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Green Plants for Mars Mission
An anonymous reader writes "NASA doesn't keep back that they are going to send a human expedition to Mars in a couple of decades. One of the obstacles for the longstanding 35-million-mile voyage is a food production. NASA researchers have focused on 20 plant species that NASA believes could be grown during a flight to Mars and after landing on the fourth planet from the Sun. By far not all of them are suitable for space expedition."
wow that is such a fluff piece, it says that the actual information will be released later on, it doesn't mention the species of plants looked at, it doesn't explain much other then they look at byproducts and that they want to help the crew survive... :) where is the geeky stuff?
a good candidate for the mission. I guess travaling that far can be boring .
"potential problems based on the byproducts they gave off"
..does making people laugh makes a problem ?
why don't they tell us the 20 species? Is it a secret?
Spam... Comes in a small can, and tastes great. As a good long-term food source, it's great--just ask me. The poor university student. :(
I wonder if someone will smuggle pot seeds onboard...
Anyone else notice that the FA doesn't list the plants?
I mean seriously, how else are we going to raise the ban on Marijuana if NASA doesn't use it in space?
Hemp shall be the savior of man kind.
Take that Conservatives.
Why can't we just eat at the Starbucks that will be there by the time we get there.
...it worked in 2001
passing of time? (pulls out bong) Right here.
Article Text
NASA faculty fellow researches effect of certain plants on air quality
When earthlings make their first attempt to land on Mars, E. Paul Larrat will be justified in thinking he played a small role in the 35-million-mile voyage.
Larrat, associate dean of the University of Rhode Island's College of Pharmacy, spent much of the summer as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration Faculty Fellow at the Advanced Life Support Center at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
His work focused on 20 plant species that NASA believes could be grown during a flight to Mars and after landing on the fourth planet from the Sun.
Larrat, an East Greenwich resident, was one of 100 fellows chosen from a field of 700 nominees to work at various NASA research centers across the country.
"We looked at all the candidate crops and we tagged a few for potential problems based on the byproducts they gave off," Larrat said.
Larrat, who oversees the research and graduate programs of URI's College of Pharmacy, was assigned to a center that examines issues and problems associated with supporting crews on long-duration flights. "On a three-year trip to Mars, crews are going to have to recycle water, and grow some of their own food. Much of the center's work focuses on making sure the crews don't die because they lack water, air, or food. But it is also concerned with life support processes that could threaten life.
"I worked on the air supply and making sure that it does not become contaminated by the growing of certain plants," Larrat said. "This really fit in well with my public health-epidemiology research work."
He used a gas chromatograph to test what was emitted by small samples of the potential food sources.
"We worked four days a week at the center, and on Wednesday, we had a chance to tour various sites at the Kennedy Space Center," Larrat said. "We had a chance to see workers putting tiles on the shuttle, Endeavor, and the recovery boats that pick up the solid rocket boosters after liftoff.
"To stand under the shuttle and touch it and be a part of the space program was a dream come true, because I have had a lifelong interest in space."
He was fortunate to be at Kennedy for the 35th anniversary celebrations of the Apollo missions. Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, which had to abort its mission to the moon, spoke while Larrat was at the Kennedy Space Center. "When the astronauts come in, it's like they are rock stars. Many come on their own private jets and then people swarm around them for autographs."
He keeps in contact with his research colleagues, and they are planning to publish their findings and to present them at the International Space Conference next year. They compiled a report of 200 pages.
He said his fellowship also helps pharmacy students see that their options for careers are many. "I know that anyone from our program would be able to succeed in this environment," he said.
"There is already work going on to produce medicines in space, and then to commercialize those products," Larrat said.
"Fifteen years from now when we are heading to Mars, I can say I was a small part of this. And I'd like to think the crew will be healthier because of the work we have done."
