Remembrance: Apollo 1

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

You may remember that I started my career as a payload flight controller for first Shuttle, and then Station. And that I had a friend aboard Columbia during her final flight. For those who have read my all-too-painfully prescient book, Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281, you know I dedicated that book to my friend Kalpana Chawla, her crewmates, and all those who have died in pursuit of space. "Ad astra, per ardua." ("To the stars, through struggle/adversity.")

We've just passed through a period of time of which most people are unaware. You see, all of the major space disasters that America has experienced all occurred within a 2-3 week span on the calendar. And interestingly, they occurred in chronological order on the calendar.

Apollo 1 Fire - January 27

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster - January 28

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster - February 1

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So what happened?

The Apollo 1 Fire

Apollo 1, originally designated Apollo/Saturn-204, was to have been the first manned mission of the Apollo program. It was scheduled to launch on February 21, 1967 with the crew component of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Frayed insulation allowed a spark from a cable to jump to flammable material in the cabin's pure oxygen atmosphere during a countdown checklist test. Velcro was a new product and the crew and especially the ground crew it seems, went crazy in using it inside the cabin to place things within easy reach. Unfortunately it is highly flammable, and in the pure oxygen atmosphere, went up like a blowtorch. The additional design modification of having an inward-opening inner hatch after the near-catastrophe of Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 flight, rendered it impossible to open the hatch for escape. The crew was trapped inside and died in the fire, which created interior pressures so great that the capsule ruptured, sending flames outward and igniting part of the surrounding superstructure.

The timeline: at 6:30:54 (23:30:54 GMT) during a T-10min hold, a voltage transient was recorded. This was likely the initiating spark. At 6:31:04 (ten seconds later), Chaffee exclaimed, "Hey." The voice recorder picked up scuffling sounds, then Commander Grissom reported the fire. At 6:31:12 Chaffee officially reported, "We've got a fire in the cockpit." White responded. Twelve seconds later, Chaffee began urging his colleagues to get out.

Per Wikipedia's entry, "Some witnesses said they saw White on the television monitors, reaching for the inner hatch release handle as flames in the cabin spread from left to right and licked the window." There was also this official report: "Witnesses monitoring the television showing the hatch window reported that flames spread from the left to the right side of the command module and shortly thereafter covered the entire visible area." [Apollo 1: The Fire, http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_01a_Summary.htm]

The last voice transmission was garbled and was variously interpreted by flight control witnesses to be, "They’re fighting a bad fire—let's get out. Open 'er up," "I'm reporting a bad fire. I'm getting out," or possibly, "We've got a bad fire—let's get out. We're burning up."

Transmission ceased suddenly at 6:31:21. Some witnesses "believe there was one sharp cry of pain. Loss of radio signal occurred a few seconds later." [NASA Memorandum, Report on Apollo 204 Review Board Discussions, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/Apollo204/seamans.html]

"The oxygen supply to the astronaut suits, which had been holding nearly constant pressure and temperature, started to fluctuate at the time of signal loss. At 6:31:17 or 14 seconds after the fire was first detected, the cabin pressure reached a level of approximately 29 psi and the cabin ruptured." [NASA Memorandum, Report on Apollo 204 Review Board Discussions, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/Apollo204/seamans.html]

Once the capsule ruptured, a kind of backdraft ensued and the fire expanded outside the cabin, setting various components of the superstructure afire. "Throughout this period, other pad personnel were fighting secondary fires on level A-8. There was considerable fear that the launch escape tower, mounted above the command module, would be ignited by the fires below and destroy much of the launch complex." [Apollo 1: The Fire, http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_01a_Summary.htm] By the time the interior cabin could be safely reached, there was nothing that could be done to save the crew.

