With supply lines disrupted by the pandemic, it was inevitable that the lunar settlements would eventually run out of supplies of something that was difficult or impossible to fabricate locally. Even after nearly two decades of building in-situ resource utilization programs, there were still a number of vital items for which they remained dependent upon supplies from Earth. Generally, these were items that required specialized technologies to produce, or which were not used in sufficient numbers to justify development of lunar manufacturing capabilities.
The normal procedure was to maintain a stockpile of spares, particularly of items for vital equipment, that was considered sufficient for typical usage patterns. As spares were used, they would be replaced by shipments from Earth, but their presence in the settlements would provide a buffer for emergencies.
However, this system presupposed that resupply from Earth could be undertaken well before the spares in stock would be used. That is, it could cover a small disruption in spacelift, such as bad weather at the launch site that might prevent a cargo spacecraft from being launched until the next launch window.
The diablovirus pandemic was a disruption at an unprecedented level. Although launches never were completely suspended, supply lines from the manufacturers to the launch complexes were disrupted at multiple levels. Many companies shut down assembly lines or even entire factories, whether their industries were viewed as “non-essential” by government bean-counters or diablovirus-related absenteeism reached such levels as they simply could not maintain the staffing necessary to do the work.
Even if the items in question were being produced, there was still the problem of getting them from factory to launch site. With so many truckers out from the diablovirus, transportation companies were prioritizing food, medicine and other obvious essentials for cargo space in their vehicles, which meant such items as low-temperature bearings for cryo-pumps or high-temperature rocket engine parts often got left at the end of the line.
There were several cases in which small but critical items were picked up by NASA personnel at the factory and then driven by personal car to Kennedy Space Center, sometimes arriving only hours before the launch window closed and being carried aboard the spacecraft by an astronaut rather than loaded as cargo.
As the pandemic proceeded, even these makeshift methods began to break down. As a result, it became necessary for the various settlements to develop their own ability to make these items, even if only in small quantities and with far less efficient methods than the normal techniques. Given that the alternative was apt to be the slow degradation of vital technologies to the point their settlements became unable to sustain life, they could no longer afford to let the perfect become the enemy of the good enough.
Shepardsport, which had been innovating in stretching equipment far beyond its intended use lifetime, was the first to take these measures….
—- S. K. Wyszynski, “Improvisation and Survival on the High Frontier,” Building for Resilience. Grissom City: St. Selene Digital Press, 2074.