The MealMaker

[Proneutron]

During TL's 8-9 great strides are made in artificially manufactured food. By TL 10 industrial food synthesizing using only carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and a few other trace elements becomes a reality. The food is of course different in many ways from natural food. E.g. a synthesized grape has no skin but can be made in any size. You can get egg whites and egg yolk. But not as an integrated item as found in an egg. Thus fried eggs are problematic. Meats are one of the foods that are closest to the natural. Breads, pasta, sauces, cheese and other derived food items are pretty much the same as the original.

Recipes are programmed to take advantage the strengths and avoid the limitations of the system. The mass production of food using this technology puts an end to hunger on planets of this TL and above.

At TL 11 this technology is mature and moves into the the average home and star-ship. The “Meal Maker^TM” is two Dtons and Cr20,000 for a unit that feeds 6 people per day. It takes 2 hours to prepare 6 full meals. Time in between is usually used to produce stored food and drinks for on demand consumption. The unit has a refrigerator and freezer for such items.

At TL 12+ the size drops to one Dton and costs Cr30,000.

The programming for the molecular level food synthesizing is hard coded and cannot be changed due to the danger of creating poisonous compounds. One can buy new recipe "cartridges" from certified sources. The cost of the raw materials needed to make the food is negligible.

Ships using these food synthesizers cut life support costs per person by 50%.

 

[Condottiere]

I don't think you can cut life support costs by a great deal, by switching from steak to soylent green.

At which point, I'm thinking, recycling.

 

[Proneutron]

I don't think you can cut life support costs by a great deal, by switching from steak to soylent green.

At which point, I'm thinking, recycling.

Well, to put it gently, LS cost are INSANELY high and have nothing to do with any usage of air, water, food or whatnot. It is just a number picked in order to cause PCs to burn money.

So, it cuts in half realistic LS costs.

 

[Condottiere]

Have you considered bio domes, which can eliminate life support costs entirely?

 

[Proneutron]

Have you considered bio domes, which can eliminate life support costs entirely?

No need. Technology does it better and cheaper than any bio-dome.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Ships using these food synthesizers cut life support costs per person by 50%.

There's no need, food doesn't take up that much space. Water would need to be recycled, probably.

I wrote about Crew Food a while back. You should be able to pick these up at any StarshipMart.

Crew Food

The original TV dinners, with meat, vegetable, mashed potato, and fruit or dessert, was about 12 inches by 10 inches by 1 inch tall. If you throw in a 2 inch by 12 inch by 1 inch detachable utility pack with eating utensils, condiments, and beverage powders (or even liquid concentrates), it makes a 12 inch by 12 inch by 1 inch complete meal.

For 1 person for 30 days at 3 meals a day, a stack of TV dinners with varied breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals would only be 90 inches tall (almost 8 feet). If you want to make it square, it's about a 2 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot pack. Easily manageable.

A Scout/Courier with double occupancy (8 people) could stack them in each stateroom (under each bunk), assuming they are shelf stable and just need to be heated. Otherwise a special place has to be made in the Galley or Cargo Hold.

The original price of a TV Dinner was $0.98, so only about 90Cr per person for a month (or 720Cr for the whole 8 person crew).

I'm sure by the 57th century, there would be shelf-stable standardized food modules about the size of a TV dinner, made just for Starships or Travellers. A 12 inch wide by 1 inch tall by 10 inch deep food module heater would probably be standard in any Starship Galley.

A High Passage meal would probably be bigger and a lot different. But just think about how good a Tech Level-15 TV Dinner would taste! And TV could also stand for TraVeller.

So:

Food Module Pack
1 person, 1 month (90 meals)
2' x 2' x 2'
90Cr

Food Module Pallet
8 person, 1 month (720 meals)
4' x 4' x 4'
720Cr

EDIT: Just noticed my Math is a bit off. It's 96 meals in a 2' x 2' x 2' or 32 days.

 

[Proneutron]

There's no need, food doesn't take up that much space. Water would need to be recycled, probably.

I wrote about Crew Food a while back. You should be able to pick these up at any StarshipMart.

Serve $.98 TV dinners to your crew and they will stuff you in the Mr. Fusion PP in 10 seconds flat. Or, space you. :rofl:

Passengers paying many thousands of credits for a 7 day trip would soon have you out of service or, SPACED.

Ever ponder why the Navy has the best food out of all the services?

 

[Spinward Scout]

Serve $.98 TV dinners to your crew and they will stuff you in the Mr. Fusion PP in 10 seconds flat. Or, space you. :rofl:

By Tech Level 12, TV Dinners™ will taste great! And at higher TLs, all the Starships crews will want them.

Passenger Food would be different, probably.

 

[whartung]

Ask any family and you'll learn that above a certain size, "fresh" made meals are cheaper than packaged meals.

The detail is that you have to account for labor costs.

I don't see any issue with having either a dedicated cook, a rotation chore of "cooking for today", or simply "So, you're an engineer...can you cook?" part time position.

Then it's just a matter of stocking the freezer. Ships have a life span of a week-10 days in space (for normal runs), and keeping food fresh for 10 days is 1930s technology. It's not crew members cutting the mildew off the bread in their spare time.

So, package food is all well and good, it's certainly convenient when pressed for time. But, especially in Jump, if there's anything the crew has -- it's spare time.

 

[Proneutron]

Ask any family and you'll learn that above a certain size, "fresh" made meals are cheaper than packaged meals.