Source: University of Rhode Island
It seems to me that taking the lamps, dirt, and space needed for the plants to grow would be less efficient than simply filling the space with canned food. I suppose it depends on the time they are taking; I wonder how many growing seasons they will have on the way to mars.
I hate my sig
What about some Hamdingers?
Just like regular Ramen, but it costs 10x as much.
I vote that we fix SS, healthcare for all, edcation for all AND mars.
We just have to stop bombing so many people to pay for it.
Yes, abandon all work towards the future until we can handle the present. Society has gotten to where we are today by continually looking towards the future. Plus, solutions NASA develops frequently benefit the general public in unexpected ways.
...fifty years from now, we find that the only plants that would grow on Mars are ragweed and poison ivy.
ardustry
About the time I stopped smoking, pot had gotten a lot more powerful, and the kids were calling it "chronic" or "polio". Has it gotten powerful enough to call it "suspended animation"?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
So when we arrive on Mars, we'll bring a complex enough ecosystem that we'll infect the planet with the disease now erupting from Earth: us. If Earth is Gaia, we're her virus. How many planets makes an epidemic?
--
make install -not war
Because in 500 years when we've run out of oil, stripmined most of the US for the last of the coal to make synthetic oils, Americans will have to turn to another planet to destroy.
Part II because of average student housing has done anough research in keeping frozen food foot extended periods beyond the date printed on the wrapping (but never recorded the actual consumption and kill rate).
Also the mars mission has a better fridge, which should help (-| .
Anyway, it'll be kind of a drag being locked up on earth for a few months in a small closed environment - but I wouldn't trust relying on plants any other way.
..........FULL STOP.
zucchinia beans
garlic
kudzu
black beans
trumpet vine
sweet potato
bamboo
red beans
spider plant
black-eye beans
redwood
dill
onion
mustard
catnip
fav
stinging nettle
cabbage
thistle
dandilion
Troll
This is the real barrier to owning our own back yard. Fortunately, the technology is something that is not out of reach. It is something that can come to fruition in the next few decades. then you can grow your own food where-ever you happen to be at.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
can we abduct a few aliens while we're there????
BC bud clones, no problem with lighting in outerspace.
Because in 500 years when we've run out of oil[...]
you mean 50, right ?
no beef, chicken, iguanna, dodo etc?!!?!
or is this a plan to isolate all the vegans to their own planet?
Hate me!
Besides, where would they put the 2 tonnes of Cheetos required for the trip?
you don't see NASA loading up the cargo hold with 40's. Legal is one thing, useful for the success of the mission is another.
Cheers,
Biosphere II
So, they'll have only vegeterians in the space crews. :-)
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
That would be a lot of work, costing billions of dollars. For what? Keeping non-productive elderly people alive as long as possible so that they'll continue being a burden on our infrastructure? Why don't we spend all that money on expanding the horizons of the human race?
Actually, smoking kannabis tends to SLOW down percieved time and as such would propably not be a good idea. Unless of course they were having a good time listening to jazz and boning beautiful women.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Weight, reliability, and cost perhaps? If they can find a set of plants that will do the job on zero-G, it'll weigh less, be relatively reliable, and the component parts (water, nutrients, etc.) may be recyclable to some extent. Seems like it has the potential to be an elegant solution.
I think they were mostly water, with some sort of green water-plant, and tiny shrimp or some such, for a "complete" plant-animal symbiotic environment.
Anyhow, they were supposed to cycle "forever?" in their closed, balanced system. Assuming you gave it enought sunlight, but didn't over-cook it, and of course assuming it didn't get knocked to the floor.
Did anyone have (still have) one of these? How long did/has it lasted? Can you still get them anywhere?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
...a 1 cent coffee, and a $6.99 paper cup :)
Why not just fill a capsule with seeds from every plant on earth and have it crash into Mars about 20 years before we go there? Anything that can grow, will grow, and we'll find out what works without a bunch of expensive and potentially futile research. Like they say in Jurassic Park, "Nature will find a way". :)
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
It is the drug of choice in the white house.
