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Comment by FriedPickles | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if there's a cheaper filler gas we could use besides He. Perhaps methane, hydrogen, or acetylene, though they're quite flammable.

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I wonder how pure oxygen (at low pressure to avoid toxicity) would work. There's still a substantial fire risk, as the Apollo 1 fire demonstrated, but unlike flammable filler gases it won't immediately kill you with a single spark. With a sufficiently fire-proof environment, and a full body fire-proof suit, maybe it could be done.

EDIT: Although it seems the Apollo 1 fire happened with a pressurized oxygen atmosphere, not reduced pressure. Still, reduced pressure has its own dangers, because there could be sudden re-compression if the vacuum chamber failed. Re-compression barotrauma appears to be poorly studied (people don't usually work in partial vacuum). Or you could get crushed to death by the vacuum chamber imploding.

Apollo 1 was high pressure oxygen, since the capsule was still on earth, and they wanted to simulate the positive pressure difference between the inside of the capsule and space. In space it would have been low-pressure oxygen, just enough to satisfy human breathing requirements (so 0.19 atm).

> breathing oxygen (at low pressure)

Working from inside a hard-shelled pressure vessel would definitely be inconvenient. You could also build your home office 5000 m above sea level. Or work in a high-altitude balloon.

Either way, the rebreather option seems a lot more practical.

My partner deeply disliked when I attempted a study of the effects of methane in our bed.

I don't know if you've ever taken a good whiff of acetylene, but I would hate to have to live off it (maybe is it truly odorless, and its just common contamination?)

My understanding is that the characteristc smell of industrial acetylene is a result of sulfur compounds added as odorants (a common practice with odorless gases that create hazards, to make them noticeable.)

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