Farming in space.

[halfeye]

How will we farm space?

Will we use windows, or solar panels and lights, or something else?

I sort of presume we will grow lettuce, because most of the plant is edible, and it's fairly quick growing, and maybe alf-alfa for similar reasons. Whatever we grow will get boring so we'll need some variety, and some nutrients are required and not present in all foods, so something for vitamin c for instance, but citrus fruit come from trees, which are slow growing and produce a lot of unnecessary (for our purposes) wood.

[monomer]

How will we farm space?

Will we use windows, or solar panels and lights, or something else?

I sort of presume we will grow lettuce, because most of the plant is edible, and it's fairly quick growing, and maybe alf-alfa for similar reasons. Whatever we grow will get boring so we'll need some variety, and some nutrients are required and not present in all foods, so something for vitamin c for instance, but citrus fruit come from trees, which are slow growing and produce a lot of unnecessary (for our purposes) wood.

I doubt windows would work since they would have to filter out a lot of the electromagnetic spectrum. Presumably we would use pinkhouses (https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/05/21/185758529/vertical-pinkhouses-the-future-of-urban-farming), which use a magenta light for higher electrical efficiency since plants don't require the yellow/green part of the spectrum.

[factotum]

I doubt windows would work since they would have to filter out a lot of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Is that really a problem? Pretty sure glass already blocks most of the worst UV frequencies, so it shouldn't be too hard to block out other nastiness like gamma rays.

As for farming, growing algae in some sort of nutrient solution would probably be better than any sort of full-sized plant life, I would think.

[halfeye]

As for farming, growing algae in some sort of nutrient solution would probably be better than any sort of full-sized plant life, I would think.

Why? if it's that good, why don't we do it down here already? Whatever we do needs to be cost effective, and that more or less equates to easy, at least once set up.

It might be best to skip potatoes and tomatoes since the plants are poisonous, but the rest of the quick growing ones seem good to me.

We'll need to sterilise waste before reusing it, to kill any parasites, but there have to be ways to do that.

[Resileaf]

Why? if it's that good, why don't we do it down here already?

Because people think 'algae' and go 'Ewww, icky!'.
Likewise, insects are apparently the best food you could ever get, protein-wise. But western society is very much unwilling to move on to eating bugs.
I mean, I'm not judging them for it, it's not like I'm doing any better on my side.

[factotum]

Because people think 'algae' and go 'Ewww, icky!'.

Yeah, this. Food to be eaten in space doesn't have to be palatable in the same way as Earthly food does--so long as you can get the stuff down and it provides the nutrients you need, then it's good.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Down here, dirt is so cheap it throws off the cost comparisons. When you have to pay for the growth medium fluid is loads cheaper, and anything more efficient is better. Hence algae, which also produce O2 in large quantities (oceanic algae provide most of the stuff we breathe).

If you're growing plants for vitamin C, something like cranberries will be better. More vitamin C per ounce, fewer inputs, also provide other nutrients. Citrus is basically citric acid and sugar.

[halfeye]

Down here, dirt is so cheap it throws off the cost comparisons. When you have to pay for the growth medium fluid is loads cheaper, and anything more efficient is better. Hence algae, which also produce O2 in large quantities (oceanic algae provide most of the stuff we breathe).

Dirt is something we naturally produce, and it needs little processing to be reused. Some of the algal blooms in the sea are poisonous, if we can avoid that fine. However people eat pretty much anything once, and I think it's significant that no-ones trying to sell algae (except laver bread: or is that the alga in question?)


If you're growing plants for vitamin C, something like cranberries will be better. More vitamin C per ounce, fewer inputs, also provide other nutrients. Citrus is basically citric acid and sugar.

Cranberries sounds good. There is something else in them, but most people can eat them. Bilberries might be suitable too.


Yeah, this. Food to be eaten in space doesn't have to be palatable in the same way as Earthly food does--so long as you can get the stuff down and it provides the nutrients you need, then it's good.

That's maybe tolerable if it's a very highly paid job you're only doing for six or so months, but it's going to be rough if you're there for life. I think the main necessity is variety. Some insects might be okay as food, but some have foul tastes to put potential predators and competitors off, cockroaches spoil food with foul smells. I think if it comes to animals, it's perhaps a choice between chickens and rabbits, or maybe guinea pigs.

[Lord Torath]

Some insects might be okay as food, but some have foul tastes to put potential predators and competitors off, cockroaches spoil food with foul smells.Eating insects does not mean eating all insects! No one1 is going to suggest stink bugs, ladybird beetles, or cockroaches. Grasshoppers and crickets, however are highly nutritious and (apparently) not bad tasting. I've heard about some start-ups marketing cricket flour.

1 Okay, humanity being what it is, it's almost guaranteed that someone will suggest that. The rest of us will just ignore him.