It is well known here in Europe that CIA has managed to excavate a few seeds of the supposedly extinct macaroni tree, and have developed the pizza plant for their undercover agents. Only the strong commercial forces and CIA's greed prevent the wholesale use of these inventions for the good of all mankind. Maybe NASA can get hold of those anyway...
Look, every society that looks inwards ends up decaying. There are no solutions for all of societies ills. It is the reason why Communism will never work. Mankind is its own worse enemy. By looking outwards and expanding to the stars, we will increase economically as well as improve our own conditions. Think about when America prospered. Our greatest times where probably during the late 50's until late 60's. A big part of that was doing things such NASA, but in the right way. Now, NASA is just a tool that is being bantered about by politicians to be used to improve their own voting records, but not necessarily the USA.
Bush's ideas of not shooting for Mars, but going to the moon, all but guarentees that we will have enormous costs for a long time. The moon has no real resources. But even if Kerry gets in, I think that we are still in trouble. Our best chance at this is the X-Prize being moved into y-prize and z-prize, etc. With Paul Allens interest in the future, he is funding a number of space related things as well. I suspect that he will be able to get some commercially viable companies on to new ground. Literally. In fact, if the private Russia trip really is shooting for Mars happens, I think that it probably has Allen's backing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's awesome. It's a shame that the shrimp don't reproduce though.
Yeah, if you've got a Brookstone near you, they carry them... or search the site for "ecosphere"...
http://www.brookstone.com/
I vote that we fix SS, healthcare for all, edcation for all AND mars.
We just have to stop bombing so many people to pay for it.
But will the United Caliphates of America share your research priorities?
I think they were mostly water, with some sort of green water-plant, and tiny shrimp or some such, for a "complete" plant-animal symbiotic environment.
Anyhow, they were supposed to cycle "forever?" in their closed, balanced system. Assuming you gave it enought sunlight, but didn't over-cook it
Never heard of these things, but what you describe doesn't entirely sound like a completely closed, balanced environment. After all, there was an external source of energy--much like this rock with a thin layer of air we live on.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Couldn't you just use the manuvering thrusters to cause the ship to rotate on its axis? I mean, the less wide the ship is, the faster you'll have to spin it, but that isn't a problem is it?
The list posted above cannot possibly be correct. Maybe they should get Martha Stewart on this one. She's good with recipes and used to living in confined spaces.
Stuff that matters.
Would anybody know if there are any plants here on Earth that could survive on Mars itself? Not in some closed dome but in the actual atmosphere?
If we ever want to have successful Mars colonization then we also have to perform some terrafroming there; I can't imagine too many people wanting to live their whole lives in a cramped, closed environment. Creating some oxygen in the atmosphere would probably be essential for such an endeavour but would it be possible with anything that we've got today?
When men used to be men
As far the the long term forcast for our eco-sphere, I think it is generally accepted to be "pretty much more of the same, minor ice ages and thaws every once-in-a-while, then, later, it will get atmosphere-boiling-hot, then really, really cold, for a long, long time."
BTW, I did find the link - the shimp are only good for "about 2 years" according to the eco-sphere folks. The things come in diff sizes and seem kind of pricy since the critters don't too long.
Apparently it is a hobby of sorts to create DIY copies of this thing. I know I hated cleaning the aquarium when I had one - sure would be nice to just close the lid and have a self-cleaning environment.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
...some of the simpler plants like algae (blue green) and chlorella and some of the yeasts are a good choice. Rapid growth cycles, easy to grow, extremely nutritious and because they come in tiny single cell size they are highly digestible. Probably the best bet for a closed cycle system, to get the most calories for the effort.
Too add to the list down below, I'll throw in a few I know are very nutritious and fast growers,and also able to take some extreme environmental conditions, efficient in other words
lambs quarters
purslane
kale
bunching onions
along the same lines, chives
sweet clover
There's some other fast growers and tougher plant candidates but they are nastier tasting, like some of the lichens. If they had enough light and a salt water/mineral mix tank, dulse might be a good choice as well.
