Author Topic: Scaling Agriculture on Mars  (Read 574035 times)

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #380 on: 01/15/2016 03:58 pm »
Solid human waste can be exposed to vacuum, dried or even incinerated in a solar oven. Options that would be energy intensive on Earth would be relatively simple on Mars by taking advantage of the hostile environment. No chemicals required. Then it would be safe to use as fertilizer.

Safe? Perhaps. Plant available? Debatable. There is a whole class of emerging contaminants in the environment (e.g.flame retardants on our blankets and mattresses) which enter the biosphere because they are not decomposed in the treatments, since they do not stay enough. There are several streams where 1 in 10 frogs are androgynous from these contaminants. We wouldn't want that kind of thing on our colonists, would we? Composting is IMO a much better solution, at the end we have a nutrient rich organic material to mix with Martian soil Watney style but far more hygienic.

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #381 on: 01/16/2016 08:04 pm »
A truly awesome article popped up today at spacetoday.net from the official website of the US Army, on a research project to make real food for Mars:

http://www.army.mil/article/160761/Army_helps_to_meet_nutritional_needs_of_Mars_astronauts/

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The mission to Mars provides many challenges in vitamin stabilization.

"You can make food that is stable, but vitamins are biological materials that degrade over time," Barrett said. "Especially if there is cosmic radiation; then they are even more susceptible to degradation. Cosmic radiation can damage vitamins and create more of a need for antioxidant vitamins for the astronauts. This could result in malnutrition."

The vitamins need to remain effective and intact during the astronauts' time on Mars, and they also need to remain stable during travel to and from Mars.

"NASA is also interested in stockpiling food there for subsequent missions, which is why they want a five-year shelf life," Barrett said.

Offline alexterrell

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #382 on: 01/17/2016 12:05 pm »
What follows is a thought experiment:

Each Martian colonist will eat 2 kgs of food per day. Let's assume that 1.5 kgs are from plant sources, and 1kg is from a higher plant. Assuming for simplicity's sake we use all aboveground biomass and throw away the belowground biomass, and using a harvest index of 0.5 we also have 1 kg of biomass that is inedible to people but potentially available for feed. Now if we use all this biomass as feed (and not say for composting human waste or other such necessary uses) with a feed conversion ratio of 3 to 1 we could have 0.333 kgs of animal. Now, it is highly unlikely that this biomass is a balanced animal meal but let's ignore it for the moment. Now Dr Google is not that great in finding the conversion ratio of animal weight to food but here is a tolerable link:

Algae?

How about each colonist eats:
- 0.5kg of fish or chicken. These are produced from 1kg of algae.
- 1kg of algae, synthesised into flour (bread) and other staple foods / or some other forms of carbohrdrate synthesis.
- 0.5kg of tomatoes and lettuces grown under artificial light
- A synthetic flavours unit producing trace amounts of flavours to make the above taste good.

Total: 2kg of algae and 0.5kg of salad.

The challenge really is to make something with the nutritional and taste properties of rice, pasta or potato from algae.

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #383 on: 01/18/2016 12:17 am »
Algae?

How about each colonist eats:
- 0.5kg of fish or chicken. These are produced from 1kg of algae.
- 1kg of algae, synthesised into flour (bread) and other staple foods / or some other forms of carbohrdrate synthesis.
- 0.5kg of tomatoes and lettuces grown under artificial light
- A synthetic flavours unit producing trace amounts of flavours to make the above taste good.

Total: 2kg of algae and 0.5kg of salad.

The challenge really is to make something with the nutritional and taste properties of rice, pasta or potato from algae.

1 kg of algae will at best lead to 0.25 kg of fish or chickens. Considering that we do not eat feathers or guts or scales 0.15 to 0.2 is more realistic, 0.10 more conservative considering also that algae on its own is NOT a nutritionally balanced meal either for chickens or fish. That is on top of the issues with veterinary control, genetic diversity etc that come with having animals or the time it takes to grow the animal and when it becomes available to eat. Supermarkets create the illusion that meat is available all of the year, in truth not so much.

