mini hydroponics
- Thread starter coliver988
- Start date
How much space (tonnage) would have to be given over to provide food for a single individual ? (Or would this be merely a green supplement to other rations - like having a small salad course before the entree ?)
A few thoughts.
The Expanse has plants throughout stations and ships, a rather important plot point in the case of Ganymede. Food supplements that perform the same function and alter diet seem reasonable.
Whatever growing enviornment installed needs to be vacc-sealable given the frequency with which Travellers have to go to vacuum for combat.
Genetic engineering of course should be considered to have advanced, with several important features for 'ship plants'.
Ships would want plants that grow fast, process atmosphere to absorb carbon and give off oxygen, and provide food supplements (can't see primary food source but definitely fresh fruit/vegetables/nuts and spices).
This all says accelerated 'plant metabolism', possibly growing in days with rapid processing of atmosphere and lifespans in weeks/months (coded that way if for no other reason then brakes on kudzu-like results and contamination of planetary environments).
Other desirable functions might be processing life support wastes to generate fertilizer to especially feed these fast metabolism plants, and flippant features like aesthetics and glowing for light. Not something to rely on again on ships that can lose atmo, but might be a more regular 'comfort' appliance brought on board to lend a homey air to quarters.
I have hyperalgae as a central component of life support for the fertilizer/carbon conversion process. It's treated as a hazmat material and is regularly killed off and cleaned out to avoid unwanted mutations/contamination.
The Expanse has plants throughout stations and ships, a rather important plot point in the case of Ganymede. Food supplements that perform the same function and alter diet seem reasonable.
Whatever growing enviornment installed needs to be vacc-sealable given the frequency with which Travellers have to go to vacuum for combat.
Genetic engineering of course should be considered to have advanced, with several important features for 'ship plants'.
Ships would want plants that grow fast, process atmosphere to absorb carbon and give off oxygen, and provide food supplements (can't see primary food source but definitely fresh fruit/vegetables/nuts and spices).
This all says accelerated 'plant metabolism', possibly growing in days with rapid processing of atmosphere and lifespans in weeks/months (coded that way if for no other reason then brakes on kudzu-like results and contamination of planetary environments).
Other desirable functions might be processing life support wastes to generate fertilizer to especially feed these fast metabolism plants, and flippant features like aesthetics and glowing for light. Not something to rely on again on ships that can lose atmo, but might be a more regular 'comfort' appliance brought on board to lend a homey air to quarters.
I have hyperalgae as a central component of life support for the fertilizer/carbon conversion process. It's treated as a hazmat material and is regularly killed off and cleaned out to avoid unwanted mutations/contamination.
I'd say half a cubic meter per stateroom, split between an Expanse-like room plant wall with some of the features I mention and a centralized commons 'greenhouse'.
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T4 Extended LS including grown food
| Vol | Description | Td | Min People |
| 100m³ | algal vats | 7.14 Td | 25 |
| 200m³ | vats and gardens | 14.29 Td | 30 |
| 500m³ | gardens and small animals | 35.72 Td | 40 |
| 1500m³ | gardens and large animals | 107.14 | 75 |
| Description | Liters | Cr |
| MRE quality | 37 | 220.5 |
| Normal | 58 | 287.5 |
| Good | 68.5 | 409.5 |
| Excellent | 68.5 | 682.5 |
per week per person[/tc]
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
No, because space ships have freezers.
And if that doesn't suit, then you can have grown efficiently in vats. Imagine that home greenhouse device spitting out chuck roasts made of b33f instead of heads of lettuce.
Hmm, probably some force cloning in there, medicine would likely have advanced to personal DNA forced organ growth, maybe the Doc runs a sideline in steak manufacturing out of sick bay?
Plus of course most ships are pulling into starports every week, likely some meat brought aboard as supplies. If I spent an extra Cr2000 for a High Passage I'd expect plenty being available.
So probably more a function of the TL and 'Aggieness'/Non-Ag of the supplier planet then anything else as to how much diet goes vegetarian due to space habitat growing.
About that, apparently there are some issues with cultured meat.
Well, yeah, but perhaps in a few thousand years they may have managed to figure it out
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
That and 3+ tech levels of scientific advancement.
You don't have to grow the entire animal - there are ongoing attempts (some more successful than others) to culture animal cells in the lab.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...meat-fish-feed-the-world-frankenmeat-startups
No doubt. It probably tastes like lizard, and getting the nice marbling of pampered Kobe ribeye is probably not quite there yet.
But, yea, as others have mentioned, we'll have to see what a few more generations of knowledge and tech have to do with it.
Until then, however, we have freezers. Family have been packing sides of beef wrapped in white paper in to 4'x8'x4' frozen boxes for decades, and most traveller ships aren't more than a week away from civilization as it is.
For those that aren't, bring a bigger freezer.
as kilemall - I too am so stealing that!
The freezer in the lab ship is apparently big enough for body storage (Death Station double adventure)
