Space Colony Tool Loadout

Does anybody out there remember the movie with Sean Connery called Outland? He plays a future cop on one of the industrialized mining moons of Jupiter. If you haven't seen the movie its pretty good. Its also what my mental picture of the distant future of space travel once it moves out of the scientific and into the industrial. Once companies figure out how to make a profit on another planet it will become a reality.

Its been quite a while since I've seen the movie but I have been thinking about what tools I would want to have with me if I moved to a different country, or worse a different planet. My first answer would be all of them but that really isn't practical because I would need an ocean container to haul it all in.

As a fun mental exercise I started to imagine what tools I would take if I was leaving earth and going to colonize another planet. It turns out there are all kinds of what if questions that come up so I had to set some basic rules to help define the problem and scope.

 The following description sets the stage for the basic tools of the colonization mission.

You are part of a team of explorers sent on a one way trip to colonize a distant habitable planet. The information available on the target planet is limited. We know the basics. The temperature, atmospheric composition, gravity, radiation, land masses, oceans. And we also know it harbors carbon based lower life forms of plants and animals. All of the data we have is from long range high speed probes that surveyed the system from orbit. Unfortunately we don't have any hard surface data because of the limited sensor capability of the fast probes. Our best guess from the available data is the target planets are very earth like but without any other higher humanoid life forms.

This is a one way mission. There is no fuel and stores for any type of return flight. We anticipate enough fuel on arrival to survey two of the most likely planets in the extrasolar system for the colonization team to make a final site decision. Re-supply of any sort will not be possible. The spacecraft itself is approximately the mass and composition of a semi truck and trailer. All of the materials of the spacecraft are available for recycling and use for the colonization at the discretion of the crew. Communication with earth will be possible for one year after the spacecraft lands. However any signal will take a month to reach the earth and a month to come back. In other words the spacecraft will have computer, electrical power and communication for one year. After that the colonization team is on its own. Forever. No McMaster, no Craigslist, its Sink or swim.

As the sole representative for the skilled trades on this colonization mission you have been given the responsibility to recommend and pack the tool kit for the mission. Space and weight are severely limited. All available space is dedicated to fuel and food stores for the crew. The allotted weight and volume for the toolkit are 10kg and 60 liters volume maximum. Approximately 22lbs and roughly the volume of two five gallon buckets. The requirements for the toolkit are that it must have the capability to service and maintain the spacecraft during the interplanetary flight and be useful for the establishment of a colony on the planet surface. You have less than two weeks to choose and pack the kit for the flight.

 As you can see the tool choices we make are pretty important. This is the type of thought exercise that NASA could spend half a million dollars on just defining the color of the toolbox.

Is this realistic? Not really. The ship would have at the very least a way to produce energy either solar or nuclear to power the computers and other equipment aboard. However it doesn't make as good a story if the ship will sustain the colonists for a long period of time. I would much rather think about taking a spacecraft apart with my tool kit and building all kinds of things from the materials. I can't take a chainsaw and a cutting torch so I will have to make due with some good hand tools and elbow grease.

My first thoughts are centered around general tool making. I expect to find raw materials on the planet but I don't have much information on what to expect. I'm not going to pack a blast furnace and a rolling mill so I will need to figure out a generic enough set to get me going no matter what I find. The first and easiest source of materials will be the space craft itself. It will probably be a shelter initially but will eventually be consumed to make to make tools and machines we will need to process the available raw materials on the planet. 

Twenty two pounds is not much of a tool kit for the rest of your life. If you think about it everything we have today comes from the guys that learned how to make stone tools so theoretically we don't need anything. Those ancient tool makers are the beginning of human tool making history. We could start again from square one with stone tools but with our knowledge and source of high grade raw materials from the space craft our new civilization has a major head start. It also makes a better article to read.

So I started a list of tools, gathered them up and weighed them. Right away I see that the volume is not the problem but the weight is. Anybody knows who has picked up a working persons tool box that tools are heavy. I chose tools that I thought have multiple uses. Tools that have too many functions usually don't do any of the functions very well. The example I use is the knives they had for camping that had everything on them including a fork and a spoon. They really didn't do anything very well. Better to distribute that weight over a couple of single or dual purpose tools that perform well. Since I could only choose what I have in the shop we will have to make some assumptions about how much each tool could be optimized for the trip.

Toms list of tools for trip. Not in any order of preference.

1. Tongue and groove pliers. (Channelocks) These are general purpose pliers that fill a wide range of holding and turning jobs.
2. Vise Grip pliers. Curved jaw with wire cutter. Clamping pliers useful for holding and clamping.
3. Four way screwdriver. Has two sizes of both phillips and flat blade drivers.
4. Pipe wrench 14 inch aluminum. I didn't have an aluminum one to weigh so I estimated it at one third of the weight of a standard steel model. Heavy duty turning and holding tool.
5. Hammer. Initially I chose a ball pein but when is the last time you used the ball end? I switched this to a claw hammer which is more versatile.
6. Adjustable wrench six inch. Can't go anywhere without an adjustable wrench. 
7. Diagonal cutters. I seem to use these all the time. Wire cutting, nail pulling, crimping, etc.
8. Multi tool. I have a SOG brand tool with a long list of accessories.These particular ones have a needle nose pliers in them.
9. Tweezers. Try getting an alien out of your finger without them.
10. Allen wrenches. I usually hate the folding hex key type but they are lighter and not as easy to loose an individual wrench in the dirt.
11. Electrical multimeter. Mine is heavy at 1.3 lbs. I'm guessing this could be reduced by a factor of ten with a smaller lighter model.
12. Hacksaw. Cuts almost any metal and or wood.
13. Jab saw. 
14. Coping saw. 
15. Tungsten carbide grit hacksaw blade. Flat and wire type. Now I can cut hardened steel and other tough materials.
16. EMT scissors. These will cut sheetmetal and a variety of other thin materials.
17. Diamond abrasive sticks.
18. Half round file.
19. Flat file
20. Round file.
21. Combination square set. This fills a couple of needs. I get a good right angle reference, a level, an accurate length standard, and an angle standard.
22. 12 ft tape measure. 
23. Pocket reference book. I can remember a lot but not all this useful stuff.
24.  Large locking blade knife. May have to process some of those tasty off world animals while were there.
25. Hemostat clamp.
26. Cold Chisel
27. Dividers
28. Small sharpening stone.
29. Magnifier.
30. Small screwdriver set. Jewelers type.
31. Two or three foot length of band saw blade. 3/4 wide coarse pitch. This is to make a bow saw out of to help process wood or whatever plant based building materials we find.