How do you do carbohydrate synthesis? What is the machinery required? What are its spare parts? What are the feedstocks? Byproducts and their potential utility? What is the size of the logistic tail coming from earth? Honestly I am not familiar

Tomatoes and lettuce sure, but they are not high calorie food. At the very least you will need oil for your salad, which you will need to grow locally. Tubers and grains will also help.

Where are synthetic flavors coming from? If earth, how many will survive the trip and not get decomposed by cosmic radiation? If local, what is their feedstock? Artificial vanilla (which is 90% of all vanilla consumed) today mostly comes from a petroleum feedstock. Several natural flavors come from the shells of insects, do we want to grow insects just for their coloring?

Do not misunderstand me, I am not here to shoot you down. I am just trying to show the unknowns so that they can be filled

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #384 on: 01/18/2016 12:33 am »
I'm a meat-eater, but I'm 99% certain that you're way better off with a vegan diet if you are in an energy-constrained state like a Mars colony.

It's fun to think of chicken and fish, but feeding single-celled protein some methane and ammonia is a VERY efficient way to produce protein (with some small amount of carbs and fats), and algae is very effective at fats. Probably are ways to efficiently produce carbs, too. But feeding this to chicken and fish is throwing away like at least half of the food energy and is going to double, triple, or even quadruple the energy needed to produce food.
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Offline guckyfan

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #385 on: 01/18/2016 07:46 am »
Algae are a very efficient producer of both oil and carbo hydrates. Grains I just cannot see in the mix, space and time inefficient. I would bet, calories from chicken or fish fed algae and bacteria protein takes less ressources to produce than grains even considering the conversion losses.

But I agree that 500g meat or anywhere near that is not economical. I can and do produce delicious meals with 50g of meat per dish.

Offline alexterrell

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #386 on: 01/18/2016 08:18 am »
Given that Tilipia are "designed" to eat algae, and 1.5:1 is feasible, we could probably assume 2:1.

Main thing is algae will be cheap. They circulate through tubes next to the photovoltaic panels. So if we need 2kg of algae for 1kg of fish, or 3kg for 1kg of chicken, that still makes chicken cheaper than potatoes. OK, protein powder - made from methane, will be cheaper still.

Good to know Vanilla is made from petroleum stock. That will be easy, as will salt. Pepper is rather harder - though can be imported as the volume is low.

So meat is easy. But still the essential question is how do we turn Algae into the bulk carbohydrate equivalent to pasta or rice or potato, which make up the bulk most people's diet?

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #387 on: 01/18/2016 09:31 am »
So meat is easy. But still the essential question is how do we turn Algae into the bulk carbohydrate equivalent to pasta or rice or potato, which make up the bulk most people's diet?

That's something worth putting research money into. It can be done and will be done, providing the biggest share of all calories produced together with the high quality oil also grown by algae.

We see vegetarian and vegan meat imitation products getting better. But not yet much work on grains replacement. I think there is some work on using algae as an additive to other products, but have no source. Still a long way to go.

Offline alexterrell

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #388 on: 01/18/2016 10:03 am »
Grains on Earth are very cheap, and already healthy. So there's no incentive for anyone to research an algae-based grain substitute. Once off Earth though, it will be essential.

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #389 on: 01/18/2016 03:07 pm »
Grains on Earth are very cheap, and already healthy. So there's no incentive for anyone to research an algae-based grain substitute. Once off Earth though, it will be essential.

I believe some thought is given to algae as a future staple food for the growing population. However purely scientific basic research, nothing on real application besides adding some algae to products for increasing nutritional value.

Offline alexterrell

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #390 on: 01/18/2016 06:08 pm »
Grains on Earth are very cheap, and already healthy. So there's no incentive for anyone to research an algae-based grain substitute. Once off Earth though, it will be essential.

