Can anyone help me understand why there is CO2 in my launch room

[ThePenaltyBox]

I have a sealed off launch room for steam rockets to help with the initial research. There is a liquid lock on the right with oil (don't mind the water that's currently there) the top are bunker doors that obviously open to space to allow the rocket to launch and land. It is just a steam engine, 5 research modules, 1 command capsule (no booster, I know those expel CO2).

 

Can anyone help me understand why I periodically find a LOT of CO2 in this room? The steam rocket should in theory launch and expel just steam and also boil off some of the excess water in the bottom/keep the mass down there warm to have a continuous cycle of steam - water - steam. What am I missing that's introducing CO2. All dupes that enter are in atmo suits and even if the water lock breaks there is no CO2 to the right of it, just O2.

Thank you in advance and please excuse the mess!

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[Nitroturtle]

Meteors

[crypticorb]

Either jetpack dupes or meteors. Unless for some odd reason you had some liquid CO2 somewhere and those bottle emptiers were set to allow that.

Since CO2 is heavier than just about any other gas, steam would just trap it, and CO2 is a decent insulator so its probably keeping your exhaust boiler thing from working properly too.

Close your bunker doors during meteor showers, and ditch the jetpack dupes for gantries.

[Craigjw]

It's a 9x9 area below your rocket that receives a LOT of heat, I see that you have doors and strange stuff around here, hoping that none of it's going to get hot.

You will be moving on from pure steam rockets soon, where CO2 will be in larger quantities, there's no point in developing a system that requires no co2 to be present, just vent it all into space, it's largely a waste of time trying to harvest the energy from the steam.

I design my rocket silo's based on the design mention in this post at the bottom of page 1, by Nitroturtle.

If you are going to harvest heat from the launch, it's best to harvest it from the 9x9 region below the rocket.  If you try harvest heat from anywhere else, it just turns into a major faff, for very little gain.  Just vent the gas into space.

[crypticorb]

Another possibility, solid fuel boosters produce CO2 I just used them for the first time in a looooong time, as I usually skip over them for petroleum rockets, but I wanted space stuff sooner as I take my time planning meticulously. 

Not sure why an iron and oxylite fuel composition would produce carbon dioxide, but oh well, game mechanics.

[Craigjw]

I think the use of Iron for a rocket engine is quite a cool idea.  If I had to guess the source, I'd say that someone from KLEI had read some of E.E. 'Doc' Smith sci-fi books from the early part of the 1900's.  Iron and other metals are often used in his books to power faster than light space craft, so much faster than light can these ships travel, that light speed is comparable to a stationary object being overtaken by a speeding bullet.  The physics in these books really isn't consistent with any form of general relativity.