Author Topic: Scaling Agriculture on Mars  (Read 574122 times)

Offline Impaler

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #200 on: 05/07/2015 04:42 am »
Even in the 3rd world the primary source of calories is GRAIN, which should be obvious as these are the cheapest calories in any country or market.  3rd world diets are meat and protein poor, but this dose not make them vegetable rich, the calorie deficit is generally filled with more cheap grain not vegetables, this is why people are generally so malnourished and unhealthy in the 3rd world their diet is even worse then western diet.

Offline Hanelyp

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #201 on: 05/07/2015 09:51 pm »
Mushrooms were mentioned to provide essential proteins.  Sounds like a good use for waste biomass left over from growing other crops.  Small animals that eat parts of plants humans don't also make sense for the agricultural system.  Milking animals tend to be larger and eat more in relation to food produced, so wouldn't be in the mix early on.  But something like a yeast producing a dairy substitute would be nice to go with the occasional pizza night.

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #202 on: 05/08/2015 07:26 pm »
Even in the 3rd world the primary source of calories is GRAIN, which should be obvious as these are the cheapest calories in any country or market.  3rd world diets are meat and protein poor, but this dose not make them vegetable rich, the calorie deficit is generally filled with more cheap grain not vegetables, this is why people are generally so malnourished and unhealthy in the 3rd world their diet is even worse then western diet.

Not quite true, in several developing countries tubers are the main source of food rather than grain. Potatoes are considered both vegetables and major crops. Taro and sweet potatoes are integral parts of many tropical and temperate diets. In Sub-Saharan Africa tubers are the main source of calories, rather than grain. This does not lead directly to malnutrition, the reasons are multifaceted. There is a study that 14th century Englishmen ate as many calories as today's English (not so sure about Scots or Welsh and Irish) but although their skeletons show fit people, more English are overweight. The reasons have to do with the origin of calories (in the Middle Ages it was beer rather than meat) and physical activity (farmer versus office worker). Is alcohol desirable as part of the Martian diet? What would be the source, beer, wine, distilled drinks? Wine is an integral part of Mediterranean diets after all, for those whose faith allows them.

guckyfan: I have eaten those meat cans myself, I had an uncle who lived in West Berlin and I would visit him with my family. What surprised me was the blandness of the can, no branding nothing. I have no doubt we can conserve food for long, if we can conserve nutritious food is another issue ...

Offline Hanelyp

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #203 on: 05/08/2015 11:35 pm »
I don't see alcohol as a desirable part of the Martian diet.  But short of prohibition with wide support it is hard to avoid.

Related to that, I expect little tolerance of intoxication in locations where it can lead to a more general threat to the colony.

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #204 on: 05/09/2015 04:02 am »
The consumption of alcohol has been part of most human societies. The reasons for this practice did not have to do so much with intended intoxication as much as water safety: There is a quote by the Prussian king Friedrich the Great that this newfangled coffee thing is dangerous and that the German people should keep on drinking beer which has nurtured them for generations. There has always been a ritualistic element in alcohol consumption, whether we are talking about Holy Communion or the dance floor of the night club. Perhaps I am biased because I am South European that idea of drinking is not to get drunk, drunkenness has always been looked down. Alcohol is the traditional disinfectant of water, whether we are talking about the strongly diluted wine that the Homeric heroes would drink every night or the beer that Frederick the Great mentioned, because before water treatment plants plain water brought dysentery. That being said I think that Mars colonists should not purposely attempt to ferment alcohol, except perhaps for rocket fuel.

Offline sanman

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #205 on: 05/18/2015 12:17 am »
As automation and robotics are increasingly incorporated into agricultural production here on Earth, could some of these technologies be useful for Mars?


Offline spacenut

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #206 on: 05/18/2015 12:38 am »
I am type II diabetic.  I can eat all the meat I want along with mostly green vegetables, salads, and fruits.  I can get by without bread, rice, or even potatoes.  By doing this I can get by without any medicine.  Now, meat is the biggest problem in a small space, except for fish in tanks.  However, fish along with chickens, and maybe some small animals are doable, by feeding them algae pellets which can also be grown in a small space. 

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #207 on: 05/18/2015 05:30 am »
As automation and robotics are increasingly incorporated into agricultural production here on Earth, could some of these technologies be useful for Mars?



