Our space ship has lost power, what happens now....

[Astronuc]

Specifically, there is no power so the only light is from emergency globes and there is no gravity (my novels have AG), and I am wondering what happens to the air?

One could look into the design and experience with the International Space Station. One needs system that circulates air to removed CO₂ and provide O₂. As I recall, there some issues early on of fans that were too noisy.

Propulsion-wise, without propulsion, a craft simply coasts, and hopefully not into a decaying orbit.

 

[Melbourne Guy]

I imagine some characters among your crew sport cyber enhancements plus built in life supporting gear such as emergency oxygen and RF transceivers.

They do, @Klystron, good pickup though I am mindful of the balance to ensure the cast are 'still human'. To that end, there is a hierarchy in my setup, with Royal Guard as the most enhanced characters, bred for the purpose of protecting the Crown, with steps down in capabilities and access to cool tech. Pretty much everyone has a biological computer embedded in their skull for local RF comms, but you can't populate a book with indestructible characters, the story is too boring!

For instance, loose objects inside a tumbling spaceship may experience to be "thrown around" all the time.

I used that in a previous novel, but am mulling over using it again, as it plays havoc with the marooned crew getting anything useful done, @Filip Larsen. But the Dzhanibekov Effect is already in play, that's a terrific little problem to throw in every X minutes as the ship flips.

And on that, I wondered how aggressive the Dzhanibekov Effect would be on a ship half a kilometre long? Would it impart enough force to be structurally damaging?

 

[Melbourne Guy]

Propulsion-wise, without propulsion, a craft simply coasts, and hopefully not into a decaying orbit.

Are you guys looking over my shoulder as I write

@Astronuc, while the odds of it happening are outrageous, having the ship end up in a decaying orbit with one of the planets in the system is on the cards. I'm still playing with this though, as I'm 110% against deus ex machina in novels, and having them rescued 'just in time' seems somewhat contrived. I'll see how it reads and jettison the idea if it's too obviously trite.

 

[some bloke]

Depending on the flavour of the novel (how dark or tense you want it to go), some ideas could be:

• there isn't enough oxygen, and these people will probably die anyway. spawn conflict amongst those on board by having some of them think killing the wounded is the best option for survival.
• Is it getting hotter? the air is fresh, but it is definitely getting warmer. They need to seal off the section which is getting too hot, but they need to do so beyond the point at which it is comfortable to be. Might even be the door's anual override only works from the wrong side, prompting a sacrifice.
• Have someone contradict the orders to stay together and instead steal one of the last spacesuits to make a dash for the escape pods. Bonus points if they actually went to get help, whilst everyone curses them as a coward. Maybe everyone had a plan to ferry people to the pods, which needed the last 2 suits (2 people walk there, one returns with the suit for the next person) but one of the first ones panics because meteors or something and jettissons the escape pod, taking the suit with them.
• The radiation shielding is working on one side of the ship - as it rotates, the people need to keep moving with it or be fried in the full power of the star they're near. This makes for an endless pilgrimage, chased by the radiation and, by virtue of going in a circle, finding the corpses of those who didn't make it every time they go around. You could feature their methods for letting peope sleep whilst others pull them along on ropes, and when someone wakes up to see their puller has collapsed, the radiation is coming, and they are tied in the middle of the rope, it will add tension as they scrabble to get loose.
• A water leak would be a huge issue - I haven't seen Gravity but the trailer had someone in a bubble of water in 0g, and it looked very scary.
• If the ship has been folded in half, as you implied, then perhaps something which was meant to be kept well away from the people is now a lot closer. this could be a cool method they have for trying to move the ship - overload the core to vent, and the venting will push the ship. The emergency shutters are closed so they cannot se the core is no longer in the same place. A small team travels into the ship and manages to get some systems working, and the shutters open - revealing to the people in the main area that the vents are not where they thought - they are pointing at the windows. This will lead to a mad dash to get to the engineer who is about to overheat the core, to stop them - or not, as your plot may require.

Hope this helps!

