Space Food From Space Farms 168
Modern Farmer magazine has an article about NASA's efforts into growing food in space, a slow, difficult process that's nonetheless necessary if humanity is to have any significant presence away from Earth's surface. Quoting:
"This December, NASA plans to launch a set of Kevlar pillow-packs, filled with a material akin to kitty litter, functioning as planters for six romaine lettuce plants. The burgundy-hued lettuce (NASA favors the 'Outredgeous' strain) will be grown under bright-pink LED lights, ready to harvest after just 28 days. NASA has a long history of testing plant growth in space, but the goals have been largely academic. Experiments have included figuring out the effects of zero-gravity on plant growth, testing quick-grow sprouts on shuttle missions and assessing the viability of different kinds of artificial light. But [the Vegetable Production System] is NASA's first attempt to grow produce that could actually sustain space travelers. Naturally, the dream is to create a regenerative growth system, so food could be continually grown on the space station — or, potentially, on moon colonies or Mars. ... Plant size is a vital calculation in determining what to grow on the space station, where every square foot is carefully allotted. Harvest time is also of extreme importance; the program wants to maximize growth cycles within each crew’s (on average) six-month stay."
Fertilizer... (Score:3)
What will they use as fertilizer?
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Re:Fertilizer... (Score:4, Informative)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Father_(short_story) [wikipedia.org]
Re:Fertilizer... (Score:4, Informative)
Full text of the story, [readanybooks.net] thank you, that was one I hadn't seen.
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Why not make it?
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.ie/2007/11/314-peak-oil-and-fertilizer-no-problem.html [blogspot.ie]
There's an abundance of everything we need in space, although I can see stations being a far more convenient platform for future exploration than planetary colonisation. Even the best candidate, Mars, is terrible - where it's warm there is no water, where there's water it's in the -30s at least, an atmosphere as close to vacuum as makes no odds and while it does have gravity I doubt it's enough to stop bone
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"There's an abundance of everything we need in space"
Yes, you tell me where we're going to get nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and other trace elements IN ORBIT.
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"There's an abundance of everything we need in space"
1)If that were true, how come we need to bring everything?
Yes, because European colonists in the new world went forth boldly into the wilderness stark bollock naked, preferring to gnaw their tools from the deadfalls and cliffs they encountered. It takes time to set things up, but once you're set up you have an abundance in virgin territory. The tools are different but the principle is the same.
2)Space is a dead vacuum, with a few rocks here and there separated by light hours of nothing. If that's "abundant" to you, can I send you there one way?
Doesn't matter how far away the resources are as long as you have a steady supply line. Although in terms of the time it will take to get there, they aren't that far away at
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Never heard of maglaunch eh? :D
Anyway I'll stop feeding the troll now, although it was a useful opportunity to get the knowledge out there, playtime is over.
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Your knowledge is garbage.
You said there was everything we needed in space. Your vaunted maglaunch recommendation hints at the fact that THERE IS NOTHING IN SPACE TO BE USED.
Please try again when you actually do this for a living and have worked with NASA on these things before.
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I see you responded to every comment except the one that actually answered your question, despite having undoubtedly read it. This link will tell you all you need to know.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm [bbc.co.uk]
And hey, when you combine that with maglaunch it actually becomes more cost effectiove to pull the stuff out of the sky, taking into account externalities like environmental damage and pollution. All of the raw materials are up there in far more than trace amounts. To respond to your other comm
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Ahem, now what does that have to do with availablity IN ORBIT?
Oh, wait, we'll still need to expend insane amounts of energy and time trying to get shit from asteroids and the moon just to get the stuff in orbit. The caloric cost alone is disparate by many many orders of magnitude. It's a total waste.
Your links provide no answers, just thoughts that have nothing to do with what you said in regards to a station IN ORBIT. You said 'They can make it' in answer to someone asking 'What will they use for fertilize
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You know if you capitalise all of the words in your post it will make what you're saying much more compelling.
If you could point to all of the asteroid resources in orbit, that's be great. If not, why would you imagine I'm talking about staying in orbit? I mean really, even for someone as determined to shriek until the bad facts go away as yourself, that's a bit much in terms of cognitive dissonance.
The ISS, as poor an example as it is, still represents progress. And there's no reason to believe that progre
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"I mean really, even for someone as determined to shriek until the bad facts go away as yourself"
Very funny coming from a peak oil shill. Please, child.
