Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group

by Lionel Woodhead

  To meet the cellar water storage requirement we installed three, two hundred litre, plastic, drums and integrated a set up for a small shower unit which included a flat water holding tank, filled by a manual pump from the plastic drums, over the toilets. The shower unit would, when the installation was complete, use electrical power generated within the main shelter to warm the water. When, some time later, the bend unit toilets were installed these were set up so that the bend toilet unit, in the cubical containing the shower, could be removed to allow our guests to shower within that cubical.

  The main shelter would, in all cases, have priority over all facilities. The cellar itself would not be required during the period of the impact. This would be during those periods when air pressure variations and earth movements were expected and all internees would have been associated prior to the impact.

  When the cellar was not in use all pipes would be blocked to the external air; especially during that critical period of the arrival of the impact blast. The air would, when the quarantine shelter was occupied, be sucked into the cellar using electric fans powered from the main shelter. We would also provide the shelter with two manual air pumps and, recovered from the original house, the original house battery would be set up in the cellar together with some additional modern, fifty volt, car batteries, removed from our original transport units to provide additional support. Both these battery systems would provide lighting in the event of any shelter electrical failure and they would be used during the night when the generator was not operating. The two battery systems would be trickle charged from the main shelter generators, having an AC/DC converter integral to the system, for at least one hour every day; more when the cellar was in use so that they were fully available for use in any unexpected emergencies. We had also purchased several AC/DC converters, to be used when required, from the agency from whom we purchased the main batteries.

  The work on the cellar was started before the building of the main shelter as we were then looking for a professional builder. The work continued on an ad hoc basis right up to the impact. In the event of a major disaster with the main shelter we would have a potential retreat even if, by itself, it could not have provided any realistic long term survival potential for all our invitees.

  The nearby village was adjacent to the lake and a small forest in a two hundred meter deep, from the level of the house, valley. The valley itself was actually a saddle sloping down from west to east, with a small, swift flowing, river running into the lake. The lake then overflowed to another river going east along the extended valley past the village. Thus we had potential access to a future lake, and by inference fish; if the lake and fish survived the catastrophe.

  The shelter site was over fifteen hundred meters above sea level. We considered this sufficient as having the additional protection of being hundreds of kilometres from the west coast. We were confident that this height and distance would give us complete protection against any tsunami resulting from the impact. Such a wave, we thought, might rise to more than one and a half kilometres at the Atlantic coast of Spain/Portugal, having broken some distance from the coast, but would then rapidly lose energy and height when crossing the land. It might eventually arrive in our area, if at all, as little more than a trickle of salted water which might pollute the lower land areas that we could not even see from our mountain retreat. For this reason we made no attempt to protect ourselves from such an event.

  We had to very rapidly decide upon how long we could expect to have to live within our shelter. This period would be largely outside our control, being affected by too many irresolvable variables related to the impact; hence unpredictable. It would, however, be a rough and ready guide variable of prime importance when estimating our shelter dimensions and requirements.

  If the asteroid landed in an area of calcium sulphate we could expect the production of sulphur dioxide, a poisonous gas. For us, at our distance, this would result in terrestrial cooling and high levels of acid rain. Alternatively if it landed in a limestone region we could expect the production of large quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, resulting in global warming; we would be unable to predict these situations so had to make plans for both possibilities amongst many other unknowns.

  We eventually decided, during similarly vague discussions, that we should provide moderately comfortable accommodation, against either external heat or cold, for inmate support over a period of up to ten years. This included the two years we considered would be required to reinitiate sufficient agriculture production. This became the objective we strove to achieve.

  This objective was to prove rather pessimistic related to the direct effects of the impact but gave us a reasonable chance of survival based on the information we had at that time. Our planning information came from the analysis of two, well studied, catastrophic events in history. These were the extinction of the dinosaurs and the eruption of the super volcano at Lake Toba in Sumatra. The latter event had nearly extinguished the species Homo sapiens about 70,000 years before.

  Another important vector in our plans was the number of persons to be included in our “original group”. This was a critical, self imposed, initial decision which would dimension our shelter. All our invitees would have to be fully supported within a restricted, fully enclosed space for much of our proposed period.