"The official death certificates for all three crew members list the cause of death as asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation due to the fire." [NASA Memorandum, Report on Apollo 204 Review Board Discussions, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/Apollo204/seamans.html]

Recovery

"Three hatches were installed on the command module. The outermost hatch, called the boost protective cover (BPC) hatch, was part of the cover which shielded the command module during launch and was jettisoned prior to orbital operation. The middle hatch was termed the ablative hatch and became the outer hatch when the BPC was jettisoned after launch. The inner hatch closed the pressure vessel wall of the command module and was the first hatch to be opened by the crew in an unaided crew egress.

"On the day of the fire, the outer or BPC hatch was in place but not fully latched because of distortion in the BPC caused by wire bundles temporarily installed for the test. The middle hatch and inner hatch were in place and latched after crew ingress. Although the BPC hatch was not fully latched, it was necessary to insert a specially-designed tool into the hatch in order to provide a hand-hold for lifting it from the command module. By this time the White Room was filling with dense, dark smoke from the command module interior and from secondary fires throughout level A-8. While some personnel were able to locate and don operable gas masks, others were not. Some proceeded without masks while others attempted without success to render masks operable. Even operable masks were unable to cope with the dense smoke present because they were designed for use in toxic rather than dense smoke atmospheres.

"Visibility in the White Room was virtually nonexistent. It was necessary to work essentially by touch since visual observation was limited to a few inches at best. A hatch removal tool was in the White Room. Once the small fire near the BPC hatch had been extinguished and the tool located, the pad leader and an assistant removed the BPC hatch. Although the hatch was not latched, removal was difficult.

"The personnel who removed the BPC hatch could not remain in the White Room because of the smoke. They left the White Room and passed the tool required to open each hatch to other individuals. A total of five individuals took part in opening the three hatches. Each were forced to make several trips to and from the White Room in order to reach breathable air." [Apollo 1: The Fire, http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_01a_Summary.htm]

 

Moreover,

 

"When the firefighters arrived, the positions of the crew couches and crew could be perceived through the smoke but only with difficulty. An unsuccessful attempt was made to remove the senior pilot from the command module.

 "Initial observations and subsequent inspection revealed the following facts. The command pilot’s couch (the left couch) was in the “170 degree” position, in which it was essentially horizontal throughout its length. The foot restraints and harness were released and the inlet and outlet oxygen hoses were connected to the suit. The electrical adapter cable was disconnected from the communications cable. The command pilot was lying supine on the aft bulkhead or floor of the command module, with his helmet visor closed and locked and with his head beneath the pilot’s head rest and his feet on his own couch. A fragment of his suit material was found outside the command module pressure vessel five feet from the point of rupture. This indicated that his suit had failed prior to the time of rupture (23:31:19.4 GMT), allowing convection currents to carry the suit fragment through the rupture.

 "The senior pilot’s couch (the center couch) was in the “96 degree” position in which the back portion was horizontal and the lower portion was raised. The buckle releasing the shoulder straps and lap belts was not opened. The straps and belts were burned through. The suit oxygen outlet hose was connected but the inlet hose was disconnected. The helmet visor was closed and locked and all electrical connections were intact. The senior pilot was lying transversely across the command module just below the level of the hatchway.

 "The pilot’s couch (the couch on the right) was in the “264 degree” position in which the back portion was horizontal and the lower portion dropped toward the floor. All restraints were disconnected, all hoses and electrical connections were intact and the helmet visor was closed and locked. The pilot was supine on his couch.

"From the foregoing, it was determined that the command pilot probably left his couch to avoid the initial fire, the senior pilot remained in his couch as planned for emergency egress, attempting to open the hatch until his restraints burned through. The pilot remained in his couch to maintain communications until the hatch could be opened by the senior pilot as planned. With a slightly higher pressure inside the command module than outside, opening the inner hatch was impossible because of the resulting force on the hatch. Thus the inability of the pressure relief system to cope with the pressure increase due to the fire made opening the inner hatch impossible until after cabin rupture. Following rupture, the intense and widespread fire, together with rapidly increasing carbon monoxide concentrations, further prevented egress." [Apollo 1: The Fire, http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_01a_Summary.htm]

Grissom was the command pilot, White the senior pilot, and Chaffee the pilot.