Left out things that would be too hard to grow in an enclosed small place, there's quite a few really. In normal cultured gardening, there are just hundreds of candidates probably, it really *is* a variable that would be determined on space available and how much water is available, light available, and that is about it. Modern vegetables are pretty good at being *food*, most of them have been very successfully bred over the generations to be fast growers, etc, they just need a *lot* of water and root and foliar space, and a lot of them are not edible until they achieve a large size, or are not practical because of length of time for seed to seed. I would assume that is what is the big drawback to what the selections might be. For example, corn is tasty, but only medium nutritious, takes a huge amount of resources and space, and even the fastest corn is still weighing in at about two months growing time. Off the list. The radishes though, heck ya, about perfect. I think their primary criteria would have to be a fast generational cycle and having most of the plant be edible. And they could always do just sprouts, dried grains and seeds are fairly compact and already being mostly dehydrated they are efficient to launch weight wise, and after sprouting they have activated enzymes which make them a lot more nutritous than the mature plant. It's a small window with sprouts, usually about until they get their first real leaves, as opposed to the bud leaves.
Personally, I think they should make an executive decision that YES INDEEDY (that's my official vote anyway) we as humans are going to colonise mars, and that will entail dragging our crops with us, so they should just go ahead and start terraforming now by introducing the simpler plants in the hopes they might adapt. I know that is controversial, but that's the only thing rational if you are serious about colonization at any time in the future. No sense wasting time then if you choose "yes". Robot probes could be the advanced gardeners, even if all they did was set up greenhouses and get a few of the simpler crops up and growing before the humans showed up.
When previous historical explorers traveled, they took the means to self perpetuate their food supply, they took seeds and livestock with them. They didn't know what would be "out there" so they couldn't take a chance on a very long and hazardous journey and then get stuck with no food eventually. they did the only thing logical at the time, they traveled with a "farm in a box". If they had had the ability to send that "farm in a box" stuff FIRST, ahead of their voyages,they would have done so. We can do that now with the next stage of human exploration, so, IMO, we probably should.
Yes, aware of the risks of "contamination". I don't consider it contamination, I consider it rational cultivation. I don't want Mars and exploration to be limited to a few academic hands off pursuits,look but no touch action in other words, I want it eventually open for joe human to go there and live if he chooses to. Open source colonization, not closed source propietary.
That will obviously mean then that we will be haulin
I remember a few years back, there was a comment on growing algae in space. While some forms of algae are edible ,I would hardly think anyone would want to consume it. However, it is known that growing algae in a vacuum can produce hydrogen. Growing other species of algae within a pressurized environment can produce oxygen. What would be excellent is if the astronauts could not only "grow" their food supply and life support, but also "grow" their fuel.0 0c.html
http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/NP02-24-20
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
The article said that when astronauts visit, they're treated like rock (pun intended?) stars, and have their own private jets.
How much do astronauts make, by the way, and once a 'naut, does NASA take care of you for life? Who supports their lavish lifestyle?
..preach it brother, preach it! A-men!
Exploration by it's very nature is supposed to be risky, and it is attempted by visionaires who will assume at least a modicum of risk.
We've had PHB and marketing mentality running the space program, and it IS a welfare system of sorts, very similar to other governmental bureaucracies.
We don't need accountants and lawyers and politicians and bireaucrats in space,or to get to space, we need freebooters, jacks of all trades, real adventurers, people with honest drive and energy and vision and smarts and skills.
ya, ya, ya, those other types are necessary in the beginning, just we have to make sure we can shoo them out of the way when the time comes, and the TIME HAS COME.
