Life Support
Comfortable life—or at least comfortable breathing—in Makalu Station is dependent on the life support system, the Dual-phased Ergonosphere System Monitor and Energenetic Transducer. See this example of a typical system display.
The main station building has two levels: the Crew Level (containing the Galley, Mess, CCIC, Lounge and Crew Quarters), and the Operations Level (containing the Medical Lab, Maintenance, Storage and Utility, Staging Dock and Drill Head for Shaft # 5). To ensure that any breach in one area of the station will not be catastrophic for the entire facility, sections are separated by pressure and atmosphere sealed hatches. There are five hatches: on the display, they are indicated either with a green bar when they are sealed or a red bar when they are open. In the example above, the hatch at the top of the gangway and into the maintenance area are open, but the remaining hatches are all sealed. So the Crew Quarters, Storage and Utility, Medical Lab and Maintenance are all sharing the same air supply.
The gauges indicate the air reserves in each section of the station. Readings in the 900-1000 range show that the reserves are full; readings of 0 or less indicate that the section is open to Titan’s methane atmosphere. If the life support system is on backup, the air reserves will dwindle as inhabitants breathe the air.
The Galley is a self-contained section: it is the entry from the Main Airlock and contains the hibernation pods–the Biological Environmental Atmospheric Thermal Temporal Insulating Enclosures–included in case of catastrophic facility failure. A pod is configured for each of the station personnel.
Mining Operations
When Makalu Station was built, four mining shafts for He-3 and hydrocarbon production were drilled, each about 5-10 kilometers from the station in opposite directions. A drill head contained within the station itself was also installed, with the plan that after the other shafts were at full production, Shaft #5 would be bored primarily for research, not materials production. [Presumably that was the reason it was placed within the artificial earth atmosphere of the station.]
Computer Systems
Life support, mining operations and the medical facility are all highly automated, with an integrated computing system coordinating tasks and performing analysis of operations. This system (K-VN, known as “Kevin”) was specifically designed for the objectives of this facility. For security purposes, access to “Kevin’s” analysis engine is restricted to those with clearance to enter the Computer Core Interface Chamber, or CCIC.