Also, "When the command module had been adequately ventilated, the doctors returned to the White Room with equipment for crew removal. It became apparent that extensive fusion of suit material to melted nylon from the spacecraft would make removal very difficult. For this reason it was decided to discontinue removal efforts in the interest of accident investigation and to photograph the command module with the crew in place before evidence was disarranged.

"Photographs were taken and the removal efforts resumed at approximately 00:30 GMT, 28 January. Removal of the crew took approximately 90 minutes and was completed about seven and one-half hours after the accident." [Apollo 1: The Fire, http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_01a_Summary.htm]

 

 

Translated, Grissom's body was found, unstrapped and out of his couch, collapsed on the deck. White was found, per his training, lying sideways on the deck next to the hatch; he had evidently tried valiantly to open it but failed. Chaffee was still strapped in, maintaining comm per his responsibility until White got the hatch open or the fire took him. All three were effectively welded into the interior by the melting of their nylon suits and umbilicals. It took nearly an hour and a half just to cut the bodies free and remove them.

Aftermath

Needless to say, the Apollo program went on hold while a complete redesign was performed on the Apollo capsule. This included a change to a 60/40 oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere for launch, increased safety procedures for construction, a complete change in material construction of the flight suits, and a completely redesigned hatch (already intended to be flown) which opened outward and took 10 seconds or less to open. Ironically, however, the very hatch design which nearly claimed Gus Grissom's life on the Liberty Bell 7 flight was the cause of the newer hatch design which sealed his fate in the Apollo 1 catastrophe.

Sometimes real life is stranger than anything we writers could possibly dream up.

Next week, the Challenger disaster.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop 2013

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

The Second Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop will be held in Huntsville, AL 3-6 Feb 2013. This workshop (I'm a member of the science committee and the steering committee) is a gathering of scientists and engineers who want to try to solve the problems of interstellar travel. Papers offering concepts will be presented and discussed.

The Workshop itself may be rather more complex than the average layperson would enjoy, and membership closed several weeks ago in any event, but here is the text of a press release on some public events that will be associated with the Workshop, for those that will be in Huntsville and surrounds during those dates.

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Going to the Stars – Is it possible?

The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop (TVIW), the Huntsville AL L5 Society (HAL5) and Calhoun Community College invite you to spend an evening with some space visionaries who are meeting this week in Huntsville to discuss the possibilities of interstellar flight. That Workshop is being sponsored by the Ultimax Group, Baen Books, the British Interplanetary Society, NeXolve, and the ORION astronomy society. At this free public forum, we are honored to have Paul Gilster of the Tau Zero Foundation, Bill Cress and Richard Obousy of Icarus Interstellar, Kelvin Long of the British Interplanetary Society and the Institute for Interstellar Studies, and Gordon Woodcock, former NSS Director, to talk about the dream and challenges of going to the stars. The event will be moderated by Les Johnson of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

The event is free and open to the public. The event will take place on Tuesday, February 5, 2012 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Calhoun Community College Huntsville Campus’ Student Center – 102 Wynn Drive NW, Huntsville. For more information, please contact:  Yohon.Lo@nss.org  or visit the event website at http://www.lesjohnsonauthor.com/tviw/tviw_2013 or http://www.HAL5.org.

About Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop (TVIW)
The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop is an opportunity for relaxed sharing of ideas in directions that will stimulate and encourage Interstellar exploration including propulsion, communications, and research. 

The 'Workshop' theme suggests that the direction should go beyond that of a 'conference'. Attendees are encouraged to not only present intellectual concepts but to develop these concepts to suggest projects, collaboration, active research and mission planning. 

It should be a time for engaging discussions, thought-provoking ideas, and boundless optimism contemplating a future that may one day be within the reach of humanity.

