R.E.M. Repair and Engineering Module

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Artwork featured in Issue 34 of 3D Art Direct Magazine Link here

The R.E.M. is a one man Work-Pod of the type required for construction and maintenance of large scale space habitats. The image shows several of these work-pods deployed to service a prepositioned attitude control system mounted on a water-ice asteroid which is being maneuvered to a rendezvous' with a hydrogen/oxygen cracking plant and water reclamation station.

The Work-Pod can un-dock from its Service-Module/Maneuvering-Stage in order to access and perform to work in confined areas.

The R.E.M. consists of a 65 foot long, 18 foot diameter, Service-Module/Maneuvering-Stage containing LH₂/LO₂ tanks, batteries, and atmospheric breathing mixture (oxygen/nitrogen) tanks mated to a separable one man Work-Pod about 15 feet in length and 12 feet in diameter equipped with mechanical waldo's.

Service-Module/Maneuvering-Stage transports the Work-Pod to the work location, and once there serves as a support platform, as required in long-duration EVA operation. The Work-Pod can re-dock to the Service-Module/Maneuvering-Stage many times in the course of a long-duration EVA to replenish fuel and breathing mixture tanks.

Note the detail on the pod (Image Right foreground): duel connectors are for fuel and breathing gas mixture transfer, positioned on the dorsal surface Aft just above the pod's independent maneuvering engine. Also note the pod docking arrangement on an example of the mated vehicles (Image Left foreground).

Image is part of a future historical setting, see my journal entry Orion's Arm Future History, A Synopsis.

A Timeline Graph is to be found here: Timeline.

In the context of my future history timeline these systems would come into use during resource recovery missions of the Martian Terraforming program at +350 years and extend into the System States era at +750 years and beyond.

More information is to be found in my journal entries: Outer Solar System Frontier and System States Era.

A note on the Work-Pod's wrap-around glass bubble: just as in pressure suit helmet visor construction this wrap around bubble would need to be composed of high density lead crystal (or some as yet to be developed lighter weight transparent material) with inner layers of dense borosilicate glass sandwiched between layers of Lexan to add strength and prevent shattering. In reality the outer surface would be gold anodized to block glare, ultraviolet, and infra-red. There would also be a nested set of telescoping curved armor plates that can be deployed for further protection. I've shown the wrap-around bubble clear (and the armor-plate protection retracted) in this instance to show off the detailing of pilot controls. For up-coming images I will show the pod with gold anodized coating, and with the nested armor protective shield deployed.

The Work-Pod can be seen deployed from an interplanetary transport to inspect damage from a micro-meteorite strike in flight, image here: Damage Inspection.

Winchell Chung's Atomic Rockets space suit page was an invaluable source of technical detail and description of numerous EVA suit design approaches, his space suit page can be found here: Space Suits.

Background image is "Saturn, Tethys, and Titan's Shadow" color composite by Emily Lakdawalla, used with her kind permission.

Emily's image and blog post can be found here:The Planetary Society.

Screens on the work pod control panels are from Mateen Greenway's 3D Studio MAX Hal 9000 model in homage to the 2001 influence in my pod design. The screen images were created by Mike Jackson(mental@goldinc.com) of Mental Pictures Photography & Graphic Design.