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'Haute Cuisine' on Mars
Roland Piquepaille writes "If you're lucky enough to be a crew member of one of the next European Space Agency (ESA) long-term missions, you will have the choice between eleven new delicious recipes, such as 'martian bread and green tomato jam' or 'potato and tomato mille-feuilles' when it's time for dinner. In 'Ready for dinner on Mars?,' ESA says that these recipes will use fresh ingredients grown in greenhouses built on Mars colonies or other planets. The future astronauts -- should I write 'farmonauts'? -- will grow potatoes, onions, rice, soya or lettuce. And it's interesting to note that the new menus were elaborated with the help of Alain Ducasse, the French chef who has almost as many stars in the 'Guide Michelin' as there are planets in our Solar system. This overview contains more details and references about eating in space."
I used to want to go into space...but if I have to eat that damned Frenchy food while I'm up there, forget it.
(Note: This post may seem like flamebait, but I really do hate the French, so I feel I'm justified.)
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Unfortunetly, all plants grown on Mars will still be freeze-dried before eaten.
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"I HATE midichlorian stew!"
"Shut up and eat, kid. You want to grow up to be big and strong like your father, don't you?"
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Once you pick the antennas off, and drain all the green ichor, the stuff's pretty good! Looking forward to the first Martian fast food restaurant to open "Barsoom King", with its slogan "Take me to your eater!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Count me out. I'll wait for McDonald to open first
-- should I write 'farmonauts'? -- No... you should not. Some things can not be un-read.
Don't read the overview. Just more ad revenues for him. (Info on Roland Piquepaille)
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I have not noticed any posts from Roland in a long while. It was nice while it lasted.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
And it's interesting to note that the new menus were elaborated with the help of Alain Ducasse, the French chef
No specific offense to the French intended, but as a vegetarian, I can think of much better choices to have designed the menu (not to mention, not everyone likes real French-style food).
Indian food, for example, has a truly huge variation of veggie-only dishes, as does Spanish (though on that, I'll admit, my experience with it involves mostly South-American-Spanish, not Southern-Europe-Spanish food). Greek has a decent selection as well, and you replace the lamb with falafel for most of the rest.
But French? The French have a reputation for taking perfectly good, otherwise healthy and veggie safe foods, and drenching them in lard. Wrapping them in thinly sliced meat. Stuffing them with unnameable mollusks and cephalopods.
Not the best choice, IMO.
I hope that these fancy new meals do not end up displacing "comfort foods" such as may have previously been on the menu.
As Martha would say, "It's a good thing."
Theory and practice are the same in theory, but different in practice.
'martian bread and green tomato jam'
But the book isn't named How to Cook For Humans on Mars, it's named How to Cook Humans on Mars!!
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
What about plumbing and the rest of the infrastructure needed for maintaining this 'farm'?
Of course they'll be genetically modified. It's either that, or extremely heavily bred. There's no way we could take full-pressure domes covered in thick radiation shielding. We're going to need plants with a number of traits: high radiation resistance, the ability to take very thin atmospheres with higher-than-usual CO2 percentages, proper growth in low gravity, hydroponic or martial-soil adapted, low light, easy to grow and resistant to any diseases that may be carried (crop failure on Mars? ack!), etc, while still being nutritious.
NASA life scientists will probably do the engineering, though, at least at first.
Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
"The Helium Special". Four-armed green martian basted in its own ichor. Favorite of John Carter.
"The War of the Worlds". This blobby Martian is served to you live, at which point you sneeze on it, and your Earth germs instantly render it dead...and tasty.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
You don't count all the space lab trips in the shuttle? Or the other ESA manned missions in various other ships?
The ESA hasn't launched a mission all on the own, but they have been an important part of many missions.
I was in fifth grade. I then used the "Tang" as wine in a school play, getting the kids pretty well buzzed. It was incredibly funny at the time. The nuns did appreciate that I was able to change "Tang" to Wine.
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ESA says that these recipes will use fresh ingredients grown in greenhouses built on Mars colonies or other planets.
On other planets... like Earth?
I know they take up space, oxygen, food... but can't those be overcome by just building a place with more space, oxygen, and whatever the animal eats?
Would it hurt that much to bring a few frozen chicken eggs on the voyage and then raise some chickens on Mars?
You know, that was a great idea. But no one would have thought that Dr. Smith would decide that a "nice omelette would hit the spot!" halfway through the voyage.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Moon might be conceivable given that the term planet isn't very firmly defined. The moon's poles might be usable for greenhouses.
Other possibilities might be orbital greenhouses around venus, earth or mars. Much further out and the insolation amount is questionable but possible with mirrors to focus more energy. Of course, other than earth orbiting greenhouse, these are even more unlikely than the moon.
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You were so close to the answer. Even used the correct word: hydroponic. Yet you still missed it.
Plants just need water and nutrients to grow. They do not care much about the soil, so long as the roots get enough (but not too much) water and nutrients. Tomatoes have been grown in just water and fertilizer for years! No soil needed at all. Most plants are more picky than tomatoes, but many grow in gravel sprayed with water and fertilizer.
This is old by now. Tomatoes were first grown in the lab this way in the 1930s. (There are claims to have done it before then, but they are hard to pin down) Though tomatoes are particularly easy to grow with hydrophonics.
I'm not sure what nutrients potatoes need, but they prefer sandy soils, which generally doesn't have much in the way of nutrients. Most of the other plants in the article seem to have been selected in part because they don't need much in the way of nutrients.
In short, we know we can find CO2. We can crack that to get a little O2 to start things out. We are pretty sure we can find water. The amount of fertilizer needed is small for many plants, and thus trivial to bring. (Not to mention it is a by-product of digestion once humans are nearby) The only worry is nitrogen doesn't seem to be plentiful. It could easily end up that getting the nitrogen is the hardest part. Depending on how the greenhouse needs to be designed of course.
Will they also grow cows up there? I mean, seriously, what fool would submit to years-on-end leaf-eating? If I have to live on another planet, I'm going to be compensated with prime rib every now and then.
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The French and Poles have, however, a fantastic sense of humour. In particular, while talking with two uncles (one French, one Polish), the topic switched to similarities between the two countries. Of course, that led to my Polish uncle mentioning how the Poles bought the idea of the Maginot Line from France. With the most subtly sarcastic tone ever, my French uncle looked at him and said "yeah, I see it worked out really well for you guys, too."
Laughed for days, we did.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
Depends on the plant. Tomatoes are in fact easy to grow in water enriched with the right stuff. Corn is extreemly difficult. Note that I said enriched water, not pure water.
Loss should not be a big deal, as this is intended to replace ~40% of the food on a mars mission, and that other 60% can be recycled into more.
In any case, that organic matter in earth soil came from other plants - it wasn't always there. If we are careful we should be able to likewise enrich Mar's soil.