Mars + plants = Little Shop of Horrors
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
Hey, why not, I have a few more for the list then
professional sports addicts
video game addicts
stock traders
politicians
TV couch spuds
mindless order followers in the "destructive arts and in-humanities"
all them "other guys" who ain't *you* based on ethnicity or religion or whatnot
Seems like there was a pretty big eugenics experiment, "bumping off the unproductives", carried out in the last century, but then goodwins law kicks in to mention it. whoops, just did it. Oh well, it seemed to have had a few problems associated with it, or perhaps you missed that part.
Careful what you list as unproductive, chances are you will fall on someone else's list then
Yes they're still sold under the name "eco-sphere". The company's put up a classic excerpt from Carl Sagan's book "Billions and Billions" where he ponders the workings of the ecosystem in one of the "worlds" (world #4210) he bought.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
And by the time we fix SS, and have healthcare and education for all, our position in the world will have been completely eroded due to the rise of others all too willing to fill the power vacuum. With our wise decision to completely cut all our military funding (and the R&D that goes along with it), our production of innovative technologies will be significantly curtailed. But hell, who needs to go to Mars, make technological breakthroughs, or move civilization ahead. We can just maintain our modern-day subsistence indefinitely.
Oh yeah, no problem. Take the invasion of Iraq, for instance.. even extrapolating the cost to $200 billion, that's what Social Security pays out in, like, six months. Of course, to fix Social Security, you don't have to put in an additional amount equal to what it pays out, because there's already money going into it, but even if you take that into account, I doubt the Iraq war funds could extend SS by more than a few years -- let alone additionally provide "healthcare for all", "education for all", and so on.
A guy down the hall from me in college had a dead one. He said it had lasted about two years.
This was in NYC, so maybe it just didn't get enough natural light?
heck, I even recall there was a slashdot article about the military researching a 'patch' that could sustain a soldier for a week (IIRC) or so.
Think of it - plants aren't compact enough, compared to a 'patch' / 'pill' ... and seems like a waste of space to launch into space.
Though, plants are needed in the longrun, like when we have some sort of structure _on_ Mars, and we are starting to make it habitable. Yes, then I'd take with me a 'seed(s)' and start planting vegetation (and sure, 1st I'd make sure it would be possible to grow stuff...but that's besides my point...)... but I wouldn't take with me vegetation from HERE to THERE. *doesn't make my sense*
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
a good way to deal with the waste first is to run it through a methane anaerobic digester first. Then they could extract the methane and run that through a fuel cell, get some more useable energy that way, and the resultant sludge has been reduced to the point that plants could use it. Raw waste the plants cannot use, it is harmful to them, and you want the (partial at least) sterilization that occurs with the anaerobic digestion before you use the sludge. I'm not sure whicvh compact and fast growing plant is the best for O2 production though, have to be something with a fast metabolism and a lot of leaf surface area. Perhaps one of the mosses would fit the bill for that. Recycling human waste back onto the direct foodstuffs is a good way to increase toxin buildup, especially like heavy metals, for instance. Better to use it for something else, although I am aware in some cultures they use it directly on food crops, I think it's more from necessity of having to deal with the waste in some manner than from it's practicality.
As to hemp or cannabis, I think it should be legal, and there's no reason to make the other two illegal. I'm for freedom, that means f as in freedom freedom. Joe Government has no basis, constituionally or otherwise, to restrict humans use of naturally occurring plants as long as you are not actively harming another. I consider the war on some drugs to be the height of illegality, hypocrisy and of governmental and societal waste. It is way more harmful than it is helpful, IMO.
reminds me of Zion in Neuromancer...c ience_fiction/ne uromancer.html
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/s
lots of pot smoke and duct tape on that space ship.
Just don't send Bruce Dern along!
Silent Running
Peary spent eighteen years solving the logistical problems of artic exploration before attempting to reach the pole Why it took eighteen years
The key is fertilizer. The plants chosen must come with a means for recycling the unused plant fiber and the astronaut's own waste in such a way that the process yields compounds suitable for additional growth cycles.