About Huntsville AL L5 Society (HAL5)

The Huntsville Alabama L5 (HAL5) Society, the Huntsville Alabama chapter of the National Space Society (NSS), is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3), grassroots, space educational / advocacy organization. Since 1983, HAL5 has made significant contributions toward developing low-cost space access technologies, space education, and public outreach. For almost 30 years, HAL5 has hosted a continuing series of public lectures, forums, and events on space-related topics. HAL5 also has made significant contributions to nitrous-oxide hybrid rockets and to rockets launched from high-altitude balloons, one of which was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1997.

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Come on by and see what scientists and engineers are doing to make interstellar space flight possible!

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

The Center Cannot Hold, Part 2

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

And the 4th installment from Sarah Hoyt's blog today. There are those of you who may not be interested. However, I think these are things that are important to consider in today's economic situations, and the new year is definitely the time to be considering them. I don't always agree with Sarah on some things, though we are friends. (Hey, friends don't have to agree all the time. But we still get along. That's why we're FRIENDS.) But like I said, it makes some thoughtful reading. And as someone born and raised in Portugal, she brings a fascinating perspective to the topic.

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The Center Cannot Hold, Part 2

by Sarah A. Hoyt

The idea of creating inflation to get out of a disastrous debt situation is neither unknown nor rare. Countries like Greece and Portugal coasted on it for years (and we could go on about what losing that ability has done to them) partly because as “touristic countries” they thrived on being “cheap” by keeping their currency devalued.

You borrow high-value currency and pay the same nominal amount of low-value currency. Fine. That makes sense. But if you don’t let the savings and assets people have appreciate at the same rate, via high interest rates, (which in turn pushes company assets and – usually – salaries up, even though not in real value) you’re going to have people who don’t make enough to eat or to buy…anything. (Look, ALL intervention in economics is stupid, ultimately, because economics is not something someone can CONTROL. It is instead a playground for the law of unintended consequences. It's as if we developed an ability to control the weather and were in shock when keeping it pleasant in Iowa buried NYC in ice or something.)

It seems to me we’re headed there. Most of my friends are beyond pinched this Christmas, and that’s the ones who still have jobs.

If I had to guess I’d say this strategy was cooked up to get us out of the real estate collapse. The inflation is supposed to catch up so that real estate assets never “devalue” in numbers, just in real value. And the interest rates are kept forcibly low so that people will soak up the bad assets and so that those in marginal positions can refinance. (We know how well that last part is working – not.)

Mind you, if that really is the idea, this gang is dumber than dirt. First because if people's money holdings and salary stay the same, buying a house is still difficult, no matter how low the interest rates. Second, because they’re not taking in account that those of us working as contractors and getting paid on contracts made years ago, will end up destitute and not be able to afford...not just houses, but anything. I don’t know how many of us there are, but the fact salaries aren’t going up means salaried employees, of which there are a lot, will end up in the same fix.

In Portugal there was an enormous “soak up” of completely paid off real-estate, a lot of it inherited over generations. In fact, it might have been the norm. Having a mortgage back then was odd. This meant that your property appreciated massively and if you got in real trouble, you could sell it and move on. (Various restrictions on selling rented out places, and rent control made this more difficult than it sounds, but…still. You weren’t talking about people having to meet mortgage payments, house repairs, food, fuel, etc, with salaries that remain static and depreciating currency reserves while a lot of the rest goes up. On the food side, too, most people back then had at least some gardens and some "creation" – chickens, goats, etc.)

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible I’m attributing to stupidity that which is more easily explained by malice: they want to turn us into beggars, because beggars are easy to please. No, wait, that still means stupidity, because what can’t go on, won’t, and like with price fixing, when you make it impossible for people to live, people find extra-legal means.

Okay – another way in which we’re different: we’re the world’s charity [fund]. We still give financial aid to most of the world, and have for close on to a century. (We might that way have enabled tyranny, but that’s something else.) We’re the world’s grantor of peace.

If we withdraw, even well short of a total collapse, will the world finally grow up? Or will it go back to the long wars of the 18th and 19th century everywhere, to the point commerce can’t take place?

