts aren’t worth your time and maybe they aren’t. Depending on the type of station your fictional ship pulls into, you may not want to think about a number of the coming posts, but it may be smart to plot out the ideas in the coming posts for your story before continuing. You never know what room your characters may walk into.
There are many different types of space stations and you need to decide which one you’re going to write about. Is your fictional station merely a repair hub with a single restaurant and a lounge to offer crews passing through or is it a full out pleasure port with little desire to repair or refuel ships? Is it a military center on the outskirts of civilization designed to bring order on the borders that is well known for the rowdy nightlife designed for crews far from home or is it the political center of an empire where everyone is well dressed and on their best behavior? Is it a trade hub with an established community including children and kept nice and tidy or is it little more than a hole-in-the-wall station known as the last step of the careers of anyone sent to take control of the rundown meeting place? Is your station a child’s dream, like a future Disney World, or is an adult’s dream, no children allowed, or somewhere in between? I decision is yours and will depend on what your story calls for but there is one more idea I’d like to suggest: the government facility. Governments often put their secret projects in a deserted area in space where people are less likely to stumble upon them than on limited planet space the government may have. These stations are often prisons or research facilities for anything from disease studies to weapon studies to scientific research on nearby space phenomenon to vaults of research started but deemed too dangerous or unethical to continue. Imagine the fun you could have if a ship in need of emergency repairs pulls into an off limits station, either by accident or on purpose. Those in control of the station would need to imprison the crew or convince them that the station was really just a rundown station with nothing of interest, nothing at all to keep the crew there any longer than necessary. Of course, the station really could be the major hospital station it pretends to be instead of the medical research laboratory it really is doing illegal research on unwilling patients.