See: "To Get To Mars, Use Wheat".
Furthermore, this issue isn't limited only to the mission to the planet, but also food production after landing on the surface. Even with a faster means of getting to Mars (for example, mag-beam propulation as discussed recently on slashdot), you still need a way to produce food after you get there.
"By far not all of them are suitable for space expedition."
I have a vision of a potted tomato plant strapped to the centrifuge chair...
I don't know too much about available plant life, but it always seemed to me that if we want to think long term about living out there, we out to just find / engineer some very tough, O2 producing plants and hurl them any which way out of the solar system. With some luck, by the time we can think about travelling that far ourselves something has taken hold somewhere and we can lean on that.. and we don't make it, well, maybe it'll seed a new civilaztion in a few billion billion years.
I haven't seen this series, but I'm guessing it is like every other thing I've seen lately: build up artificial emotion, then turn the cameras on. Back in the studio have the narrator go a step further, just in case you don't get the emition, tell you how emotional everyone is getting.
Granted I don't own a TV, so I've only seen it a few times here and there at friends houses.
It is a problem, due to Coriolis effects. Basically, get up too quick and you'll fall over. We could probably get used to it in time, but generally, the larger the radius and slower the rotation, the better. However, plants are unlikely to care, so you could just use a spinning shelf arrangement for the gravity-sensitive plants. It wouldn't have to be too complicated, just a squirrelcage type mechanism.
For humans, the best idea is probably to attach a counterweight to the inhabited section with a long cable. You could get a really huge radius of rotation that way with little material, it's extremely mechanically simple, and it doesn't involve sending huge amounts of material into orbit. The counterweight could be equipment that doesn't need constant human presence, or hazardous equipment such as a nuclear reactor. (With a long enough cable, you wouldn't need shielding for it.)
I believe it failed because they used incredibly rich soil to give the plants a boost at building biomass - which used up a LOT of oxygen. The source of the oxygen loss was initially hidden by the complete lack of an increase in carbon dioxide (normally, you'd expect to see CO2 as O was used). As it turns out, the CO2 was being absorbed by the concrete structure.
The Biosphere2 management made the huge mistake of pumping in oxygen without telling the media, which made the whole thing into a total farce and rendered the results untrustworthy. In short, it failed because there were no top-quality life support systems scientists involved. The mistakes made should have been obvious to anyone who actually knew what they were doing.
I'd certainly bet that if NASA wanted to, they could build another Biosphere project on a much smaller scale that would last much longer as a closed environment before becoming unsuitable for humans.
minor correction
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
...in his "Cosmonaut Keep", has a plot-point involving space-grown pot-plants and a "steam pipe", which sounds like a vapouriser, probably powered by a little generator pumped by the hand (which sounds like a very good dosage-limiter, since if you want to stop or just forget, you'll stop getting anything).
Human beings have spent a couple of thousand years breeding reasonable and relatively non-damaging pot plants; the recent emphasis on THC über alles has created a plant I wouldn't trust.
(What's missing? THCV for that extra fillip, some CBN to tell you when to stop, and some terpenes that don't smell like you've just offed Pepe-le-Pieuw/)
> Anyhow, they were supposed to cycle "forever?" in their closed, balanced
> system.
A glass globe is only a closed system if you put it an opaque box (and even
then heat gets in and out). I'm not sure what the right terminology is for
this kind of eccological system that's not interdependent with the rest of
the world -- "isolated" maybe? Dunno.
But anyway, yeah, that's the idea, except they were hoping for a system that
would produce a net surplus of oxygen at least (given carbon dioxide -- i.e.,
to balance the respiration of the humans) and preferably also food. Sunlight
would be a bit less plentiful than on Earth, but still available. The *amount*
of sunlight available (per square whatever per time unit) on Mars no doubt is
important to determining what plants are suited, as many plants would just die.