[Tyndmyr]

Probably something akin to an Aerogarden. I've got one, and I've played with grow lights individually prior. They work pretty decent.

Basically, the concept is you have a profile for different kinds of crops, optimizing the grow cycles for each. Feed in water, liquid nutrients, and have the blue/red LED spectrum to optimize energy efficiency. You can grow things a great deal faster, and with minimal human labor.

Biggest problem I've had with mine are ants getting in it and clogging up the impeller. However, in space, with no ants, that'd be not much of a concern.

Pollination's a larger concern, as some crops require it, manual pollination is tedious, etc. Probably best to have grow labs large enough to support a beehive.

You're generally going to want diverse crops for nutritional reasons, as well as balancing nutritional usage on the other side of things. Also, for taste. People are not going to want to just eat algae all day, every day. If anything, more variety will be good, as being in space apparently dampens the taste of things a bit.

You'll likely also need animals as part of the life cycle to some degree. Building a completely closed loop ecosystem like that's a pretty decent challenge, though. Bacteria are hard to manage entirely, and it's not something we've really mastered yet. But at a minimum, you'll want animals to eat processing/food waste. The lower the overall wasteage, the better.

[Knaight]

Eating insects does not mean eating all insects! No one1 is going to suggest stink bugs, ladybird beetles, or cockroaches. Grasshoppers and crickets, however are highly nutritious and (apparently) not bad tasting. I've heard about some start-ups marketing cricket flour.

Grasshoppers and crickets are decent, but they're kind of a pain - there's a lot of peeling involved for not a lot of meat, like shrimp or shellfish but worst. The same applies to some of the tastier beetles. What's nice, easy, and not mentioned here is various "worms", which is a culinary term that in this case applies to larvae. I don't know what species these came from (I want to say a moth of some sort), but they didn't have a shell that had to be worked around, and when fried were incredible.

Basically, insects are established food, and if you ever get the chance to get some food from the Chaang Rai Insects stall in the Chaang Rai night bazaar (though there's probably several of those now) you should totally do so. Assuming that it's still there after 13 years.

[thorgrim29]

Well they're growing lettuce and various other greens on the ISS right now. Apparently one of the worst things up there is not being able to actually eat the delicious fresh food because you need it for research.

[gomipile]

Down here, dirt is so cheap it throws off the cost comparisons. When you have to pay for the growth medium fluid is loads cheaper, and anything more efficient is better. Hence algae, which also produce O2 in large quantities (oceanic algae provide most of the stuff we breathe).

If you're growing plants for vitamin C, something like cranberries will be better. More vitamin C per ounce, fewer inputs, also provide other nutrients. Citrus is basically citric acid and sugar.

Potatoes are also a decent source of vitamin C.

Another option that works surprisingly well is rose hips, the fruit of rose plants. They are incredibly rich in vitamin C.

[farothel]

Grasshoppers and crickets are decent, but they're kind of a pain - there's a lot of peeling involved for not a lot of meat, like shrimp or shellfish but worst. The same applies to some of the tastier beetles. What's nice, easy, and not mentioned here is various "worms", which is a culinary term that in this case applies to larvae. I don't know what species these came from (I want to say a moth of some sort), but they didn't have a shell that had to be worked around, and when fried were incredible.

Basically, insects are established food, and if you ever get the chance to get some food from the Chaang Rai Insects stall in the Chaang Rai night bazaar (though there's probably several of those now) you should totally do so. Assuming that it's still there after 13 years.

You're probably talking about the larvae of the Tenebrio molitor, a beetle. These are used as food for human consumption. I personally haven't tried it yet and I think if I try it, it's going to be not the insects as such (recognisable as insects), but more like a hamburger, where you don't see what's in it.

As to food in space, these larvae are probably one of the options, as they're easy to grow and don't require a lot of space. Algae as mentioned before as well and then some other fruits and vegetables for change (nobody really wants to eat algae and larvae every day) and those few nutrients you can't get any other way. things like soy can also be used as a way to get proteins.
Depending on where the trip will go to and how long they might add some supplements as well.

Or they just do algae and genetically modify them so they also produce all the vitamins and other things we need.

[snowblizz]

However people eat pretty much anything once, and I think it's significant that no-ones trying to sell algae (except laver bread: or is that the alga in question?)
They already do. The Japanese call it nori.



You'll likely also need animals as part of the life cycle to some degree.
But at a minimum, you'll want animals to eat processing/food waste. The lower the overall wasteage, the better.A spectacularly bad idea. 1. most of our deadliest diseases are a result from living too close to animals. There's no way you can sterilize that environment enough. It will take some time but the Space Plague(tm) will be impressive (Grandfather Nurgle would be pleased). 2. humans as intelligent individuals can more easily take the stresses of space "I picked this job damit!". The pigs might just die right out of shock. As someone said about Napoleon's winter campaign in Russia. "The men would grumble and starve plodding on, the horses just gave up and died".


