I had put my name forward, on the Heim intranet open roster, for work in the shipbuilding area hoping to spend a couple of months there 'learning the ropes'. I was quickly contacted and asked to come and see them as soon as I was free. I agreed to come up and start right away.
On my first day I was met by Kenny Balfour near the airlock to the structural assembly shed. He was a very fit looking middle-aged man, with a mane of silver hair. I knew Kenny well, because I had been his co-pilot on my return to Earth from my Alpha induction tour.
He explained that, at the moment in the structural assembly shed, we had six of the seven available hangar bays with ships under various stages of construction and we were finishing and outfitting five more in the final assembly workshops.
"Let's get our WorkSuit helmets and backpacks on and I'll take you through to meet some of the team." said Kenny. As we were suiting up, I spied another familiar face, Amihan (Amy) Santos, an Astro-Engineer who had been our tour guide on day four of my first Alpha visit. I waved to her and Kenny said, "So you already know Amy, do you? Good, saves me having to introduce you." Amy, and another colleague, were just about to enter the unpressurised structural assembly shed, as were we. As soon as we were helmeted up, I was able to greet her over the open comms and be introduced to her colleague.
I was already familiar with the basic layout of the sheds from my first visit there some fifteen months before. We transited the airlock and I could see arrayed along the shed the six ships of various kinds that Kenny had mentioned. "In bays one and two," said Kenny, "We have just started construction of two of the new SV1E-Long distance exploration vessels. In three and four we are mid-way through assembling two SV3-Liquid and gas carriers; in bay five we have an SV6-Inter base shuttle and in six we have an SV2-Dry ore carrier, which is almost ready to be shunted through to the final assembly shed."
We walked along the yellow edged pathways and I remembered from my last visit that these were 0.9g Work-boot activated aGrav pathways, whereas the main assembly area was under only 0.05g - just enough to have the vessels sitting lightly on the floor but not enough to hamper the movement of the large panels and structural shell components that were being manoeuvred into position for assembly.
"I know you've seen all this before so I'll take you straight through to the final assembly shed." He said. There, we parted company with Amy and her colleague, who were working on one of the pieces of robotic equipment, and entered the personnel airlock into the final-assembly area. "For the next little while we're going to put you to work in there, if that's okay with you." said Kenny. I said that I was happy to go wherever I could be useful. He explained that much of the work here in the structural assembly shed was done robotically but, in view of the many variations in design and equipment, servo-assisted human labour was more effective in the final fit out area.
Through the airlock we came again into a pressurised area and were able to remove our Work suit helmets and life-support packs. "In here, at the moment, we have an SV4-Mining support vessel, two more SV1Es and another SV6-Inter base shuttle. The shuttle is almost ready to go out onto the partially-covered ship parking area, for systems and pressure testing, followed by flight testing." he said.
"How much do these vessels differ in construction from the LV1's that were built on Earth?" I asked. " I've flown in them and I know they have twin airlock tunnels and larger command and control modules but they all seem to follow the basic patterns of frame-mounted pressurised modules protected by retractable shields. Are they structurally the same?"
"Astute question," he replied, "If we are talking about most of the SVs, the base frames are lighter and the complete vessels are quite a bit larger. You see, most of these new vessels are made specifically for deep-space use and are not structurally designed to enter the gravity well of Earth, so assembly there would not be possible. They also use larger, but lighter, structural components that could not realistically be made on Earth, and shipped up. As I said, they are not designed for landing in a gravity well, but only for docking with objects with negligible gravitational pull. However, you can see that the Inter-base shuttles and the Lifeboats differ a lot from the original LV design concept. They don't have the 'frame and shields' structure, but are one-piece ships with additional exterior shielding. The Lifeboats are structurally more robust and could land on Earth, if there was no alternative."
As we were walking along the construction line, he said that the only other vessels that they built that were not present on the floor at the moment were SV5-General supply ships and the LB2-Second generation lifeboats. "Second generation?" I said, "What's that mean?" He explained that there was a new and improved design with longer range and better life support facilities. "When there is a gap in the production schedule, we fly one of the old boats around to the landing pad outside, and bring it in for a refit. We use the old shells but strip out some of the interior and replace the equipment with the up-to-date stuff. We're gradually getting through them but it will take quite a while do them all."
We walked over to the opposite side of the hangar to the assembly area to where tall racks of components were stored. There he introduced me to that month's acting floor manager, Masoud, and told him that I was ready to start work. With that done, Kenny made his farewells and left me there.