The right answer is both yes and no. Since this is a forum of rocket scientists think of the automations at the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo capsule and the automations at Orion/Dragon V2/CST-100: modern capsules can do things the old ones could not, but not everything that people can do. First of all the environment inside a greenhouse is highly corrosive far more than the field where many automations are pioneered. Also robots as still good for some things but not for others. We can make a great algorithm, machine vision etc and be able to make a robot harvest heads of lettuce coming out of the substrate properly. However trying to find in a cucumber or tomato plant where the fruits actually are, if they are ripe for harvest, if there is a disease taking place etc. etc is far more difficult. Easy automations like controlling the pH of the nutrient solution or measuring the weight of the water in the substrate, directly and indirectly, so as to time irrigation will probably be adopted. On Earth we are seeing capital replace labor, which is leading to automations. On Mars there is another issue: limited Mars. Do we want to bring a single purpose 50 kg robot rather than give a few hours of extra responsibilities to the agricultural specialist? How robust is the robot and can we manufacture spare parts? Could these 50 kg be used to bring something better? We will most definitely have agricultural production before we have industrial production, though I am sure we will be able to build parts.

On another note, the current version of All About Space (the one with the Hubble cover) has a two page article on Mars agriculture. 1 and 3/4 of the page is a drawing of a preliminary Mars surface colony with a greenhouse. The last 1/4 page is mostly an interview with a University of Florida professor of Space Agriculture, where he talks how he is trying to make plants grow at 1/10th earth surface pressure so as to make the greenhouse lighter and easier to transport from earth. Personally, I am under the impression that people could not survive at 1/10 surface pressure even in a 100% O2 atmosphere and would require a pressure suit, which is self defeating.

Offline spacenut

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #208 on: 05/18/2015 12:01 pm »
I don't foresee plants or a greenhouse being transported from earth.  I see seeds, which will be planted on Mars after the greenhouses are built to grow the plants.  Corrosion is from the fertilizers used in a greenhouse.  That is easily solved using a lot of plastic components, as well as aluminum and stainless where metals are needed, and they can be plastic coated.  Most vegetables humans eat are small.  Only the grains are larger.  Then there are vine crops such as grapes.  Small fruit trees and bushes shouldn't be hard either.  Nut trees are large and they will probably have to be transported from earth for several years.  Agriculture will have to be attended to on a daily basis, but not impossible.  There should be no insect problem.  Fish and small animals will have to be butchered by hand and the waste dehydrated and processed for fertilizer or fish or small animal or chicken feed. 

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #209 on: 05/18/2015 12:25 pm »
10% earth sea level pressure should be well survivable with pure oxygen and some accimatization. That would be similar to partial oxygen pressure at 5,5km altitude. 15 to 20% would be easier to handle though.

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #210 on: 05/18/2015 01:48 pm »
On transporting a greenhouse from earth the tradeoff is this: Do we transport the infrastructure to construct the greenhouse, even though the use will be limited outside the greenhouse (how many windows do we need?) or do we transport one greenhouse, large enough to feed all the colonists at maximum growth? This is what needs to be decided. Corrosion in a greenhouse is an issue of high temperature and humidity, not just fertilizers but yes, it is solvable. It simply requires a ruggedness we do not need on Earth, where if all else fails you can simply buy and install a spare part.

Offline spacenut

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #211 on: 05/18/2015 02:10 pm »
Mars is cold and dry, so a greenhouse is not really going to be as big a problem as on earth.  And like someone said, most of the plants will be grown underground with piped in sun and artificial lighting.  Humidity can be managed with dehumidifiers.  Also the water produced by dehumidifiers is sterile so it can become the potable water source.  Dirty fish water is pumped over the plants to feed them, and after filtering through the soil, the clean water goes back to the fish tanks.  The heat generated by greenhouses on earth is from trapped sunlight, which might not be the case on Mars. where heat will be needed due to the cold environment.  Also LED lighting is cooler than incandescent lighting and uses less electricity.  Any excess heat can be used to heat the living and working areas or radiated outside. Through water tanks above the living areas. 

I think the best way to do a Mars environment on earth as a test bed is probably Greenland since it is nearby. 

I also don't think Mars is going to be that hard.  Everything can be engineered.  Also, food production should be twice what they need, just for redundancy.  Excess can be frozen, dehydrated, or canned in case there is an equipment problem or some disease makes it's way to Mars.  I also think there should be multiple greenhouses growing different foods in case one is lost due to a meteorite or rocket crash.  Each living and greenhouse area connected by pressure chambers like on a ship so areas can be sealed off if there is an emergency. 

Offline Optimist

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #212 on: 05/18/2015 05:23 pm »
Just read this, should be good for Mars.

From the article:

"A small piece of muscle you can produce 10,000 kilos of meat."

