How does bamboo do in regards to making biofuel, bioplastics etc? Including how much of its biomass can be turned into a useful product on Mars. The more versatile the crop, the better.
I think to grow strong wood you also need wind from time to time.
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.
When thinking about underground habitats, I always imagined that they would be slightly sloped, so each cavern could have a stream running through it. With Bamboo, it will look even cooler.
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.
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)
One escaped panda goin' rogue could destroy the colony!
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: 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.
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.1g gravity might also turn out to be important.
Quote from: high road on 02/02/2017 09:40 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.1g gravity might also turn out to be important.Have you ever tried to break bamboo scrimber - engineered wood made from bamboo? It has comparable mechanical properties to good timber. Little to no structural pine, oak or ash needed on Mars folks.
Quote from: docmordrid on 02/02/2017 05:36 pmQuote from: high road on 02/02/2017 09:40 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.1g gravity might also turn out to be important.Have you ever tried to break bamboo scrimber - engineered wood made from bamboo? It has comparable mechanical properties to good timber. Little to no structural pine, oak or ash needed on Mars folks.How much bamboo have we grown under 38%g? Must have missed that experiment. And where is the resin coming from on Mars?
How much bamboo have we grown under 38%g? Must have missed that experiment. And where is the resin coming from on Mars?
"I think to grow strong wood you also need wind from time to time."I see why one might think this, but do we have a controlled experiment to back it up?
Quote from: docmordrid on 02/02/2017 05:36 pmQuote from: high road on 02/02/2017 09:40 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.O1g gravity might also turn out to be important.Have you ever tried to break bamboo scrimber - engineered wood made from bamboo? It has comparable mechanical properties to good timber. Little to no structural pine, oak or ash needed on Mars folks.How much bamboo have we grown under 38%g? Must have missed that experiment.
Quote from: high road on 02/02/2017 09:40 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.O1g gravity might also turn out to be important.Have you ever tried to break bamboo scrimber - engineered wood made from bamboo? It has comparable mechanical properties to good timber. Little to no structural pine, oak or ash needed on Mars folks.
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.O1g gravity might also turn out to be important.
And where is the resin coming from on Mars?
Quote from: Phil Stooke on 02/03/2017 01:20 pm"I think to grow strong wood you also need wind from time to time."I see why one might think this, but do we have a controlled experiment to back it up?Houseplants grow well enough, I think wind is a non issue.
Quote from: Semmel on 02/01/2017 10:48 amFantastic 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.Soil bacteria take it out of the air and put it back. But also sometimes lighting does it thus.
Quote from: chalz on 02/01/2017 11:43 amQuote from: Semmel on 02/01/2017 10:48 amFantastic 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.Soil bacteria take it out of the air and put it back. But also sometimes lighting does it thus.Aquaponics... fish produce lots of nitrogen!Irrigate the plants with recycled fish "water".
I've got an aquaponics tank in my kitchen right now with a goldfish, some mini bamboo and some other decorative plants.
The problem with plant products whenever I start considering them is that you can always get much more production with synthetics for a given amount of mass shipped from Earth (at least in the near term). A small UHMWPE powder production system can produce more polyethylene in an hour than the equivalent mass of hydroponics system could produce bamboo in a year.
Ethanol is produced during fermentation via yeast and sugars. Best way to produce sugar is growing sugar beets or sugarcane, so it looks like we're back to growing plants.
Bamboo is made into flooring, cutting boards, and furniture today.
Small plants first, then the small trees and bamboo. Plants are easy, they can all be brought in seed form. Animals and fish, another story.
People can eat the plants or use the bamboo for wood materials.
Quote from: spacenut on 03/06/2017 08:36 pmBamboo is made into flooring, cutting boards, and furniture today. Not to forget, socks. Bamboo can be processed to make clothing.
The idea is to minimize shipping supplies from Earth by producing products at the colony.Where does the colony get the ethylene to produce UHMWPE powder?
Where does the colony get the ethylene to produce UHMWPE powder?
Quote from: RonM on 03/06/2017 09:24 pmWhere does the colony get the ethylene to produce UHMWPE powder?There is research in an advanced stage to convert methane to ethylene. The driver for this research is the methane byproduct of oil wells. In many areas there is no infrastructure to transport the methane and it is still being burned off. Catalytic transformation of methane to ethylene can eliminate that waste. Very useful on Mars too.
Systems for in-situ production of UHWMPE on Mars are not theoretical, they've already been built. Ethylene is produced from the partial oxidation of methane in a microreactor cascade. It can also be produced direct from syngas.Note that there still are consumables. For example, in a prototype Mars UHMWPE system designed for producing a UHMWPE/aggregate concrete substitute , they were using liquid phase polymerization, wherein the catalyst ends up (in tiny quantities) in the plastic. But there's also gas phase polymerization options where it doesn't. And in any system there's always going to be some consumables. Agriculture is absolutely no exception. The production rate difference, however, is massive.
So growing construction materials won't be needed, but it would be nice to have a small grove to make a colony more livable.
I guess whether to grow plants or artificially create plastics will all depend on which has the least requirements for mass shipped from Earth including required spare parts. I think it has been stated that plants will grow best under solar powered LEDs rather than natural light for the same energy input. The mass required to be shipped will be higher under LEDSs if on the surface. If we can find suitable tunnels this may not be true. How much energy is required to create a Kg of ethylene from water and the Mars atmosphere ?
Quote from: philw1776 on 01/30/2017 06:40 pmOne escaped panda goin' rogue could destroy the colony!If I live to see the day when cargo deliveries to other planets include live pandas, I'll consider that "mission accomplished"
What about any born and raised in U.S. zoos . Won't they be U.S. citizens?
Plastic made from sugar and carbon dioxide>The new BPA-free plastic could potentially replace current polycarbonates in items such as baby bottles and food containers, and since the plastic is bio-compatible, it could also be used for medical implants or as scaffolds for growing tissues or organs for transplant.>"The properties of this new plastic can be fine-tuned by tweaking the chemical structure -- for example we can make the plastic positively charged so that cells can stick to it, making it useful as a scaffold for tissue engineering." Such tissue engineering work has already started in collaboration with Dr Ram Sharma from Chemical Engineering, also part of the CSCT.>