I don’t have much longer.

Based on that news story and this Damn Interesting article, I whipped up the following:

You will have to excuse the grammatical errors and redundant wording. This was just a scenario using existing and possible technologies I quickly tossed together over the last hour. ;)

Just another boring day aboard the Space habitat as you stroll its gritty halls back to your cubical. You ponder the humming, flickering fluorescence and wonder when maintenance was going to fix it. The lamp has been like that for how long, three weeks now? The whole station seemed to be falling apart.

When you get to your cubical, the door irises half way and seizes. With a sigh you slap the reset button. Hissing and grinding, the door panels close back up. Waving your hand over the sensor a second time, the mechanism monitors your bone chip and identifies your DNA signature. With a rouge bagpipe type wheeze, the panels slide back again to freeze partway when something bangs inside the wall.

Irritated you punch the reset button but nothing happens. With a grumble you squeeze through the irregular, tight hole and enter the apartment. Approaching the COM to file a complaint, you are knocked from your feet by a jolt. The lights flicker as warning klaxons being to squall. Somewhere deep within the heart of the station resounds a painful sounding groan followed by a vibration in the structure. A holo picture of your parents crashes to the floor. One of the crystal holo emitters snaps from the picture frame corner, its beam flashing wildly across the room and strikes you in the eye. Closing your eyes, you yelp in pain. Red and white blobs of light seem to burst behind your closed eyelids as a sledgehammer of pain bashes into a spot behind the eyes.

Wincing you rub at your defiled eyes and stumble to the room’s porthole. The station is filled with sounds of groaning metal. Small explosions rock the structure as you blink back the tears and look into space. Your normal Ferris wheel view from the gravity band is no longer serene. Normally the Earth can be seen through the delicate spider web like lattice bound gerbil looking glass and metal tubes of the space station. No longer. The mess you now observe no longer resembles the station. Enviro chambers float freely through space; puffs of escaping atmosphere can clearly be seen. Cables and support lattices perform a dance of freedom now released from the job of supporting the station.

You stumble back from the window in shock. Some of the earlier bangs must have been safety airlocks clamping into place. The only thought in your numb mind is “What should I do?” as your heart pounds in panic.

A soft and slightly demur computer generated female voice sounds over the general COM system. “Attention please. Due to a slight systems failure, all personnel should report calmly to your assigned evacuation point. We apologize for any inconvenience but feel that there may be probable cause for this procedure. Please don’t panic as there is plenty of time to reach your assigned destination…Attention please. Due to a sliiiiiii…errr…errr” The station wrenches violently as the COM goes silent, and with it the main lighting fails. Emergency leds kick in, with an eerie frosted four-inch blue glow from the walls and an angry red arrow configuration pointing towards the emergency exit from the floor. Now blocked by the malfunctioning door.

With that comforting information your port window suddenly develops a crack when the station shudders once again. A seam appears in the wall nearby and starts out gassing with a high pitch squeal that sets your teeth on edge. More cracks spider their way across the porthole glass. “Calm, cool, collected… bullocks,” you curse running towards the door which irises tightly close. You wave your hand over the sensor and punch the reset button to no avail. The door refuses to operate. Behind you the squeal is getting deeper in pitch. Looking back, your worst fears are confirmed; the tear in the wall is getting larger. Grabbing a can of all-purpose Quickseal you quickly read the instructions. Popping the plastic caps off each end, you point the red end towards the ever-widening crack. Grabbing the pull-tab on the bottom you yank. With an ear deafening foomp a quickly expanding glob of foam explodes from the end of the can to splatter on the far wall, covering the deadly hole. Within seconds the pulsating foam hardens, sealing the rupture for now. Nearby the window cracks even more. Its once crystal clarity now obscured with thousands of minute cracks.

You return your attention back to the door. Punching the reset button repeatedly. In frustration you hammer your fist into the wall above the door. For the first time since you lived here, the door gently hisses fully open with out sounding like a nest of serpents shifting gears without the clutch.

Just as you enter the hallway, there is a loud noise from your room. You feel yourself pulled back towards the apartment with a sudden rush of air. Fearfully you realize that both the wall or window has been destroyed and you are now being pulled into the vacuum of space. With a hiss your door quickly slams shut sealing off the room and saving you from a most distasteful demise.

You rush down the corridor, various wiring, piping, and lighting fixtures hang broken from the ceiling or littered across the floor. Within moments you reach the evac area. All the escape pods are gone. You know that it would be futile to try elsewhere. Emergency airlocks cannot be open except with the master control systems override. You are trapped in this section. That’s when you see them, a wall of boxes, but you recall what they contained.

Pulling one out, you open it and take out a various foil packets. Opening the first, which is labeled, suit, you pullout a small twin tank marked with Caution: Two-hour oxygen limit. Be sure to attach Oxyscrub unit. Attached to it is a folded silky material. Pulling a corner marked, Pull-me, it unfolds into a one-piece Envriosuit. Tough tight fitting, it slips on quick and easy. The second package is labeled helmet. Tearing open the packet you pull out a folded clear packet, various coils of black rubber like tubing with different colored ends, a belt with four-inch by four-inch boxes with each bearing the label Oxyscrub, and a small tube labeled Suit Seal.