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/05/lab-grown-meat-thirty-thousand-times.html


Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #213 on: 05/18/2015 07:11 pm »
Food and agricultural products in general are not produced continually assembly line style, biology works in growth spurts. Even algae (which I think would be the best first crop) will produce in cycles. As a result just to keep the people there you need to produce twice what you need in order to cover shortfalls and spoilage. For lab grown meat, it requires a very rich nutrient solution just to survive, currently it is a very inefficient method to produce food. It would be better to feed the colonists the broth used to grow the meat rather than the meat itself. As for LED lights, I do not want to repeat myself but so far, there is little experience with use of LEDs in greenhouses on Earth. We are still several decades from the first greenhouse on Mars, we can be patient and just draw the broader picture

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #214 on: 05/18/2015 07:49 pm »
On another note: most first colony concepts I have seen, both for Mars and for the Moon, assume that first colony would be made of stuff mostly sent from Earth and left on the surface. It will take quite some time before the underground structures get build. I am under the impression that while the first colonization mission will include a bulldozer/earth moving equipment, it will take time before under or above ground structures are built. I see the first greenhouse being a light structure brought from earth on the surface. The question is of course (and we have spent 10 pages arguing about it) on what follows next, more of the same with supplementary illumination added or turn the whole settlement into Mole town, completely independent of the environment with everything artificial lighting. Considering how surprisingly compacted proved the ground on the Phoenix landing site, let's wait and see where and how we are supposed to build anything.

Offline spacenut

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #215 on: 05/18/2015 09:40 pm »
Some plants can be grown in regular lighting, house plants for instance.  Even some herbs and spices are grown indoors in little pots.  LED will probably be the lighting of choice due to low electrical use.  Some plants might require a UV light.  Like someone said sunlight can be piped in via prisms or skylight.  It could possibly be intensified with reflectors and mirrors on the surface to improve indoor growing.  Say two reflectors aiming to the same location could make it more earthlike in intensity. 

Also, living units can be put on the ground and earth pushed up on the sides/and or over the top.  It doesn't have to be underground completely.  Just enough for protection.  Earth, plastic, and water can filter a lot of radiation without having to be multi meters thick.  If you are going to berm around a landing pad, living areas can be on the back side of the berms, or in the berms themselves. 

Another thing I though about is mining ice.  If a glacier or ice is several kilometers away from the landing living are, recharging stations can be along the way to the ice using electric trucks. 

Offline Optimist

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #216 on: 05/19/2015 08:06 am »
Quote
For lab grown meat, it requires a very rich nutrient solution just to survive, currently it is a very inefficient method to produce food. It would be better to feed the colonists the broth used to grow the meat rather than the meat itself.

@AegeanBlue

Posted about lab grown meat, cause the topic is "scaling" Agriculture on Mars .
I have no doubt about your great knowledge about agriculture, and I think u are right, that at the start of the colony it would be better to just drink the broth used to grow the meat, rather than the meat itself.
However as the colony grows, I am sure most would appreciate a meal, that tastes and looks like a meal, and you have to chew down, rather than drink it.

Btw, great thread everybody.






Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #217 on: 05/19/2015 09:17 pm »
If you read Jared Diamond's Gun Germs and Steel, you will see that advances in human civilization is associated with more efficient ways to grow food and exploit natural resources in general. The typical way to exploit plant resources that were not directly edible by people was through domesticated animals. The first food animals we will have will eat resources not directly edible by people, such as metabolism products (think tillapia in aquaponics) or leftover stalks from the plants. Is it worth it to create a nutrient broth for artificial meat or to grow the animal and slaughter it? What is the infrastructure that required for the one or the other option and what is its other utility? Being an agronomist I am more in favor of growing the entire animal, because that was what I was taught in class. What I am comfortable with is not necessarily what is the best solution in our case. In any case our answer will be depended on the technological advances as we get closer to mounting the colonization mission.

Offline RanulfC

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #218 on: 05/20/2015 04:57 pm »
If you read Jared Diamond's Gun Germs and Steel, you will see that advances in human civilization is associated with more efficient ways to grow food and exploit natural resources in general. The typical way to exploit plant resources that were not directly edible by people was through domesticated animals. The first food animals we will have will eat resources not directly edible by people, such as metabolism products (think tillapia in aquaponics) or leftover stalks from the plants. Is it worth it to create a nutrient broth for artificial meat or to grow the animal and slaughter it? What is the infrastructure that required for the one or the other option and what is its other utility? Being an agronomist I am more in favor of growing the entire animal, because that was what I was taught in class. What I am comfortable with is not necessarily what is the best solution in our case. In any case our answer will be depended on the technological advances as we get closer to mounting the colonization mission.

Growing the whole animal is energy and space intensive, even if we assume high intensity, close spaced conditions (which aren't all that healthy for humans or animals really) and the waste and issue with slaughtering and processing are to be avoided if at all possible :) (Born and raised in cattle country here and am FAR too well aware of what entails in getting a "good" steak :) )

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #219 on: 06/08/2015 04:17 am »
This popped up today on spacetoday.net

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/06/06/can-red-thumbs-grow-food-on-mars.html

It is a general audience article more than anything scientific but it did raise an issue I had not thought of: metal toxicity in the soil. Another issue I did think of but have not mentioned before is that if we go with farming in actual Mars soil rather than hydroponics or pot, we would need to heat the first 50 cm at least of the soil, in addition to the greenhouse, otherwise we have no place to grow roots and irrigation water will be frozen.

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