So far what I have listed is a little over fifteen pounds and easily fits in one of the buckets.

 I subtracted the weight advantage I would gain from going to an aluminum pipe wrench and a small compact multimeter. I still have seven pounds allotment left and six or seven gallons volume left. As I looked at the growing pile of tools I started thinking about reference standards. A new civilization would need to establish standards for weights and measures as well as time. These standards would be helpful to measure and modify our new environment. But since its my choice I decided to add more tools and leave the scientific stuff to the scientists.

What other multi use tools should I add? I was thinking about some force multipliers like a screw or hydraulic jack, or a prybar of some sort. Some useful additions might be,

• Socket wrench set. 
• Torx wrenches
• Needle files
• Soldering Iron. What fuel source? Electric on the ship but its dead weight after that.
• Mirror
• Drill bits
• Hand crank drill or brace
• Wood Chisel
• Pin punches
• Tapered Drift punch
• Sewing needles
• Lightweight come along 
• Magnet
• Magnesium Fire starter.

What I imagine as the most versatile setup would be what you might have found at a country blacksmiths shop back in the early nineteenth century. These guys were the local toolmakers before electricity and huge manufacturing took over. All they needed were some hammers, a source of heat and a decent source of fuel to work. The tools of the general blacksmith could re-process many of the materials of the spacecraft into additional tools and articles for the colonization. These guys were the ultimate early recyclers. I can imagine that some heavy part of the spacecraft could function as an anvil for the new town blacksmith. We do know there are plants and organic matter on the destination planet so these might function as fuel for the forge.  

An early colonial blacksmiths shop. With a similarly equipped shop we could make short work out of the spacecraft. What would be our tool need priority? If we plan on using the spacecraft to build our colony I would say that shelters of some sort would be the highest priority for the colonists. We are pretty sure there are plants on the destination planets so cutting down trees and making durable shelters might be high on the list. Or perhaps boats or wheeled carts for exploring the planet surface more efficiently. 

Doing some internet searches I looked at some tool kits for people traveling off the beaten path. The key common element is self sufficiency. I was happy to see that some of these guys agree with my selections. Open ocean sailors, back country off roaders, and astronauts all seem to pack a similar kit. 

 Toolkit for the Apollo space mission. Great minds think alike. See the 10 inch adjustable wrench. I bet the Crescent company fell all over itself to make sure its wrench was on the mission. This kit sold at auction recently for $76,000. Check out the cool blue handled ratchet at the bottom. It has an oversize thumb lever so it can be operated with spacesuit gloves on.

I wanted to get some other peoples opinions So I showed my off world tool loadout to my wife and Jeff from MLS After explaining the basic idea and general rules they both ripped into my tool selections like a couple of wood chippers.I admit I didn't have a leg to stand on with the dividers.......

Here are the tools they wanted out of the kit. This reduced the overall weight considerably. They chose to add it back and then some with the addition of a heavier hammer, a larger 10inch adjustable wrench, and a sharpie. They gave me crap about the magnifying loupe. My comeback was that they would be crying like babies when they got a metal sliver in their hand and I was the only one with a magnifier and some tweezers. 

When I mentioned that the colonists would be dismantling the spaceship a pry bar, drill bits and a better pair of snips quickly got on the list.

Here's where were at after the suggestions. Total weight is almost seventeen pounds. This leaves about five pounds we can add.

There are many other things I would want along on a trip like this but they fall under the heading of consumables. Things like cord and wire, zip ties, duct tape deck screws, nails etc all fall under this heading. For the purpose of this thought exercise lets stick to durable tools or at least ones that can be sharpened and reconditioned.

After my wife and Jeff added their choices to the load out we now have some drill bits. We could add one of the old school brace type drill drivers.

This gives us a head start with hole making. Incidentally hole making is the most common machining operation of all machining operations so I'm sure it will be in the new world. I also hate the thought of having to make my own drill bits from some piece of space junk so I was happy to see them added to the kit. Guessing at the weight of this I'll say something like 2.5 lbs.

So my additions to top off the kit are, brace bit driver, one inch wide wood chisel, needle files, larger selection of drill bits, a mirror, and a magnet. Obviously we could custom make most of these tools and loose more weight but how much? It all related to how much time you have to spend optimizing. Even the Apollo guys opted for a few off the shelf commercial items and its a safe bet they had more than two weeks to decide what to take.

So I think I'm ready to load up and head to the job site unless you have some suggestions for improving the kit. I'm right at 22 lbs total for everything on the scale and in front of it. Lots of volume left. This all fits comfortably in one of the buckets. I might add a foam pad to kneel on and a couple of pairs of the magic gloves. Not much weight and pretty damn useful.

Post a comment if you think you have a worthy improvement. Thanks for looking.