j: Equipment of the Cabin 



RESTORING THE AIR 



The problem arose how to prevent the air from becoming fouled in 

 the restricted space in which we were to have to live for many hours. 

 We had to have an installation which purified the air and replaced 

 the oxygen consumed. 



The human organism consumes oxygen and gives out carbon 

 dioxide and water vapour : this is the principal action of our breathing. 

 (At the same time the human body releases, by means of the lungs, 

 small quantities of organic matter called anthropotoxins, upon the 

 importance of which opinions differ. They can be absorbed by means 

 of active carbon.) 



The quantity of oxygen necessary for a man depends on many 

 circumstances : while resting, the consumption is about 0-3 5 pints (0-2 1.) 

 a minute. If our nutriment contained carbohydrates exclusively, the 

 volume of carbon dioxide given off would be equal to the volume of 

 oxygen absorbed, following the equation C-|-02=C02. Fatty 

 substances, however, contain almost twice the number of atoms of 

 hydrogen as of carbon and the combustion of the hydrogen absorbs 

 the oxygen by producing not carbon dioxide but water vapour. The 

 result is that, for 0-35 pints of oxygen consumed per minute, a man only 

 gives off about o-3i7pints(o-i8 1.) of carbon dioxide. I owe these details 

 to the specialists of the *Draegerwerk' establishment of Lubeck which 

 built the aeration apparatus of the stratospheric balloon, an apparatus 

 which I afterwards installed in the FNRS 2 : it was handed over to the 

 French Navy at the same time as the cabin. For the Trieste the same 

 supplier presented me with a new apparatus. Here is the principle of it; 



Oxygen contained under pressure in a gas-bottle is released through 

 an injector, draws up the ambient air and drives it back through 

 cartridges containing soda-lime which absorbs all the carbon dioxide ; 

 the air, thus regenerated and enriched with oxygen, returns into the 

 cabin : this is what is called a closed-circuit apparatus. If the intake 

 of oxygen is regulated to 2-64 pints (1-5 1.) a minute, the apparatus purifies 

 12*77 gallons (58 1.) of air at the same time. If the two occupants of the 

 cabin give off 0-63 pints (0-36 1.) of carbon dioxide a minute, the con- 

 centration of this gas will gradually reach 0-62%. Now we know that 



[9^] 