"Regarding your other post, the low levels of nitrogen in that kind of asteroid is why you don't just extract nitrogen from them,"
Apparently you're failing to understand why I'm disappointed regarding the low nitrogen content. You're not growing anything without nitrogen, pal. Go back to your basic high school biology classes.
Ain't growing shit in space from
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"By weight"
Nitrogen 0.2%
That's piss-fucking poor given the typical ratio of NPK most plants thrive best under. Give me a fucking break. That's a shit resource.
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The "kitty-litter like" substance sounded like (to me) just material to hold the plant in place, since you don't have gravity to do it for you. However, it seems they would go with aeroponics [wikipedia.org] instead?
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No, you would not do aeroponics. You would do a mat-based NFT system that would utilize capillary action to ensure even moisture and nutrient content at the roots and contain water (as aeroponics in zero gravity is a huge mistake.)
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Then why is/was NASA the one doing all those aeroponics experiments (successfully) in orbit?
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They're utilizing a bulky sealed system. Good luck getting any decent yield per cubic meter.
Re:Fertilizer... Pigs in Space! (Score:2)
The same thing we use for fertilizer here on earth. The good shit. Animal agriculture is a vital part of the equation. Plants and animals co-evolved to use each others wastes.
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Guinea pigs are probably a better choice. Reproduce faster, less fat, need less space, and the pellet-type manure is easier to deal with. They thrive on kitchen waste and weeds, and are dumber than pigs so less likely to cause trouble. They're also MUCH less aggressive than a sow in heat (or a boar any time), and the males don't need to be castrated to make the meat eatable. The only disadvantage is that they won't eat meat or fish offal like a pig would, but there are plenty of fish that will do that.
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Wow, so much mythunderstanding and so little real knowledge in your reply:
1) Fat is a necessary dietary component. If you don't get it you won't be healthy. Even in space you'll need fat.
2) Pigs don't actually have much fat unless you breed and feed them for it. "Fat Pigs" are made that way primarily through miss-management since few people have lard type pigs now. Even lard type pigs aren't fat if kept on a proper feed.
3) Pigs thrive on kitchen wastes, weeds, pasture and just about anything making them a p
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Most of my knowledge of pigs comes from those raised by my dad in the '40s/'50s and my wife's relatives in Peru, so probably none of them would have been the breeds you use. Perfectly willing to be educated, that's what I come to SlashDot for.
A dozen guinea pigs (which do have some fat on them, but not the lard belly that I associate with pork) can be raised on the potato peelings, banana skins, etc. of a family, with a few greens on occasion to round out the diet. In a very large habitat you might have e
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"Can you inbreed your porkers, or would you need to have sperm for insemination brought in?"
You can inbreed. It is just like any animal, or plant. Breed the best of the best and eat the rest. Inbreeding problems don't appear by magic but are from recessive genes that become visible. Cull them. That is the problem with inbreeding where people aren't willing to cull the offspring. This is why inbreeding humans is generally frowned on. :)
"I've had meat from uncastrated boars, it's eatable but not good."
Then yo
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If they're smart, they'll use solid salt extracts from seawater (look up SEA-90,) supplement the lacking N and P with potash and solid nitrates, and use the water onboard in a very conservative capillary-action root mat + NFT system that will drastically reduce the water usage and waste.
Trying to recycle human waste into fertilizer would be extremely energy intensive and potentially hazardous contamination-wise.
in space, no one can you you "whoosh" (Score:2)
Trying to recycle human waste into fertilizer would be extremely energy intensive and potentially hazardous contamination-wise.
Exposing human waste to hard vacuum and direct sunlight for a while wouldn't be sufficient to sterilize it? I'm actually curious about that.
That would make space toilet design a lot easier. You just need to avoid what happened to U-1206 [wikipedia.org]
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It's the breaking down of the materials afterwards into bioavailable nutrient salts that's the issue. Also, bacteria and such can survive a hard vacuum of space and some can even withstand UV bombardment well past UVC range.
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Fish seem to be pretty good at breaking down human waste into something that is easier for plants and bacteria to deal with, talapia and fresh water anchovies in particular IIRC.
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"Good luck growing anything that fruits under LED's though."
I've had no problems getting jalapenos, soybeans, bush beans, tomatoes, cannabis, bell peppers, and other vegetables to fruit under LED and yield great.
What nonsense are you spilling?
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"It's OK to admit you got ripped off when choosing your lights."
I design my own.
"Pictures or it didn't happen"
There're thousands all across the internet from other companies showing LEDs producing just freaking fine.