You're probably talking about the larvae of the Tenebrio molitor, a beetle. These are used as food for human consumption. I personally haven't tried it yet and I think if I try it, it's going to be not the insects as such (recognisable as insects), but more like a hamburger, where you don't see what's in it.

Or they just do algae and genetically modify them so they also produce all the vitamins and other things we need.

I'm thinking something like "3D printed food" using insects and algae as base products.

With regards to insects, the examples of farming them for food I've seen involves turning the entire cricket into proteinrich flour, not peelign thme to eat them individually. See 3d printing.

[Eldan]

There's like 20 species of algae eaten in Japan. Kombu, Arame, Mozuku, off the top of my head. But it's eaten all over Asia. But they aren't the only ones. I once started compiling a list for a report, so, from what I remember:

Dulse, Dillisk or Söl, in Scotland, Ireland and Iceland, dried as a snack:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Dulse.JPG

Irish Moss, from the British isles again. Mostly as a thickener for jellies, but also for beer.

See lettuce/aosa: Scandinavia, Britain, China, as a soup or vegetable:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Ulva_lactuca_-_Sowerby.jpg

Bladder wrack, mainly medicinal use as an iodine source to treat goiters:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Fucus_vesiculosus_Wales.jpg/220px-Fucus_vesiculosus_Wales.jpg

Caulerpa, Lato in the Philipines, Lato in Malaysia, Umi-budo in Japan:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Umibudou_at_Miyakojima01s3s2850.jpg/220px-Umibudou_at_Miyakojima01s3s2850.jp

Basically, wherever people live near the sea, they have been eating these since forever.

[deuterio12]

A spectacularly bad idea. 1. most of our deadliest diseases are a result from living too close to animals. There's no way you can sterilize that environment enough. It will take some time but the Space Plague(tm) will be impressive (Grandfather Nurgle would be pleased).

Humans are animals too. Get them too many of them together in a closed space and diseases can spread pretty fast (example A: there are coastal medical clinics that survive just out servicing the crews of aircraft carriers that only dock every X months.. Notice that most of the crew of an aircraft carrier is locked below deck during their time at sea to make sure there's nobody unwanted in the way if the planes needs to take off in a hurry)

[Kato]

I think it greatly depends on what kind of farm we are talking about... If we want to colonize Mars or build generation ships, that's very different from what you would do to add to the diet in a small ship.

I think growing anything on a small scale will be algae, because as mentioned, dirt is just a waste of space. A tank of water will give you far more output than rows of earth and plants and some headspace, even at their most efficient. But if you really want this, you'll likely go for something that doesn't grow tall and tightly together, so salad sounds fine.

But if we talk large scale, I think even if it wastes space, I think a "proper garden"is most likely, with a variety of plants based on multiple factors. Every gardener can tell you what monocultures will do to your soil. Though I guess you can fix that with enough fertilizer (?). But it seems not like what you would want to do long term.


But honestly, I'm afraid (?) we'll just reach the point where we will avoid plants for the majority of our nutrients chemically or by bacteria, so even plants will be more luxury than necessary.

[halfeye]

I think it greatly depends on what kind of farm we are talking about... If we want to colonize Mars or build generation ships, that's very different from what you would do to add to the diet in a small ship.

Personally I am talking about a relatively static space station that's not really going anywhere, just providing living space for people in space. Once set up it ought to be much more efficient to grow food in space than to ship it up from Earth, even if we do have a space elevator by that time. In the longer term I'm thinking of a niche where a "space farm" exists that imports bodily wastes, and exports foods, but in the first instance it would just be an area in a space station that provides some food.


I think growing anything on a small scale will be algae, because as mentioned, dirt is just a waste of space. A tank of water will give you far more output than rows of earth and plants and some headspace, even at their most efficient. But if you really want this, you'll likely go for something that doesn't grow tall and tightly together, so salad sounds fine.

I'm not that convinced water is good, you have to contain it with no leaks, and that's non trivial even here on Earth. People naturally produce "soil" in such quantity that it's a problem if not recycled, and it is high density, so you want something inert mixed in with it. There seem to be a lot of rubble pile asteroids out there, so getting hold of some small grade rubble hopefully shouldn't be too difficult. Low plants like cranberries and bilberries seem a better bet than tree like plants like roses in the first instance, maybe we can make an edible sphagnum somehow? In the longer term, chocolate and coffee are non negotiably necessary, peaches and bananas would be nice, and many, many others, but to start with, it would be low plants first, I think strawberries are too fussy to be worthwhile in the first instance, though definitely worth it as a luxury later on.