  We had initially considered a small shelter for our “initial group” with a small number of invitees but rapidly rejected the idea. In our originally proposal, based on a small group of up to twenty eight persons (seven families) the amount of food required would be relatively small but the energy requirement would not be proportionally reduced. We would still have required petrol or diesel generators. Obtaining and storage of ten to twenty thousand litres of the required material (2.75/5.5 litres a day for ten years) in a small space for a small number of inmates would have been problematical. Actually this initial fuel estimate was well below what we considered even a minimum requirement but the lower figure was what we considered a small group might be able to obtain in the available time. Even storing this insufficient quantity of diesel would have presented potentially unsolvable problems with petrol presenting even more difficulties. In addition a builder’s team would have had taken a considerable proportion of our accommodation.

  In addition, for our long term survival, we would require a sufficiently large support and skill pool. Our “initial group” was undoubtedly well educated but our combined capabilities could not possibly have met the requirement to initiate a new, even moderate level, technological society let alone maintain the elements of the shelter. We had no intention of allowing our families to return to Stone Age technology as this would have presented us with insurmountable problems in that none of us had any idea how to work with stone let alone hunt for a probably limited number of animals.

  We also considered that a small group would have insufficient stamina to maintain the shelter (air, water, sanitation etc.) or provide a sufficient variation of personalities to maintain civilised interaction for so long. In addition the population continuum, the gene pool, had to be considered. Lastly defence was a basic requirement into the medium term and such a small group would be incompatible with even this requirement. For all these reasons, and others, we decided that we should initially think in terms of twenty five families each providing an expert in a required specialized field. This decision affected the dimensions of the accommodation leading to considerations of the required energy, food and resource storage. These elements would initially require a considerable extension of the basic accommodation area.

  We maintained our original position that we should be able to rapidly recover to the technology of the mid to late Victorian period being initially supported by high technology elements we would take into our shelter. The Victorian elements would then be supplemented by our own development of more advanced versions of electrical energy and devices such as light bulbs before leaving the shelter and afterwards the manufacture of simple
radios using our internally developed electronic components.

  We believed that we could recover, in the medium term, through spark transmitters to short range amplitude and possibly frequency modulation radio communications. The advanced digital communication techniques available prior to the impact would have to wait. Into the medium term none of the advanced systems would be available to us, other than those units brought into the shelter before the impact. Even our initial objectives would require a well educated and related skill pool to redevelop and manufacture such items.

  We had hopes of manufacturing simple transport systems using steam or, possibly, simple internal combustion engines burning alcohol. Such devices would require specialists but they would allow us to maintain an electrical generation system using sustainable energy resources. We proposed studies into solar, wind and hydro electrical energy facilities, with their necessary producers, for consideration by the “original group” who, we hoped, would accept our invitation to join us once the situation was explained to them. This would, of necessity, go beyond our original agreement with ESA.

  The security of our shelter and environment would also have to be considered. If our shelter was not kept a closely guarded secret our greatest danger would be other humans justifiably wishing to preserve themselves and their families within our limited facility. For this reason any new recruits to our group would have to be carefully vetted, selected and advised of the risks related to our proposal. It was our intention that only those essential to the initial building, fitting out and enstoring our shelter would initially be given knowledge of the location of the edifice prior to their transportation to it. Those not so advised would have to trust us so most invitees would have to be good friends or friends of invited friends with whom we could maintain such a level of trust. From this it should be clear that many of our experts were from, or were associated with, our university or our families.

  It was later considered, for practical purposes, that we should initially plan for sufficient quantities and variations of foods to be stored for a period of 8 years. This would allow the possibility of reduced rations, after possibly two years, to allow an extension of this period to the original ten years if it was then thought necessary. Some basic storable foods would be stored with the initial intention of providing for more than eight year in order to reduce the problems of any extended period of reduced rations if that became necessary.

  A major problem was the acquisition of such large quantities of long term, storable, quality, food without raising suspicion. This food would have to be suitably stockpiled so as to remain edible over such an extended period. We had within our “initial group” no experience of long term food storage and such expertise would be a definite requirement.

  The dimension of the primary shelter was next considered based on the planned initial population of around one hundred persons and the available land at our proposed site. This, we decided, would have to be limited to an internal value of about (it actually ended about three meters larger in both dimensions a fifteen percent increase) forty by forty meters internal. This was due to population, energy requirements, secrecy/security, cost and expected material availability.

  There would be four floors and a large usable sump. The bottom floor would be used largely for storage it being the most temperature stable. The internal height of the three accommodation floors would be approximately 2.5 meters or four million litres per floor (An average person requires about 11000 litres of air per day so one floor would provide our population with sufficient air for about four days) whilst the main storage floor and sump would be approximately 2 meters. Too low a ceiling on the accommodation floors could lead to unacceptably claustrophobic conditions reducing the habitability of the resource when used over long periods; especially when considering the services pipework. Too high would present problems with resources; digging and shuttering.

