One escaped panda goin' rogue could destroy the colony!
QuoteI always see pictures of habitats as barren places full of computers and little else, but I would expect nearly every spare inch to be covered with some kind of useful plant life.Perhaps I'm missing something, but you mean, inside living quarters? Houseplants, sure you could, but do you have any sense of how much light it takes to grow something actually useful? And also how fast humidity (aka transpiration) accumulates when you pack a sealed living space full of plants, and what it does to all of those aforementioned computers?(I grow crop plants indoors under artificial light. If I fully seal the growth tent and shut off all ventilation, it literally rains in there)
I always see pictures of habitats as barren places full of computers and little else, but I would expect nearly every spare inch to be covered with some kind of useful plant life.
If it were me running the Martian forest then I would embrace that. Have the largest enclosing volume be an 'outside'. Day night cycles, illumination primarily from the ceiling, precipitation from sprinklers and some efficient means to move the air(perhaps just the arrangement of heat sources and sinks would be enough). Within that lots of 'inside' spaces where all the humans and their valuables are kept.Don't build an entire colony that way just dedicate one vast room where things can get a little bit wilder. Even birds, insects and small marsupials. You could copy a biome from Earth - like bamboo forest - or use a novel recipe of complimentary lifeforms.
I hope for something like that. Not really a bamboo forest. Something more diverse would be more appealing, I believe. But beside that I think there should be plants wherever they can be placed. There are plants that thrive on quite low light levels, if not growing rapidly. They should help with maintaining air quality too.
You could copy a biome from Earth - like bamboo forest - or use a novel recipe of complimentary lifeforms.
Quote from: guckyfan on 01/31/2017 08:39 amI hope for something like that. Not really a bamboo forest. Something more diverse would be more appealing, I believe. But beside that I think there should be plants wherever they can be placed. There are plants that thrive on quite low light levels, if not growing rapidly. They should help with maintaining air quality too.The thing is that bamboo is such a useful plant that it would make sense to do largely bamboo forests, at least at first. Other plants and more complex ecosystems would be later-stage stuff.
Let's not forget that some bamboo shoots are edible; including Bambusa vulgaris and Phyllostachys edulis, and quite nutritious. Have to cook/boil them though as heat destroys the cyanogenic glycosides found therein, a toxin also found in cassava.
Quote from: TripD on 01/28/2017 01:48 amQuote from: Aussie_Space_Nut on 01/28/2017 12:07 amI think to grow strong wood you also need wind from time to time.You could stimulate the bending action with a horizontal lath work moving side to side.It might be nice once in awhile to rev up fans and create a wind to remind people what it was like back on old Earth.
Quote from: Aussie_Space_Nut on 01/28/2017 12:07 amI think to grow strong wood you also need wind from time to time.You could stimulate the bending action with a horizontal lath work moving side to side.
I think to grow strong wood you also need wind from time to time.
Quote from: Rei on 01/29/2017 10:30 amQuoteI always see pictures of habitats as barren places full of computers and little else, but I would expect nearly every spare inch to be covered with some kind of useful plant life.Perhaps I'm missing something, but you mean, inside living quarters? Houseplants, sure you could, but do you have any sense of how much light it takes to grow something actually useful? And also how fast humidity (aka transpiration) accumulates when you pack a sealed living space full of plants, and what it does to all of those aforementioned computers?(I grow crop plants indoors under artificial light. If I fully seal the growth tent and shut off all ventilation, it literally rains in there)If it were me running the Martian forest then I would embrace that. Have the largest enclosing volume be an 'outside'. Day night cycles, illumination primarily from the ceiling, precipitation from sprinklers and some efficient means to move the air(perhaps just the arrangement of heat sources and sinks would be enough). Within that lots of 'inside' spaces where all the humans and their valuables are kept.Don't build an entire colony that way just dedicate one vast room where things can get a little bit wilder. Even birds, insects and small marsupials. You could copy a biome from Earth - like bamboo forest - or use a novel recipe of complimentary lifeforms.Isn't the VAB tall enough for clouds to form? What does that do to the equipment and the building fabric? I presume it happens because of the high humidity there.
There are plants that thrive on quite low light levels, if not growing rapidly. They should help with maintaining air quality too.
Fantastic post, Rei. Thank you!While we are at it, where does the nitrogen for the plants come from? On earth, fertilizer nitrogen comes either from the air or is mainly mined from ancient birds poo. I heard people say before "There is nitrogen on Mars".. so yeah the atmosphere has about 2%, is that enough for a byproduct of a fuel plant? Argon is there as well, might be nice as a replacement for nitrogen in air as well.
I fully agree. Having run a marine aquarium which needs a LOT of light for the corals to grow, I do have some idea what that takes. I was thinking about decorative plants and maybe a few herbs, with a little, but not too much added lighting. When I mentioned cleaning the air, I am not too sure. I did not think of producing O2 or reducing CO2. More like assimilating trace gases. It is claimed that some of the low light plants are good at that, though I am not certain those claims are true.