Tugging on the clear packet’s pull-me tab revels what at first appears to be a large, clear balloon, but in reality is the helmet. Following the instructions, you apply Suit Seal to the black tubing and plug the color coordinated and slot keyed ends into the four holes on the deflated helmet. Next you plug two of the tubes into the matching holes in front of each armpit on the chest marked Oxy. The final two black tubes plug into a Oxyscrub box located above each buttocks. Finally you apply a thin line of Suit Seal along the folded up, neck sleeve of the helmet. Finding the blue arrow marked front, you slip the clear bag over your head and carefully align the blue arrows on the helmet and the suit. With a slight click the magnetic alignment tabs make contact providing a precise connection for the fiberwire running throughout the suit. Careful not to touch the upturned glue strip you connect the two magnets above each shoulder and the final one behind the neck.

The suit’s systems beep as the computer built into the fiber of the suit comes to life with the final electrical connection. Air blows against the back of your head as the helmet starts to fill with air. Pushing the neck flange down against the suit, you press on the glue strip adhering the helmet to the suit. In the clear plastic in front of your face, a display appears giving first, a readout of the suit’s systems, and then finally your bio-signs. Within minutes the helmet is fully inflated, the plastic hardening into a semi-solid. The readout gives a green light on the pressure seal and then on all systems. You are ready for space.

Discarding the other packets marked suit and helmet, you grab the biggest of all. The final package you pull out looks like a folded parachute. Except that it is made of paper. Following the instructions on the device, you slide it across the floor. Though heavy, you still manage to move it into the airlock. A task made easier by the small, ball bearing style wheels on the bottom side. You position the package over a red square on the floor. The ball bearing wheels slip perfectly into four dents in the locker floor. Grabbing the pull-me tab on one corner, you yank on it as you back out of the locker. The package unfolds with artistic ease. You reenter the airlock and push or pull, depending on how the areas are labeled staring with the one “A” – push until section “B” pops out. The whole procedure occurs with ease and simplicity. Before long you are looking at the strangest gold foil wrapped paper box you have ever seen.

Sitting on a thirty-inch wide bottom, it had bottom side panels that angled outward meeting an angled upper panel that connected with a thirty-inch wide top. Folded paper wings were connected to each side of the craft. Small thruster canisters were situated at precise areas along the body of the craft for limited space maneuvering. As with the sides, sloping panels that met in the middle also formed the nose of the craft.

You enter the craft from the rear. You grab a Pull-me tab and expose a glue strip along the edge of the door. Pulling the flap close, you make sure that the glue strip adheres tightly to the body. Once satisfied, you climb over the rear paper seat and sit down in the forward pilot’s seat, which is surprisingly sturdy considering what it was made of. “This should be interesting,” you think since you have never piloted anything before. You realize that your suit had become affixed to the seat. Was there glue there before you sat down?

Before you on the wall are instructions and no view screen. It explains that instead of restraining straps, the seat has a special bonding agent that attaches to the suit. Not to worry though as water will instantly dissolve the bonder. Following the instructions, you pull a tab on each side of the seat exposing a wire therein. Taking the wire from each side, you plug them into holes in suit’s knees. They click tightly, and you pull as instructed to make sure both are properly seated. The helmet screen darkens and you can now see all around the craft. It is almost as if you were standing there and not seated inside a paper escape craft.

A soft voice tells you to sit back, relax, and leave the driving to us, another fine cyber system brought to you by …. With a gentle hiss, the airlock depressurizes. The paper craft around you crinkles as the air evacuates from it as well. You feel the heating circuits in your suit warm-up as the outer lock opens to the coldness of space.

Ever so gently the craft rises up and accelerates out of the lock. The sight that befalls you is devastating. The once impressive space habitat is in shambles. You wonder fearfully how this thin paper ship will be able to traverse this debris field let alone reenter the Earth’s atmosphere. Bio readouts on the faceplate indicate a rise in heart rate and breathing. You feel a slight sting in your left shoulder and within moments the bio readouts settle down.

The paper ship is quite adept, maneuvering through the remains of the space station without incident. Some hours later, it has position itself, and instructed you to pull down on a paper bar above your seat. Doing such unfolds the paper wings situated along each side of the craft. With a beep the computer voice thanks you and begins the final descent towards the Earth. You are contacted by Traffic control that assures you emergency craft will be waiting when you land. Though the paper craft did get fairly warm, the suit functioned perfectly by pumping a coolant through the micro-capillaries interlaced throughout the material. The only bad part of the trip was the final landing. The suit’s computer had limited control due to the nature of the paper wings, and the lack of a decent landing gear so the touchdown was a tad bouncy. But then again, this is far better than what could have been if not for the low cost, but efficient technologies, and an ancient paper craft of folding that saved your bacon this day.

On a lighter note I would love to buy an orgami inspired pair of slacks, or be able to fold my sweater into a duck. How about an orgami folded pie crust? Now that would be a first! (all pun intended) I love this web site and its colorful circus of comments.