I believe some thought is given to algae as a future staple food for the growing population. However purely scientific basic research, nothing on real application besides adding some algae to products for increasing nutritional value.
You (I think) mentioned algae being used to make flour. Is that the right kind of flour to make bread?

I found this: Milk from algae. http://www.workoutplan.com/milk-made-from-algae-the-new-dairy-alternative/

Eggs from chicken (from algae), and flour from algae. That's the pancakes sorted out :)

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #391 on: 01/18/2016 06:24 pm »
You (I think) mentioned algae being used to make flour. Is that the right kind of flour to make bread?

Yes it was me. It is only a concept idea of mine though. Algae produce starch. Starch is the main component of flour. Some proteins with special properties make it flour. That's gluten plus no doubt some others that give it the needed property and flavour. So if you can produce the right kinds of protein and mix them with starch you should get a product that can be used as flour.

Edit: Interesting article on algae milk. Did you notice they mentioned algae flour as well?
Quote
Solazyme released Algal flour in October, and Algae milk is made from this new Algal flour.

Nothing on the properties of this flour though.
« Last Edit: 01/18/2016 06:29 pm by guckyfan »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #392 on: 01/18/2016 08:51 pm »
Algae are a very efficient producer of both oil and carbo hydrates. Grains I just cannot see in the mix, space and time inefficient. I would bet, calories from chicken or fish fed algae and bacteria protein takes less ressources to produce than grains even considering the conversion losses.

But I agree that 500g meat or anywhere near that is not economical. I can and do produce delicious meals with 50g of meat per dish.
I'm not sure if you're confused by this or not, but it's an important point that we should make clear right here:

Chicken and fish do not produce protein. That fixed nitrogen comes from somewhere, so it's in their diet in the form of protein (because fish and chicken aren't capable of processing ammonia or nitrates).

You don't somehow get more protein by sending that protein through a chicken or a fish. Chicken and fish don't consume oil and carbohydrates and produce protein. That's not how it works. So it's better to instead eat the vegetable or bacterial or fungal protein directly.

You can make bread or meatless patties using these non-meat protein sources. Processing technology is also improving to the point that the texture and taste can resemble meat quite closely (though surely people will find their own way of preparing this food without necessarily just trying to copy meat).
« Last Edit: 01/18/2016 08:52 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline guckyfan

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #393 on: 01/18/2016 09:11 pm »
@Robotbeat
I am not sure what you are arguing.

I argue that algae and protein from bacteria are more efficient than producing staple foods with higher plants like grains and oil seeds. I argue producing a wide variety of products from algae and bacteria will be the base of food production. I think so far we are in agreement.

I only add the argument that calories from fish or chicken will still be more efficient than growing staple foods from higher plants. I don't deny that it is less efficient than using algae and bacteria protein directly as food for humans. I just argue that we probably can afford a small amount of animal food using algae as they are very efficient and that people will want it.

So the food base will be algae, bacterial protein and vegetables, herbs, spices, that add not so much calories but variety, people will want to have.

Plus of course there will be programmers and we know that programmers need coffee. So we need a source of coffee too. ;D

Offline spacenut

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #394 on: 01/18/2016 09:49 pm »
Human waste alone is and can be fertilizer for plants.  It was used in Asia in rice patties for centuries.  The studies of sewage toxins is the problem of cleaning solutions and various chemicals people flush into the sewage system.  Composting toilets can be used on Mars for manufacturing fertilizer, along with animal waste for fertilizer.  Once composted, (methane is a byproduct), it is safe and sterile for fertilizers.  Mixed with Martian soil, who knows.  NASA did discover, through one of the landers, that potatoes could grow very well on Mars. 

Oh, chicken and fish will be far more palatable than anything made from algae or bacteria.  Both can be fried, baked, stewed, or grilled.  That, at least, is 8 different tastes just from two sources.  Throw in rabbit, and it goes to 12.  Throw in turkey, quail, and maybe pot bellied pigs.  Now we are getting some choices. 

