Vacuum on their minds

Hat tip: Usenet via Geoff Kidd via Karen Anderson (copied from a fanzine – original link lost)

A company managed to finish work on a vacuum chamber which would be used to test plasma thrusters and other advanced spacecraft systems. It's a large chamber – large enough to walk around inside. Because it's that large, there are safety tests to worry about...

...because in order to go operational it needed the approval of the local Safety Nazis. You know the type. They have a checklist, nay, a whole handbook of checklists, one of which involves Confined Spaces. Big enough to walk around in? Check. Airtight? Check. Can be filled with an aspyxiant gas? Well, the MSDS for "Vacuum" apparently lists it as an "asphyxiant", so check. It's a confined space, and so the Confined Space checklist must be implemented. Issue the first: How do they make certain nobody can accidentally walk in while the chamber is full of that deadly asphyxiant "vacuum"? No, the fifty tons of force holding the door closed is not an acceptable answer. Issue the second: When the chamber is vented back to full atmospheric pressure, where would the vacuum go? Issue the third: What assurance is there, that when the chamber is vented back to full atmosphere, there is an adequate percentage of oxygen in the chamber? Hint: it is a big, big, big mistake to acknowledge here that the laws of statistical gas dynamics allow for one chance in 10^10^17 (no topy) that the chamber will spontaneously refill with a sufficiently oxygen-poor atmosphere to preclude respiration. Issue the fourth: and so help me God, I swear I am not making this up, again an exact Safety Nazi quote, "How can you be sure there won't be vacuum pockets left in the chamber, that someone could accidentally stick their head into?" And, coupled with issue #2, there could be deadly vacuum pockets floating around the lab! Aieee!!! Run for your lives! It only took three weeks to find someone with common sense and the real authority to overrule the Safety Nazis on this one, and the Safety Nazis still take offense if anyone brings it up in their presence.

Given the common sense the Safety Nazis brought to bear on this issue, I think I know exactly where the vacuum went.