Hardiness in general would be an important consideration also, I would think.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I wonder what some XXXtra Skunk would grow like.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
i couldn't find anything on pressure thresholds, but there is an article talking about how turgor pressure effects plant growth. turgor is a biology term that princeton defines better than i do. i'd imagine that the turgor pressure corresponds to atmospheric pressure in slightly different ratios species-to-species... The article also talks about yield threshold, which i think is just the output of good crop. here is more info on what plants NASA wants to grow for their astronauts ( wheat, rice, lettuce, cabbage, soy, potatoes, and others ) and some issues that they are facing ( one article mentions nuts and fruits are difficult ). too bad NASA is really buries their information...
A-Day
No GMO for Green Martians. Thank you.
[self dealloc];
Excellent, let's start a garden at the LEO and grow some trees there, why not, without gravity the things should get HUGE. So when the tree's trunk is like 10meters in diameter, just cut it, and burn room inside. Put some windows on it - there you go a spaceship.
You can't handle the truth.
Nice one, you've nailed norkakn there. I shudder to think how close this came to coming about. When those Islamic armoured divisions began rolling up the eastern seaboard, we all thought the USA was done for. But you guys sure showed them!
Hey, wait a minute, now that I think about it, the national existence of the USA has never been threatened by Islam. Am I getting my parallel universes mixed up again?
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
I was talking to someone who was in a position to know things about the Biosphere 2 project. (I forget who, but at the time I put a "valid information" mental bookmark on the conversation, how's *that* for a citation? 8-)
The two major reasons for failure of the project were related to plant choice and layout. In short, they chose american-friendly plants and "arranged them attractively" for the press. They made little brookes and tiny farms. In short they tried to "make a little planet of happy foods". They had a "rainforest room" and so on.
This was unforgivable, and purely political (as in political infighting).
I beleive the "major" cuplret was either wheat or rice. Whatever the plant was it grew "too fast" and far too much of the plant produced was "useless" with a long decay period (e.g. it was wasteful and recycled slowly).
Biosphere 2 was not really an attempt at much of anything. The kind of "closed system" needed for space travel isn't that hart to imagine, but it would be pretty ugly. Lots of dark greens, hydroponics, stacked growing racks, fungus, human-waste recycling, etc. Not so much a well-stocked biosphere as a bunch of plants which are geared to supporting one kind of animal (humans, duh 8-) all in a greasy and stark but well lit arangement.
As stated elsewhere, plants are quite predatory (sorry vegans, plants engage in a progrom of murder, life is tough, get over it... 8-) and often toxic. Most of the friendly plants we eat have a whole lot of plant we don't eat made along with each unit of food.
One would almost imagine a lot of sugar-plants and kale and one-each from the staple vitamin producers and a big blender to pulp up a paste. Then 400+ days of paste...
The ubiquetous but boring "food cube" of science fiction.
Then a fliter membrane from hell for the waste-to-water and waste-to-firtilizer transaction without all the nice "dirt".
I'd expect it to reek.
But I'd go. Eating sucks anyway so a uniform diet of paste would be little worse than what some people live with anyway. (can you say 20 years of Ensure, some people can...)
My only limit? No annis (lic.. lik... liqu... whatever... I can't even spell that the name of that nasty black candy, but the flavor sucks...).
One of the odd-out things they will have to invent is the "recycleable" air filter media. Basically you will need "activated charcoal" but you will have refresh it. Actually activated charcoal wouldnt' be that hard to manufacture in a closed system if you used some sort of condensate system to recapture the off-gassed nastyness when "burning" the charcoal. Then filter the air with it and "burry it" but desolving the "used" charcoal in the hydroponic solution.
eh... maybe...
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
that's why we must build the soletta.
I didn't really know. 2ndly. When I afterwards, went to their website they only had locations in 33 countries. [Out of over hundred of countries, so NO in most countries people haven't seen a starbucks.]
