On Thu, 20 Feb 2003, Bill Clawson wrote:
> I am of the belief that you don't require tons of
> atmospheric Nitrogen to run a successful colony. Most
> plants don't require gaseous nitrogen to subsist...
However, humans do -- both to keep fire hazards down (even low-pressure
pure oxygen is much worse than normal air) and to avoid long-term lung
problems (alveoli can and do collapse if the gas in them is all highly
soluble in blood, and they don't uncollapse easily).
This is why Skylab had about 25% nitrogen in its 5psi atmosphere.
I'm not sure that anyone has characterized the limits of the lung
problems. For the fire hazard, there is extensive data from industrial
fire prevention on "atmospheres of increased burning rate". To keep
roughly a sea-level oxygen content while avoiding that classification --
which is probably advisable if only to avoid lawsuits -- your atmosphere
has to be about 12psi, i.e. mostly nitrogen. So you're looking at circa
half a kilogram of nitrogen per cubic meter of interior volume.
Henry Spencer
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