"Okay, good, welcome," said Masoud, "We'll go over to the locker room, where you can hang up your WorkSuit, and we'll fit you out with a set of these white overalls that we wear in here. This is a pressurised area but we will also fit you with a PEK belt to wear. There are several emergency shelter stations in case of a pressure drop." he added - indicating them to me.
Then he took me over to extensive racks of panels and parts, and explained that each was made to order for a specific vessel and shipped up to here from the Factory dome, or from Beta. "What our robot pickers are doing is loading or removing parts, as required. The ships are assembled to a detailed plan and each component is fitted according to a pre-defined schedule. However, most of the actual fitting is done with human intervention."
We walked across the floor, towards a young lady. "I won't throw you in at the deep end, so I've 'apprenticed' you to one of our most experienced fitters who will show you what to do. Her name is Dani, she's my daughter, by the way." Close by there was a bench with six pairs monitor screens, and keyboards, along it. We walked over and I met Dani, who was entering something on a keyboard. Masoud introduced us, and she was obviously expecting me.
"Hi John," she said, smiling, "We'll start you here at the work-control board. Just about everything we need to manage the fit-out process is on these screens. There is one pair for each construction bay. The screens display the schedule of jobs, and show which have been completed and tested. From here we also give instructions to the component picking robots. When the engineers and fitters have completed a task and tested the quality of the work they update the schedules, using the tablets they carry with them."
She went on to explain, "Our job is to monitor this and instruct the robots to pick the next lot of items needed and deliver them to the fitters at the appropriate ship. It's a little more complicated than that as there will be a number of jobs being done on each vessel concurrently, and we need to make sure that items delivered for one don't block access to another's work. This is all programmed into the schedules, but sometimes procedures take longer than anticipated and so we have to hold back on deliveries for that particular job. That's why human interaction is needed."
"Wow, you'd need a pretty good understanding of what's going on over there." I said, pointing across the floor towards the ships being worked on. "That's absolutely correct," she said, and you need to maintain good communications with the assembly teams. They will tell you if there is a problem or delay, and part of our job is to go over and try to sort it out - to 'troubleshoot it'. Sometimes, with the best will in the world, the design teams will make mistakes, and things won't fit together as expected. Then we have to try to come up with a 'work-around' and advise the designers so that they can correct the problem and communicate it to the Factory people. Having said that, most of the time things run smoothly. Most problems arise when we have either new vessels or modifications to older designs or, sometimes, special purpose ships being built."
I noticed that each set of monitors had a stalk above, with red and green lights on them. I pointed it out to Dani, and said, "What are they for?" She answered, grinning, "Ah, that's a pretty low-tech piece of equipment to call our attention to a particular station. You will see that they all have their red lights on at the moment. That simply means that jobs are under way, and no further components should be taken over by the robots. When one turns green, it means that we need to go over to the relevant monitors, see what's going on and, if appropriate, instruct a robot picker to deliver the next item or items needed.
"You mentioned special purpose ships. What are they?" She explained that some vessels would have to be larger and, in some cases, purpose built or modified for particular missions. They may be designed to operate as mobile habitats, to support remote mining operations, where they would need to be able to serve as temporary bases. She added that, for longer journeys, there is an option to connect a small nuclear reactor power supply system which, for safety, is attached to the main craft body by a long boom, and which can be disconnected, in an emergency."
My mouth opened and I looked around and said, "Nuclear power plants, in here?" She laughed and said, "No, no, all we would fit here is the retractable boom and the connections for hooking up the plant to the ships power bus. The reactors are made on Beta and would only be connected up in deep space.
For the next two weeks I worked the control panels with Dani and followed her around as she helped to sort out problems. By the end of that time, I had begun to see how the various stages of fit-out were managed and I was looking forward to gaining some 'hands-on' experience to round out my 'apprenticeship'.
On my third week in the shipyard, I was allowed to get 'on the tools' and shown how to do some of the assembly work. I think I probably slowed down some the work for the following two weeks, with my incessant questions, but by the end of my first month I think I had got the hang of many of the less-technical jobs - even though I was not yet proficient. I was thoroughly enjoying it all, and there was a great camaraderie amongst the people there. Over my second month there, I was given a lot more responsibility and, by all accounts, I performed reasonably well - well enough for Masoud to ask me to come back and help again whenever I had time.