  The roof and walls of the unit, as we initially planned, would be 0.75 meters triple reinforced concrete and each floor would be approx 0.5 meters double reinforced supported, approximately every 3.2 meters, by a metal centred reinforced concrete column through the shelter. This separation of each support was varied by the position of the homes (family homes) and pre-planned ancillary accommodation walls. Each wall would be buttressed approximately every ten meters to protect against compressive earth movements generated by the impact. Although, due to our shelter being on a mountain slope, we would reduce the potential for compression forces though any shaking influences would probably be amplified.

  The external walls and roof reinforcement would be enhanced by multiple layers of chicken wire of various dimensions. These elements, including the reinforcing bars, would be coupled together to an earth by many thick copper wires connected, external to the shelter, to large dimensioned, long, low impedance metal spikes driven deep into the earth. The intention was to create a Faraday cage to minimize, to the extent possible, the effects of any EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) into our shelter and afterwards to block any electromagnetic radiation from our shelter. The EMP, if sufficiently energetic, could destroy our generators, electronic equipment and even our internal electric network. I did not believe that the EMP effect would pass sufficiently energetically round, or through, the earth but the potential danger was too great to ignore especially as the work required for our basic protection was not significant.

  After the impact effects had passed emissions from our equipment might allow those with a suitable detector to find our habitation. This could have been disastrous for us. Indeed it was by using just such emissions that we hoped to find new recruits after the impact; but, in our case, only with the best of intentions.

  The bottom of the shelter would be over twenty meters below ground giving over two meters of cover to initial ground level (insulation) above the roof. This cover would be enhanced by the material removed from the hole being dug for the shelter.

  The slope for the various machines required for the creation of our shelter would be 6:1 down to the bottom of the lowest floor (the food store). This slope would be used as additional accommodation giving a usable internal space to this extension of the shelter of twenty meter by eighteen meters for the lower floor then thirty six, fifty four and ninety meters for the following three floors. The latter figure benefitted from the extraction of soil related to the two meters above the shelter roof.

  The upper floor of this extension area would be used for power generation, project work spaces and batteries thus minimizing the necessary exhaust and air vent tube lengths from these areas. The remaining three extension floors would be used mainly for stores with space allocated for other purposes as thought necessary. All the extension floors, except the habitation level which for safety concerns had no connection, would be connected to the main shelter by a large door suitable for the passage of our animals and some specialist large equipment. Each extension floor, except the food store, would be connected by a sloped walkway designed specifically to be suitable for the safe transferring of farming equipment and large animals between floors.

  It was a late idea that we should have the sump floor to accommodate any water that might enter the shelter due to the expected deluge. The decision was made as the work effort was small. As originally designed this area could be used as an extra protected area for the period of the asteroid impact and the following two to four weeks during which period we expected the returning impact debris to be at its most dangerous. This was our initial proposal but, in reality, we would have to play it by ear. Afterwards the sump area would be set aside for fish farming, mushrooms and water based agriculture.

  The uppermost floor would contain the family’s private accommodations, the hospital, the dental office, some maintenance workshops and miscellaneous stores related directly to housing and home. Lighting on this level would normally be limited to a few battery supported fifty volt caravan type LED lighting units though, in the working and children areas, additional lighting would be authorized as re
quired.

  Each family’s accommodation unit would be approximately three point two by four meters with, as originally designed, two caravan lighting units; one of these units supporting a toilet area and the other in the lounge. The toilets were removed from the initial house design to become a shared housing floor facility. This new housing design was due to the problem of flushing the toilets.

  This accommodation would be the standard unit for this floor. The beds would be three level bunks with a bench seat in the lounge making the fourth bed. A central table with the allocated lounge LED unit forming a table light, three water containers; one for washing, one for waste water and the other for drinking with a small basin and four folding plastic chairs made up the basic unit. Other furniture consisted of a bookcase/clothe-store and storage boxes supplemented by a storage space under the bench seat. Blankets and mattresses would be provided from central stores to which all our guests would subscribe what they could; these items would be considered shelter store items and cleaned by our laundry as would most of the clothes.

  Each house had a small wash basin which drained into a twenty five litre container which, when filled, had to be emptied into a toilet (For a period after the impact this washing water came from the assumed salinated water obtained from the external supply. The use of this mildly polluted water initially caused some problem when lathering with soap).

  Later we had some homes that did not match the standard model being modified, within the designated space, to meet alternative requirements (e.g. more than four persons to the house) of later recovered survivors.