Make no mistake, whatever bad things happen in the US will be ten times worse in the rest of the world. And don’t say, “Who cares?” Some – if not most – of those people are much better at WMDs than at feeding their people and will consider knocking the “old champ off” a much greater priority than actually taking care of their starving population.

(A friend of mine said, “Whatever happens now, we’re going to lose at least one major city.” I’d like to say he was wrong, but I have the same feeling.)

Other ways we’re different: we have more guns per capita than anywhere except those places that encourage/enforce gun ownership, like Switzerland. This is not a bad thing because:

Even in the milder of the “things go wrong” scenario, where things go bad first are the people who are marginal now, living at the edge of both society and often legality. Where you see any crackup first in society is higher crime rates – we’re seeing that – and lack of safety on the streets. The fact that a lot of people have guns will probably hold some of that (at least) down.

We have a military that is more in the tradition of service than of machismo. We’re probably the last of the Western powers with a military tradition and our military tradition is…odd, built on winning hearts and souls, more than on, “Shoot them all and let G-d sort them out.” Yes, I know, sometimes the rules of engagement (ROEs) are stupid (Okay the ROEs are mostly stupid) but still, it has a built in, “you don’t kill unless you need to.” This makes us different from, say, the various Latin American countries that have had crack ups.

Will the US military fire on the populace if things get bad enough? Some places. Some populace. As someone said, behavior means a lot.

BUT the US military are also generally a force for good and order, and given a central collapse, might hold things together long enough for things to coalesce in another form. Might. One can hope. (Of course, I keep thinking of Starship Troopers, “And then the veterans had had enough.”)

All of these together, particularly the economic thing, added to the chaotic force of changing technology and the decentralization that tech has been forcing on industry and commerce even as our politics and education and other…non-commercial enterprises have got more centralized, has the effect of making us a particularly unpredictable juggernaut.

It won't be like movies or books, because those move on logic. Real people aren't logical. They're cranky, emotional and ornery. A group of one or the other some place can send things spinning out of control. [I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from the first Men in Black movie, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.” -Steph]

In the best of all possible worlds, you’re going to hit a point where the answer to, “Are things getting better or worse?” will have to be, “Yes.” And then things start smoothing off, if we’re lucky in 25 or so years, so that I can still see it. (Or maybe faster. We’re Americans. We go fast. Hey, look, I’m Heinlein’s kid. The glass is not half full. It’s brimming over.)

On the other hand, it’s unpredictable, and I don’t think the people in charge know that, just like the people in charge of publishing don’t seem to be aware that ebooks aren’t just a “novelty fad.” There is a certain type of credentialed-not-brilliant (but thinks he/she is, because...credentialed) individual for whom knowledge is what exists in books and what your professors passed to you. If reality disagrees, then you deny reality as hard as you can.