And I simply made a guess based on what I've heard in slashdot, so what kind of shops they actually are. [They atleast give coffee based on their website, but do they really sell food too?]
There is perhaps a reason why there is no starbucks in Finland. We have VERY strong coffee brands, in Finland, and every hosehold has coffee machine, where people make their own coffee.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
No, not that weed. If NASA is looking for good hardy plants to use to produce oxygen, they ought to look at some of the plants commonly thought of as weeds. Weeds seem to be pretty hardy and persistent, and I think some of them can even be beneficial. Don't dandelions have nutritious content? NASA also ought to look at very leafy plants, like lettuce or rhubarb. Or just give all their money to Burt Rutan, I'm cool with that too. Anybody else see a definite similarity between him and the freewheeling independent entrepenuer (sp?) types that, in science fiction, tend to be the ones who do the real work of getting mankind into space? I'd have to go look through my sci-fi library again to make sure, but it certainly seems like a familiar archetype.
~~"How can you have a war on Terror? It's not even a noun!" -Jon Stewart~~
When those Islamic armoured divisions began rolling up the eastern seaboard, we all thought the USA was done for. But you guys sure showed them!
So, how is a nation that refuses to defend itself going to be preserved, again? Magic?
I, er, share your doubt that we'll initially fall to a frontal assault. It'll probably start with this or that immigrant neighborhood declaring sharia, while the liberal municipality refuses to do anything, because of how sensitive and understanding they are, of course (that and being scared *less of bombs, etc.).
If we go with the Kerry plan of refusing to recongnize the threat, I have no confidence that we'll resist the gradual combination of terrorism and exploitation of our legal and political systems that will ensue.
I remember "they" used to sell small glass balls (4 or 6 inches?) that contained a self-sufficient ecology. This was in the 80's IIRC.
I think they were mostly water, with some sort of green water-plant, and tiny shrimp or some such, for a "complete" plant-animal symbiotic environment.
A self contained terrarium?
Plant tip of the day: If the plants aren't green but crispy and wilted, they've probably gone to that great big garden in the sky. Remember to water those plants, astronauts!
Um, Kerry is right not to recognise a non-existent threat. On what basis do you predict a caliphate in the US? Some Islamic terrorists bring down the twin towers, therefore the end of American civilisation as you know it is coming? The idea that Islam will take over from within is even more absurd than a frontal assault; Islam is a tiny minority religion in the US - in 2001, 1.1 million adherents out of an adult population of 208 million, according to this (table 79). What is it about you guys that want to bomb the crap out of the rest of the planet - you are so gung-ho and yet so afraid of your own shadow? Get a grip, learn some history and stop being such a baby.
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
isn't is also great how "we should bomb fewer people and use some lube before we invite haliburton over" is translated into "lets dismantle our military and let people walk over us"? I understand the prepensity for americans to throw everything into dichotomies, but this just seems stupid.
It would make me relaly happy if at least 25% of the US population could realize that the world isn't all or nothing and that is is perfecty fine to have a smallish military, provide some socialized healthcare and fund SS and education without becoming a backwater communist police state with no military. It really doesn't seem that hard. I mean, SS is _still_ making money. The reason that it will run out so quickly is that we spent all of the money we put into it! (look it up, SS was taking in _way_ more than it was putting out for decades so whenever the government needed some cash, they would take a little from SS's extra, this is actualy how both bush and kerry plan to pay for their stuff)
hmm, maybe we could get out corporations under ourcontrol instead of the current reversed situation and then do some research on economic prosperity in a close world as oposed to just raping the earth until there isn't anything left for the future, and then if we did that maybe other people wouldn't hate us as much. I'd be kinda offended if someone's religion was stuffed down my throat and forced into my life, and consumerism is a religion, it has dogma and rule and rewards and we've shoved it onto the whole world, so I can understand why they are pissed. I don't agree with their means, but I would certainly be mad if hinduism was shoved at my every 20seconds if i were living in an aetheist country.