But if we talk large scale, I think even if it wastes space, I think a "proper garden"is most likely, with a variety of plants based on multiple factors. Every gardener can tell you what monocultures will do to your soil. Though I guess you can fix that with enough fertilizer (?). But it seems not like what you would want to do long term.

Clovers will fix nitrogen from your air, not that a shortage will be a problem anyway.

I think people would go mad without some dietary variety. Basic herbs, spices, onions and garlic should definitely be in the second stage if not necessarily in the first.


But honestly, I'm afraid (?) we'll just reach the point where we will avoid plants for the majority of our nutrients chemically or by bacteria, so even plants will be more luxury than necessary.

Blue-greens used to be bacteria, I think they're algae now, you need something to get energy from sunlight into something edible, bacteria don't do that (unless blue-greens still count <edit> seems they do, which is interesting).

We need to take seeds up there that can be generally reused, it's not good to take up seeds again and again that are only fertile for one generation, that would be hideously expensive even though seeds are generally light (I know that there are heavy seeds too). Plants that are generally grown from cuttings might work out, but they would probably be problematic in the first instances.

[Jayngfet]

Depends on how many you intend to feed and for how long. I did some number crunching on my own and if you want to feed multi millions get ready for a multi kilometer Death Star type dealie and even that would need to be a crazy complicated nested setup run in layers.

Space farming is nice in theory but it'll only ever be a niche idea because the resources required are far more than any alternatives for a real population. By the time you Master all the technology and build the damn thing you've probably set up greenhouses wherever you want to go at the end of your trip in a fraction of the time.

[sktarq]

Ginger and the like would be comparatively easy to grow in space as well. also a good source of several unstable micronutrients like vitamins and to spice things up

In addition to various seaweeds at the other end of the spectrum there are several kinds of cacti that have fast growing cycles-no pollination needed (put a pad in nutrient solution/dirt and will grow a new plant).


Though really growing biomass for cultured yeasts and mushrooms will also be a significant factor in producing variety of flavor etc...heck we already use yeasts to make butter and cheese flavorings for processed foods.

[Eldan]

P
Blue-greens used to be bacteria, I think they're algae now, you need something to get energy from sunlight into something edible, bacteria don't do that (unless blue-greens still count <edit> seems they do, which is interesting).

Last I heard, Algae wasn't a thing anymore, basically. Not taxonomically, at least. Algae means "anything that photosynthesizes and is not a proper plant". That covers a lot of groups. Some are bacteria, some are protists.

[halfeye]

Depends on how many you intend to feed and for how long. I did some number crunching on my own and if you want to feed multi millions get ready for a multi kilometer Death Star type dealie and even that would need to be a crazy complicated nested setup run in layers.

Tens of thousands will probably cover it for the next couple of centuries, maybe longer at the current rate. It would be nice if the population of space near Earth was bigger than that quite soon, but rockets don't leave that often at the moment, and people don't breed that fast (I expect we can breed in space, but we won't know until we try, and we might want some radiation proofing around the area).


Space farming is nice in theory but it'll only ever be a niche idea because the resources required are far more than any alternatives for a real population. By the time you Master all the technology and build the damn thing you've probably set up greenhouses wherever you want to go at the end of your trip in a fraction of the time.

The whole idea is that you're not on a trip, you're not going anywhere, and you aren't doing much more than setting up greenhouses, they just happen to be in space.

[Arcane_Secrets]

How will we farm space?

Will we use windows, or solar panels and lights, or something else?

I sort of presume we will grow lettuce, because most of the plant is edible, and it's fairly quick growing, and maybe alf-alfa for similar reasons. Whatever we grow will get boring so we'll need some variety, and some nutrients are required and not present in all foods, so something for vitamin c for instance, but citrus fruit come from trees, which are slow growing and produce a lot of unnecessary (for our purposes) wood.

Wouldn't the lack of gravity be kind of a problem, although I should actually look that up since I suspect that someone's tried this already?

That being said, if a ship had gravity simulated through rotation then that might not be a problem, and I did like the idea of larger "algae" in water.

[gomipile]

Wouldn't the lack of gravity be kind of a problem, although I should actually look that up since I suspect that someone's tried this already?

That being said, if a ship had gravity simulated through rotation then that might not be a problem, and I did like the idea of larger "algae" in water.

Lettuce, at least, can grow well enough in microgravity:

https://www.space.com/30209-astronauts-eat-space-lettuce.html

And there's an algae experiment running on the ISS right now:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2552.html

[Arcane_Secrets]

Lettuce, at least, can grow well enough in microgravity:

https://www.space.com/30209-astronauts-eat-space-lettuce.html

And there's an algae experiment running on the ISS right now:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2552.html

Thanks for answering...that's really interesting.