"Come on post your loose bud heads"
Oh, you mean my 2009 High Times Pix of the Crop winner?
http://i.imgur.com/Kh04ew9.jpg [imgur.com]
There ya go! 3-4" wide colas.
Vertical or Urban Farms? (Score:3)
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Why? Earth hydroponics already works fantastically. We already have the technology to do it here significantly more efficient. I can grown in a 20X60 greenhouse enough food to easily feed 20 people. The problem is that it's more expensive and takes more labor. 14 foot tall tomato plants take a lot of care, you havet orun pumps 24/7, etc...
It's a lot cheaper to just spread seed over a giant farm ad hope for the best.
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". The problem is that it's more expensive and takes more labor. "
Not even close. It's more expensive on fuel alone to do open-land farming.
More labor? With everything packed into a dense area that's LESS labor (and expended energy and fuel.)
"you havet orun pumps 24/7, "
Not even close AGAIN! NFT systems only roll three watering cycles a day.
Methinks you're looking at the least efficient methods of hydroponics, or you're horrible at the entire thing in the first place.
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This. If you can avoid importing pests and diseases, then variants of the French biointensive method are probably best for (1) diet (2) converting CO2 to O2, (3) space constraints. Likewise, very little is as effective at energy-efficiency, as human labor. Again, the human labor provides the astronauts with something to do.
I'd suggest that one should calculate how much plant space you need to support each astronaut's breathing, and then go from there. Use the mechanical scrubbers as an automated emerge
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Unless you're suggesting that there is a conspiracy to stop hydroponics then the very fact that it is the exception and not the norm is evidence enough; however if you're sure that it is so much more profitable then by all means set up a firm and make a killing and I'll be the first to admit that Khyber was not, in fact, making shit up.
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" however if you're sure that it is so much more profitable then by all means set up a firm and make a killing and I'll be the first to admit that Khyber was not, in fact, making shit up."
Okay, done deal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZTikdxj8AI [youtube.com]
Hey, look! There's my old company ON THE FUCKING BBC WITH ZERO-LIGHT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY COMBINED WITH VERTICAL SYSTEMS.
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"Hydro farming takes DAILY attention."
Actually, a well-built hydro system runs itself.
But you wouldn't know jack shit about the systems involved in automating such a process, now would you?
On the other hand, I know way more than you or lumpy combined, as it's my fucking job. [imgur.com]
I also design new methods of lighting plants in said systems. [tinypic.com]
And what would YOU know, child?
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"But you've probably painted yourself into a corner"
Not even close. Anyone with even a miniscule amount experience with hydroponics systems knows that you don't need to give it daily attention.
Most DWC systems can go two weeks without a change or even a few simple water tests. These tend to run themselves.
Most NFT systems can go for three assuming you don't have a heavy water flow and at least partially-sealed channels.
Ebb and Flow/table systems need to be checked twice a week to ensure no garbage has come
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Oh to add on your point of "Hydro farming takes DAILY attention."
A typical DWC system only requires attention once a week (or two weeks depending upon reservoir size and crop type.)
Try again when this is your job.
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Wasted effort (Score:1, Interesting)
I think it's a waste of time trying to solve issues of maintaining a biosphere in space, when a push into space will be much easier after we've reached the Singularity: machine bodies don't need food, air or water.
Re:Wasted effort (Score:5, Insightful)
Machines don't need bodies at all. In fact, machines don't want or need anything. Humans are curious though, and like to do essentially pointless things just because we can. So we're going to have our biosphere in space.
Besides, the Singularity is just about AI. It doesn't follow that humans are immediately going to go extinct. We may have decent cyborg bodies before then anyway, and so could reduce our food/air/water requirements too.
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Besides, the Singularity is just about AI.
You clearly haven't read the book. Short answer is no it's not. Kurzwell goes into great detail how AI, nanotech, and other technology will allow us to slowly merge with technology until we are no longer just biological. If you are going to make pronouncements as what the singularity is, at least read the damn book.
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What makes you think that the idea of the singularity is from a single book? Presumably you're referring to Kurzweil's 2005 book. That's just one person's vision of a general concept that has been around since the 1950s:
The technological singularity, or simply the singularity, is a theoretical point in time when human technology (and, particularly, technological intelligence) will have so rapidly progressed that, ultimately, a greater-than-human intelligence will emerge
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I think it's a waste of time trying to solve issues of maintaining a biosphere in space, when a push into space will be much easier after we've reached the Singularity: machine bodies don't need food, air or water.
