So, it appears that half the crew on the spaceship are on strike, and have been sealed off in the aft section of said ship. You are not one of them. Then there is an explosion and you are the only person on your end of the ship capable of accessing the emergency oxygen supply, which can be diverted to the fore and aft sections in varying proportions....
The central dilemma appears to be the question of how to distribute the oxygen. The distribution itself was simplicity itself, once the console has been repaired; in fact, unless you plan on suffocating the strikers, you could just set the thing up once and wait out the whole distribution.
This, unfortunately, leaves you with a lot of time on your hands. By this point of the game, though, you should have met up with the one lone NPC, Andre, one of the strikers. I could of course spend the time talking to him, but I personally found him rather short on conversation. He has loads of attitude, but I'm afraid curmudgeonliness is no substitute for speech.
There are hints and suggestions that your side of the great debate isn't so hot, and your captain is a power-mad brute. In fact, everything seems to suggest that the strikers are the Good Guys here. It's all very black and white. Given this, the central dilemma becomes less of a puzzle. Of course you want to help the miners. There is still the question of how you're going to do it, with what little you have now -- it's quite an original puzzle, now that I think about it -- but I think it might have been even better with a little bit more ambiguity. It would have been nice, for instance, to know that the strikers are not flawless paragons of virtue, or that the captain's decisions are based on a sincere desire to see the mission through. That sort of ambiguity is what turns a mere puzzle into a real dilemma.
Two pancakes, with butter and only a little syrup. Strong, black coffee.