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Lighting Technologies For Space Farming
dlkf writes: "Space.com has an excellent article discussing current technologies in light sources for growing plants in space. ".. .the high-tech lighting systems here have been used to grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, spinach, radishes, wheat onion and a whole plethora of herbs such as marjoram and parsley." The main problems for the lighting sources were energy usage, lifetime of light source and heat generation. To address these issues researchers are using both LED and microwave technology." The electrical advantages of LED growlamps may soon become manifest here on Earth, too.
cool, when this hits production, we can replace all our indoor lights and actually get some skin colouring while being stuck in these cubicles...
There are only two things in this world that smell like fish. And one of them's fish...
Marijuana [or hemp] is one of the fastest growing plants, and also one of the hardiest. A Marijuana plantation of a few hundred square meters provides a LOT of oxygen, and the biomass can then be converted back to fuel or fertilizer for the less hardy plants you grow for food. A self-sufficient spaceship has to be the way to go, and this is how to do it. Forget your expensive NASA-developed oxygen supply equipment, and go green!
"Cheech & Chong in Space" might turn out to be the most appropriate analogy.
What if you get nuclear (or whatever) energy from resources on-site? Say, a Martian geothermal plant, with the output gasses vented to help build the atmosphere. Or a helium-3 fusion plant, where the helium-3 is mined from the Moon (inefficiency of lifting from Earth aside, there just plain isn't that much helium-3 down here).
You're right, using sunlight directly makes sense if we are using sunlight to begin with. And that's a good option. But not the only one.
It's nice to see research in this area go forward, but it's really not needed. A quick look at some numbers tells us why:
A Martian greenhouse gets only half as much light as one on sunny Earth. Does this mean we get half as much yield per acre? Not quite
On Earth, carbon dioxide levels are typically well below 1% (usually around 350 parts per million). Raising the level of CO2 in a closed greenhouse is possible, but not economical. On Mars, however, the atmosphere is hardly anything but CO2 - and any greenhouse there must be tightly sealed already, so we can alter the CO2 level without additional construction.
What this means is that, although plants on Mars would get less light, they would actually produce higher yields per acre than plants on Earth, by virtue of the fact that they are growing in an atmosphere containg about 3% carbon dioxide! Now, this means astronauts would have to wear scuba masks to work in the greenhouse, but not spacesuits, since the greenhouse would be pressurized.
The point is, we can go to Mars with technology that exists today, right now, with no investment in R&D, and, more importantly, without waiting years for new technology. Yes, we should vigoursly pursue new technologies that lower the cost of space missions, but we don't have to.
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Vpered na Mars!