I was told back in 2000 that the Singularity would solve the problem of cheap access to space in twenty years. So we have about seven years to go.
Second, we are already machines. But machines that happen to need food, air, and water. There's no particular reason to wait for the Singularity to do things which we can do now.
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It may happen in 10 years, or in 10 thousand years. It may not happen at all. We have no idea.
per square foot or square meter? (Score:2, Funny)
"Plant size is a vital calculation in determining what to grow on the space station, where every square foot is carefully allotted. "
Square ft on the US part of ISS, square meters (or square decimeters) on the Russian/European parts
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Spacecraft are Three Dimensional (Score:3)
every square foot is carefully allotted
Shouldn't that be CUBIC foot (or, more likely, meter, as the AC above pointed out)? Square footage is only a good measure when you're tethered to the floor.
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gardens are laid out by square footage. ... well thats exactly what happens with plants.
given that they probably dont want their plants floating in balls of soil in the middle of the room....they would be secured to the wall or floor of the module.
you said yourself "tethered to the floor"
also, quibbling over units used for a phrase uttered to illustrrate a concept rather than an actual measurement is silly.
oxigen (Score:3)
Will this bring a significant improvement in oxygen recycling?
Re:oxigen (Score:5, Interesting)
Not yet. Eventually, yes. They could grow basil onboard the station. Basil respirates all night (baby) and it's edible and has a ton of health benefits, so it's a logical choice.
However, it makes less than no sense to grow in a soil-like medium. They should be using aeroponics. Growing in any solid medium at all is just fucking stupid, because it's unnecessary mass.
Re:oxigen (Score:5, Informative)
They are looking to reduce maintenance and power use. Aero and hydroponics requires constant power. Dirt medium does not.
Re:oxigen (Score:4, Informative)
Aeroponics has containment issues. If you're misting water constantly, it's going to go everywhere. In fact it's probably not going to behave quite right either since the water doesn't fall - droplets can aggregate and just float around forever. So you're then looking at a complex vacuum system to keep the water moving through properly.
Much easier just to absorb it into something near the plant roots.
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Again: water doesn't behave the same in zero-g.
A fan will blow air from one point to the other, it will pull some water through. But it's just going to blow it into another compartment where it will have the same behavior - coating the walls as much as the plants and then just staying there. It won't run down or run off anything on its own, so you're heading towards gale-force strength winds to try and keep it all moving.
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I suggest reading the article, as they are not using high mass dirt but a low mass artificial growth medium that acts like dirt.
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ya mist droplets floating around in microgravity. thats exactly what they need on a space station ...
no.
Look, most plants simply dont even know how to grow without gravity being present, and the simplest solution is for any actual space farm to be given spin, however slight. so then, rather than using a mister/atomizer (too much energy for droplet size) you can simply run drip lines or semi-permeable hoses through a "soil" medium, for simple and efficient watering. therefore, soil, also being needful for op
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"However, it makes less than no sense to grow in a soil-like medium. They should be using aeroponics."
Not even close. The idea of fine mist floating around to get into equipment is just absolutely ball-to-the-wall stupid.
Sealed hydroponics or a solid-mat capillary action growing medium are what's called for here.
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The problem with sealing an aeroponics system is that there needs to be some room to allow pressure to escape. No pressure, aeroponics system goes 'pop' and your lid is suddenly half-off, with water droplets floating around.
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Problem with basil is that it also excretes its scent 24x7, especially if anything brushes against it. It wouldn't take long before everyone got really, really tired of smelling it and ripped it out.
Chi-chi-chia! (Score:2)
I wonder if they have tried "Chia Pets"?
Lettuce? (Score:1)
Surely of all the vegetables, lettuce is one we could do without?
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This is also mentioned of Pettit's Space Zucchini on the ISS, in TFA.
The Zarya module was launched in 1998, why did it take until 2013 for NASA to launch this VEGGIE program??? Obviously, food in space doesn't seem to have such a high priority in the ISS program.
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"For sure lettuce has nothing nutritive."
Maybe you mean ICEBERG lettuce. Romaine, red leaf, etc. have much better nutritional densities.
Seriously? (Score:1)
Have there seriously been no attempts to grow produce in orbit yet? I would have thought it would have been an insanely easy & cheap experiment. Just slap some tomato seeds in a small fabric bag filled with dirt, let them grow a bit and send them up into orbit in a small net enclosure to see how well they grow by one of the stations/shuttles windows.