 

[DaveC426913]

I haven't seen Gravity but the trailer had someone in a bubble of water in 0g, and it looked very scary.

You're thinking of "Passengers". The someone was Katniss Everdeen.

 

[Rive]

This gave me pause for thought, and might be relevant to the OP, so I brought it up in the physics subforum.

You've managed to open a nice can of worms there

And on that, I wondered how aggressive the Dzhanibekov Effect would be on a ship half a kilometre long? Would it impart enough force to be structurally damaging?

Usually 'classic' spaceships with that rocket-like longer-than-wide shape are supposed to get some really nasty gravity at both ends, and to make that worse it won't match the original so the structures and internal orientation/equipment are not expected to handle it properly.
The expected long walkway/transport corridors along the ship axis becomes deep wells, to start with.
If it's not some 'classic' but a well-thought 'design for emergency' kind of ship, then things can be different, of course.

 

[Melbourne Guy]

If it's not some 'classic' but a well-thought 'design for emergency' kind of ship, then things can be different, of course.

It is not classic, more a large rectangular box, @Rive, but damage like this hasn't happened for centuries. As one character muses as he plans to scupper his troop carrier, "Ships were either retired and scrapped, or they suffered catastrophic failures, or, if they were naval vessels, they were destroyed in combat."

Specifically, the lose of artificial gravity is so uncommon that nobody designs for it anymore.

 

[Rive]

Then that crew is just ... screwed. Some corridors are now wells: some are chimneys, and they are without climbing tools. Some decks might be partially accessible if they are lucky, but for most areas it's like an upside down house (built in a rolling barrel)...

 

[Melbourne Guy]

Then that crew is just ... screwed

Plot spoiler...they are rescued

But the ship is operating in microgravity, so it's not as bad as all that, plus, the surviving crew are in localised pockets of surviving infrastructure. And I only need to keep them alive for a relatively short amount of time before they are saved. Still, most of the seven hundred and sixty crew do die, so I guess your observation holds, @Rive!

 

[AlexB23]

I'm about 25,000 words into my latest novel and the story arc is coming together nicely, but one aspect I need thoughts on please is what would happen inside a spaceship that has been grievously damaged in battle to the point that it has been abandoned by the fleet as a 500m long wreck.

Specifically, there is no power so the only light is from emergency globes and there is no gravity (my novels have AG), and I am wondering what happens to the air?

I'm assuming that in zero gee it would need fans to circulate, but does that lead to adverse effects on the few crew who survived? Or would it not matter much, as the ship's heat drains away and the crew freeze to death...

Well, assuming your spaceship is computerized, an error code can be displayed on the screens inside the ship displaying what systems are damaged. There is a technology called a bistable LCD that can display the last data on the screen without requiring a constant electric current. My alien race has that technology and more advanced forms during the 21st century through 31st centuries.

For retaining an atmosphere inside the ship, I am not sure. Maybe a special foam inside the walls that can expand and cover the holes in the ship.

 

[DaveC426913]

There is a technology called a bistable LCD that can display the last data on the screen without requiring a constant electric current. My alien race has that technology and more advanced forms during the 21st century through 31st centuries.

My Kobo eReader has that technology...

 

[Lren Zvsm]

There would be another concern beside the air. The spaceship, having lost all power, would be moving at the speed it was moving when it lost power and in the same direction FOREVER unless help came. Would its trajectory lead it into enemy territory? How easy would it be for the rescuers to know the direction in which the crippled spacecraft had been knocked off course when it lost power?

 

[DaveC426913]

There would be another concern beside the air. The spaceship, having lost all power, would be moving at the speed it was moving when it lost power and in the same direction FOREVER unless help came. Would its trajectory lead it into enemy territory? How easy would it be for the rescuers to know the direction in which the crippled spacecraft had been knocked off course when it lost power?

Well, yes. But I think the OP is looking in the shorter term. Of course, if they don't ever get power back, they're gonna die long before they have to worry about where they're headed.

 

[AlexB23]

My Kobo eReader has that technology...

That is nice. :) Hopefully one of these days we could get HD full color bistable displays in real life.