Most of the people in charge most places are busy denying reality. Which makes the rest of us real nervous.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Stay informed. Keep moving. Keep working.

~~~

 

Or as my grandmother used to say, "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and take whatever God sends."

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

The Center Cannot Hold, Part 1

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

This is the follow-on post to Sarah Hoyt's "Preparing for the Long Rains" blog. Once again I am splitting it into two halves due to her blog formatting versus mine.

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The Center Cannot Hold, Part 1

by Sarah A. Hoyt

I was thinking this morning that there are other things that make this path we’re on uniquely dangerous in terms of preparing for bad stuff, because it’s simply impossible to guess what form the horrible stuff will take.

Here’s a grab bag at random – just off the top of my head.

We’re the largest country organized on non-authoritarian lines (yes, I know, but we’re not organized for it)…I was going to say “to risk collapse” but now that I think about it we’re just the largest country in history organized on non-authoritarian lines. For those who will protest that, go look at the constitution of the European Union. When we organize under a constitution that classifies the curvature of a banana, then we’ll be in the running. (Yes, there are a series of abuses, and we’ve been trending authoritarian and centralized since the civil war – not arguing the rightness or justness of the war, just saying it centralized and strengthened los Federales and their power – but I don’t think it’s got into the DNA of the nation, yet. Having lived here and in Europe and traveled a bit all over, Americans are still likely to tell authority to take a hike.)

I have massive faith in the American spirit. 9/11 happening anywhere else in the world would have turned NYC into well, something out of the movie "Escape from New York", instead of a place where people helped each other get through, which by and large it was. Yeah, I know there are spots where this fails, but by and large Americans look at what needs done and go, "I'll do it," instead of waiting for the duly constituted authorities.

We are being treated to a very weird financial combination. I think I know what the idiots in power are trying to do, but if it REALLY is what they’re trying to do, they are some sort of unique in the realm of dumb.

Look, I was thinking about this yesterday, in terms of what an economic collapse looks like. Portugal [Sarah was born and raised in Portugal. -Steph] sailed dangerously close to it in the mid-seventies, with inflation going insane and people panicking and buying supplies months in advance, and then hysteria about hoarders being drummed up when supplies failed to materialize. (We also had price controls then. An absolute boon for the black market.)

But no one starved and by the end of it several people were better off than they’d been, (though not those who owned real estate, due to rent freeze and not those who’d failed to acquire saleable skills – more on that later.) People who owned gold or had money in the bank, for instance. (Though how much the future prosperity came from America I don't know. I know in the eighties we joked our GDP was made in America.)

HOWEVER to my knowledge – and I’m not as exhaustively well read on it as I’d like to be, because for the last five or six years work/kid stuff has kept me from reading economics as much as I used to. (Shut up. It’s a hobby.)

I don’t know any other country where currency has been printed like ours, and yet the interest rates are held artificially low. The combination is at best daft. Inflation is already showing up, though they keep doing weird stuff to how it’s calculated. (No, I’m not going to argue that. If you buy food, you know inflation has shown up – but beyond that, because the price of fuel goes up {being paid for in devalued dollars} it pushes everything else up, because fuel is used to MAKE everything.) [Or transport it. -Steph]

A lot of the places that can, and where it’s direct, they are already raising prices/lowering sizes – restaurants; food packaging; services; prices for minor stuff like mini-golf courses.

But the lack of employment is holding salaries down. And for those of us like me, who work at a job with irregular pay and who therefore of necessity have “savings” – i.e. a big paycheck goes in bank and is slowly drawn out to supplement my husband’s salary which is our main support – are seeing those savings eaten away. By the time we need to use them, we need more of them, which we're not getting because interest rates are low.

~~~

Part 2 next week.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Preparing For The Long Rains, Part 2

by Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

 

Last week we read part 1 of Preparing For The Long Rains. Today we pick up with the rest.

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Preparing For The Long Rains, Part 2

by Sarah Hoyt

 

So, what will the collapse look like?

I don’t know. And you don’t either. All we know, because we can feel it, like sand grains shifting on a dune in the first movements of something that is not even fully visible, but which will suddenly remake the landscape, is that we’re already in the process of collapsing. For a definition of collapsing.

What I’m betting on, of course, is a collapse that collides full-on with the catastrophic innovation of tech. What this will look like is like an accelerated version of what we have right now, and, to an extent, of what Portugal had in the seventies. The old ways and those in control of them at all levels – from education to production; from politics to news – will be collapsing but at the same time they’ll be each day less relevant, as they get replaced.

This is sort of – if you need a visual – like making a train into an airplane while it is running. It’s chaotic, very scary and not painless. Some people will get crushed as gears get moved, and some people will fall out by the wayside and die as the shell is changed. And some others will fall from great height, even, as the plane takes off.

Or, to leave the overstretched metaphor behind:

It won’t be pretty, and I advise to have prep stuff on hand – you know, guns and canned, and such. Whether to move to the city or rural is something else. Yes, I know what you guys hear – and the instinct to “go and hide.” But I’ve read accounts of Argentina’s collapse, and the worst stuff happened in the countryside, where isolated farmhouses were raided. If you were in the city, for the most part, you were all right. (Which I’d say was more likely if your city has military presence.)

