Monday, November 30, 2009

Lab conditions

I disagree with this comic, though I can never get my students or our facilities people to back my idea of converting the entire lab into ultrahigh vacuum space.  Sure, spacesuits would be required for lab work, but think of all the time we would save swapping samples and pumping out our evaporator.

4 comments:

jh said...

How long would you need to pump down the personnel airlocks...? :)

Douglas Natelson said...

jh - That could be a problem, but if the group members never leave the lab, it's less of an issue.

Anonymous said...

Just pump down a few cots and have the researchers stay in there for weeklong shifts.

Zach said...

UHV's a bit excessive, don't you think? The mid-sixes should be more than sufficient for most work. The problem is that you'd need a big honking diffusion pump to keep the lab under vacuum -- cryopumps only get you so far with all the helium you have floating around there. Although, come to think of it, I do seem to recall Jeff having spotted a few diffusion pumps out on Greenbriar a while back...