Eating space food from space farms, (Score:2)
Gonna drink space beer at the space bar
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don't hit the alt space bar
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I drink at the space bar alot. But sometimes I step away from the keyboard and drink somewheres else.
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Irregardless of the size, it's literally as big as the planet Pluto.
Why are they using LED lights? (Score:3)
It's not like they're further from the sun. So why not grow it using sunlight?
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To test the conditions of deep space missions. That's the only time they'd need a regenerative growth system. They don't need such a system in orbit of the Earth.
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You can create a pink LED by putting some fluorescent material in a blue or white LED. The problem is that some of the materials used for them are not stable, and will break down within a matter of weeks to months [candlepower.us].
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WRONG.
WRONG.
WRONG.
http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/4/684.full [oxfordjournals.org]
Try again when you actually study this for a living.
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That picture/video was over 5 years old.
But hey, you keep making assumptions.
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Sometimes it has 24/7 sunlight, but it normally does not. Plants like conditions to simulate day and night
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Because that requires windows... which are heavy, and vulnerable to damage, etc... etc...
Food in Space (Score:1)
sounds like a hydroponic media that is not good for root production. They'd be better off using rock wool to promote root growth and give the plants something to bind to. Rock wool is pretty easy to create, especially in space where the energy is readily available using a sinmple solar concentrator and feed the matterial through the focal point.
Another advantage of rock wool is the ability to retain a nutrient solution near the root ball to promote plant growth
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Wet rock wool makes a happy home for fungi and bacteria (speaking as one who has pulled it out of leaking attics). If pre-seeded with the correct varieties this could be a good thing I suppose, but it could be very dangerous if the wrong varieties take over.
just be sure (Score:1)
Maybe the wrong perspective (Score:2)
NASA, Behind the times as always (Score:2)
" The burgundy-hued lettuce (NASA favors the 'Outredgeous' strain) will be grown under bright-pink LED lights, ready to harvest after just 28 days."
Ignoring the higher quantum yields of green light is going to be a bad mistake. Catch up with the research done not even 4 years ago, NASA. No wonder you can't get a budget when you can't even keep up with the pace of research.
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Apparently you fail to grasp what higher quantum yield means.
That means green light drives photosynthesis more efficiently.
http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/4/684.full [oxfordjournals.org]
Try actually paying attention to what is being said before commenting, eh?
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"This is something that is easy enough that it is recommended as a science fair project for students"
Umm, what level of student? That link is university-level paper using laboratory-grade equipment that no high school has access to.
"I've seen it come up multiple times, and the students quite clearly show that green light sucks for growing plants compared to a blue-red mixture"
And you'd be wrong as that link clearly demonstrates separate monochromatic testing as well.
"That paper doesn't contradict this at al
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"As the AC you replied to, while I've worked mainly with high school students doing such experiment in detail,"
Then you won't mind telling us what school you teach at, as a public figure, yes?
After all, academia doesn't go hiding.
Of course, you'll keep hiding and fail to provide citable proof that you teach this to students.
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" I work at a university doing research full time"
Your appeal by authority is pretty weak. That's the whole point of the argument, to address that nonsense.
No need for fertilizer (Score:2, Informative)
The soil replacement substrate they are testing (arcillite) is highly absorbent and probably is pretreated with the fertilizers. I know that similar experiments (SVET, russian ) were done on the Russion Mir station (my father was leading the team that developed the soil substrate). They used naturally occurring mineral (zeolite) which is extremely good absorbent. You can pretreat it with a fertilizer mix and it will leach small amounts of nutrients and support plant growth for years. All you need to do is a
That seems great until stage 2: Cooking! (Score:3)
How the heck are you to make any kind of food other than raw in space? Your microwave oven is going to take 1kW, and you'll get mushy carrots at best. How do you dice in 0g? What about stir-fry? That seems very messy!
Pig Farmers in Space, Already (Score:2)
To go where no farmer has gone before...
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2009/04/01/pig-farmers-in-space/ [sugarmtnfarm.com]
SALAD! (Score:2)
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Capsule will have to be large as you will lose artificial gravity as you approach the center.
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Largely coz they don't exist. The closest is mycoprotein for synethic meat products, and its still a labor intensive process. Plants, if they grow, pretty much handle it themselves.
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They already try to maintain the CO2 balance fairly close to Earth-normal. They tried high-oxygen/low CO2/low air pressure environments early in the space program but the risk of fire was too high.