The detail is that you have to account for labor costs.

I don't see any issue with having either a dedicated cook, a rotation chore of "cooking for today", or simply "So, you're an engineer...can you cook?" part time position.

Then it's just a matter of stocking the freezer. Ships have a life span of a week-10 days in space (for normal runs), and keeping food fresh for 10 days is 1930s technology. It's not crew members cutting the mildew off the bread in their spare time.

So, package food is all well and good, it's certainly convenient when pressed for time. But, especially in Jump, if there's anything the crew has -- it's spare time.

All true. However this saves an insane amount of money over those other methods.

 

[MThompson016]

Pretty much what some of the posters have said. One of the features of a 726 class submarine is the forward Logistics Escape Trunk, when removed, gives space for containers of food supplies that can be lowered straight down into a sizable store room. Also, there's a fair amount of space assigned to the freezer on those boats. While usually 6-7 cooks would be assigned for the 150 crew, only 4 or 5 would actually be working in the galley as cooks, the other two are supervisors.

Considering how traffic between major worlds is, most ships would have the space for near fresh foods, and only rely on preserved foods if long duration trips off scheduled routes occur. However, certain luxury food stuffs (high quality coffee, meats), may only be available from certain worlds.

 

[Proneutron]

Pretty much what some of the posters have said.

Yes, however space saving is not isn't the main point of the machine. As stated it is the huge money savings. I know about subs. My son is a nuke. And this would increase patrol duration capability in a huge way now that I think about it because the VAST majority of food is composed of two atoms in combination as water or as part of carbs & protein. Those are hydrogen and oxygen. Both of which can be supplied by the ocean subs travel in. ::

 

[coliver988]

No need. Technology does it better and cheaper than any bio-dome.

Faster and cheaper probably. Better would be a matter of exactly how good the synthesis is. And then factor in the snob appeal of "naturally grown" vs "the vat down in engineering" may be a factor as well.

Many episodes in Star Trek there is a noticeable difference between "real" food vs replicator food.

 

[Proneutron]

Faster and cheaper probably. Better would be a matter of exactly how good the synthesis is. And then factor in the snob appeal of "naturally grown" vs "the vat down in engineering" may be a factor as well.

Many episodes in Star Trek there is a noticeable difference between "real" food vs replicator food.

Most items would be high quality. Even now meat can be manufactured that is very good. Most food is simple to make if you can create the molecules. For 98% of the population "snob appeal" doesn't come into play

 

[Spinward Scout]

Most items would be high quality.

Most? I can just imagine:

"Oh no! Not the Green Cubes again! Just throw me out the airlock, would ya?!?"

 

[Proneutron]

Most? I can just imagine:

If you understand the chemistry you could imagine it... :coffeesip:

 

[kilemall]

I tend to work backwards from the CT cost of living to determine how much of LS is food.


Good restaurant meals are Cr20 per day, excellent (I assume High Passage) is Cr20-50, ingredients for 'home prepared' meals is Cr5 per day (Mid passage), and expeditionary (likely planetside) is Cr20-25 depending on how light they are, costs more for the dehydrated stuff.


Of course restaurant meals are charging for labor and temporary eating space rental, so at most we could assume excellent ingredient costs are more like Cr30 per day.


Bottom line, we are talking Cr210 maximum for fresh high end ingredients per weekly trip. It's just not a major cost of life support.


So I don't see marginal ships sinking capital or more importantly space that could otherwise be profit or capability into this system. It would be the sort of thing that is highly useful for military or scout ships cut off from resupply on long missions/expeditions.


I guess the other question is the TL, seems pretty low for raw dynamic molecular level synthesis. We don't get Nuclear Dampers until TL12, so a relatively miniaturized much more sophisticated foodmaker would be TL13 minimum. I would tend to think specialized feedstocks for such a maker for lower TLs, possibly more of a genesplicer/rapid grow biofactory/autochef, then we go to raw elements at higher TLs.


The higher end foodmakers should probably come in at Cr200000 just cause of the greater sophistication and freedom from starport supply constraints. Or something like Cr10000 per person-day capacity.

 

[coliver988]

I don't know - so far the lab grown meat has not worked out well (apparently it does not taste great and is very, very expensive. But we're at the very early stages, so we'll see. And that also begs the question: I'm a half-assed vegetarian: I eat fish & fowl but have not had mammal-based meat in 30+ years. Would that count as meat? My choice is primarily from ethics. And I just don't like meat but not sure how much of that is psychological at this point)

Anyway - I always recall that scene from Firefly & the fresh strawberries. Fresh is always better. Perhaps it is just psychological, and after a 1000 years of food synthesis no one could tell. But I'd think there would be a premium, particularly for high passage, on "real" food vs synthesised. Never underestimate the snob appeal (why I grind my coffee beans just before making coffee. Can I taste the difference? Maybe, but I think I do, and how people think about things can be very powerful)

 

[Proneutron]

I don't know - so far the lab grown meat has not worked out well (apparently it does not taste great

o:

"When the process is complete, the scaffold is completely enveloped in beef-like muscle tissue. After going through a taste test, three volunteers said that the lab-grown beef had “a pleasantly meaty flavor.”

They also claim that its texture is comparable to that of real meat. "

 

[Condottiere]

Some people might miss the hormones and antibiotics.

I think it will pass muster when Mickey Dee can sell them in India, and make a killing.

I like drowning mine in red wine.