But again, there is no way of KNOWING. All you can do is sort of guess and sort of prepare, and of course, ideally you’d have a town residence with a rural getaway, or vice versa, but not if you’re as broke as I am.

HOWEVER because you expect the new to emerge from the old, with preparing for the collapse of the old, for interruptions of supplies, for disruptions in electricity, etc., if you believe this is the sort of collapse that’s coming, you’ll be doing what you can to prepare your profession for the new order. In my case, this means getting up electronic as much as I can, so I might have at least some income should paper distribution collapse. I don’t know what it would be for your profession, but if I were a computer-person, I’d be trying to establish the ability to have different contracts on the side. (If your current employment contract allows it.) As we’ve spoken of before, what you should be trying for is as many and as varied streams of income as you can. If you’re a writer not making much, yet, married to someone in a traditional industry that’s going to get whacked, I urge you to do what I’m doing, and write like mad and put it up as much as you can, in as many genres as you can. (Though I’ll note, for me at least, bubblegum seems to sell best.)

I’m doing this because I don’t believe we’ll collapse totally. Can we? Well, sure. Again, as I said, we’ve never seen anything QUITE like what we’re starting on.

But here’s the thing – if we collapse totally…well…I can’t afford to buy a farm. I can’t afford to store enough food for the next fifty years. The best I can do is buy books on building log cabins and trapping animals, and supplying the kids with bows and arrows. Then if the unthinkable happens, we shall go and colonize the national forest. (No? Why not?) As long as I have some food to survive till a crop can be got in, well, it’s much like preparing for the catastrophic change – except that we never get to be civilized again and therefore all the ebooks count for nothing. Worth trying, anyway because you never know. And what else are you going to do if you’re not massively wealthy and able to prepare for the fall of civilization? Sit around knitting your total collapse blankie?

There is a third option, and for all I know it might be the most likely. It would be the most likely if we had an America to save us. It’s called the “modified hangout.” You slide and slide and slide, and there’s no ending to the slide. Africa has gone through this and Europe is heading into it (though we’re helping it by propping it up – yes, we’re still giving foreign aid to most of the world.) This is a world in which services become worse and worse starting with those the government provides, from supplemental income to mail to (where it does so) electricity. All of it becomes unreliable, untrustworthy, subject to the whims of bureaucrats and how much baksheesh you’re willing to pay. Every year is a little worse than the last. And you just…hang on.

At the end of this is the world of Heinlein’s Friday, with everyone in armored cars and people in guarded compounds, and the rest of it resembling what a total collapse would do, but crossed with the world of Mad Max.

I wouldn’t bet on this last one. It is unlikely. To get there, you need someone subsidizing you, because your society stops functioning long before this to the point where it keeps food and clothing available, much less keeping someone very wealthy. I don’t think America can keep itself on this path without outside help and – get this very carefully – there is no outside help.

At the same time, even if it happens, how do you prepare for it? Well, the best thing is to have some stuff laid by so you can protect yourself and yours and provide in case of shortages.

BUT most of all, the best thing is to be very wealthy and able to afford a private enclave.

My plan – though it’s unlikely it will bring me enough wealth – is to do exactly the same I would do in the first instances. Because if there’s any chance of my being wealthy it is to have a book (or more) hit.

So, right now, I’m very busy – which has the advantage of keeping me from fretting too much. (You should see me when I fret too much.)

The best thing to do when the rain starts falling and you don’t know if it’s just a severe shower or forty days and forty nights is build your ark.

Even if it’s just made of words and electrons.

Do go on with life – it might be important and your "peacetime activities" might yet be the most important thing in making the collapse non-permanent – but keep an eye on that rain. And prepare for any eventuality.

~~~

 

There is wisdom here if we choose to see it.

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com