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- EXTRAVEHICULAR ACTIVITY
-
- Situations requiring one or more crew members to exit the starship in
- an airless or otherwise hostile environment are known collectively as
- extravehicular activity (EVA). These include detailed visual inspections,
- periodic maintenance, damage control, and unique hardware modifications.
- They may be done alone or in concert with teleoperator and automated
- systems.
- Various degrees of protection are available for starship crews. While
- the actual configurations carried by Starfleet vessels will vary according to
- major mission segments and swapouts for improved models, typical suit
- types are presented here. The first, the low pressure environment garment
- (LPEG), is a close-fitting, lightweight suit, designed for benign airless
- operations. One use would be during an orbital starbase layover, where the
- spacecraft is in External Support Mode, well protected against radiation and
- micrometeoroid hazards. The suit features simplified multilayer construction,
- affording atmospheric integrity, gas exchange, and thermal and humidity
- control without sacrificing mobility. All consumables and circulation
- equipment are mounted within an integral backpack, with controls placed for
- 50 percentile humanoids on the chest and forearm areas. The suit allows for
- exterior operations, though time outside is limited to three hours. A variant of
- the LPEG is the emergency pressure garment (EPG), designed for long-term
- storage in starship emergency equipment lockers. The EPG is capable of
- supporting life for two hours in most ship abandonment or isolated hull
- breach scenarios while crews await rescue.
- Starfleet╒s midlevel suit is the standard extravehicular work garment
- (SEWG). This type is reinforced with additional radiation and pressure layers
- for extended operations, and is configured with a sixteen-hour consumables
- supply, plus enhanced recycling devices. It is designed for most major
- industrial tasks and hazardous exploration assignments. Radiation and
- micrometeoroid protection is essentially unlimited. The suit controls are
- supplemented by advanced autonomic life support controllers within the suit
- computer.
- The current high-level suit is the augmented personnel module
- (APM). This suit is a hybrid garment composed of both hard and flexible body
- segments, essentially a complete small spacecraft. The concept, still valid
- after four hundred years, allows the occupant to perform slightly longer
- duration missions than the SEWG, but with much greater relative comfort. A
- wide array of readily available tools and manipulator options is coupled with
- reaction control system thrusters, resulting in high productivity EVA returns.
- All suit types are available in customized versions for nonhumanoid
- and handicapped crew members. ╞
-