In the natural cycle of things, animals produce the manure and urine for fertilizers, which the plants love. Even algae must eat something to produce their oils and proteins.  CO2, water, but does algae need something else?

Offline sanman

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #395 on: 01/19/2016 05:06 am »
In the natural cycle of things, animals produce the manure and urine for fertilizers, which the plants love. Even algae must eat something to produce their oils and proteins.  CO2, water, but does algae need something else?

Even algae will need a source of nitrogen, as well as trace elements naturally found in Earth's soil.


Offline alexterrell

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #396 on: 01/19/2016 12:16 pm »
@Robotbeat
I am not sure what you are arguing.

I argue that algae and protein from bacteria are more efficient than producing staple foods with higher plants like grains and oil seeds. I argue producing a wide variety of products from algae and bacteria will be the base of food production. I think so far we are in agreement.

I only add the argument that calories from fish or chicken will still be more efficient than growing staple foods from higher plants. I don't deny that it is less efficient than using algae and bacteria protein directly as food for humans. I just argue that we probably can afford a small amount of animal food using algae as they are very efficient and that people will want it.

So the food base will be algae, bacterial protein and vegetables, herbs, spices, that add not so much calories but variety, people will want to have.

Plus of course there will be programmers and we know that programmers need coffee. So we need a source of coffee too. ;D
If algae cost one Mars Dollar per kg, with efficiency losses and the water tanks / chicken coops, Tilipia will cost $3/kg and chicken $4/kg (bones and head included).

We can get out protein from Algae steaks if we want, or pay a bit more for fish or chicken.

Meanwhile, potatoes/rice/wheat cost $10/kg. So can we take our $1/kg algae, and convert them into something similar? Perhaps costing below $2/kg.

And tomatoes cost $5/kg. Which is a lot for 90% water, but we don't need too much of it. (We can probably extract vitamin C from the algae).

Peppar and curry sauce, and anything brought from Earth might cost $500/kg. And sewage will cost $0.2/kg, as useful feedstock.

Offline spacenut

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #397 on: 01/19/2016 03:18 pm »
I've eaten and tasted textured soy protein.  It is ok, but it just isn't the real thing.  Algae might be the beginning, but other foods will have to eventually be brought, and a variety of vegetables, even with Martian soil, human and fish waste fertilizers, can be raised in a very small amount of space.  I've also eaten freeze dried foods.  Again, it is ok, but can't beat fresh. 

Those of you who do not grow a vegetable or herb garden don't realize how little space you need.  This is especially true if crops are grown inside, in a controlled environment, year round.  I had a 12' x 12' patch.  In it, I grew enough green beans to last my wife and I a year plus give some away.  In the same patch I grew enough tomatoes to last almost 2 years with canning.  Also in that patch, I grew some seasonal collards and some seasonal cucumbers, all in less than 5 months.  I could have intensely worked this year round if I didn't have other projects to do and had over winter, carrots, beets, rutabegas, onions, turnips, collards, and radishes.   At the very least a 12' x 12' patch in a small Martian greenhouse can provide a whole whale of a lot of vegetables and variety for a family. 

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #398 on: 01/19/2016 06:33 pm »
Whoever thinks that having animals is easy, has never had to design an animal production facility or a facility treating their excrement. I've been searching the internet to see indeed how good is tillapia fed on a diet of algae in a tank system and the answer is not so good. From http://www.waiwiki.org/index.php?title=Algae_for_Tilapia

Quote
Under most unnatural feeding conditions tilapia are unable to sufficiently ingest high volumes of algae. They may need constant grazing to fulfill their nutrient requirements.[444] Tilapia (Sarotherodon niloticus) grow better on fishmeal (fish meal may contain 74% protein and 8% lipids.[445]) than on a 25% protein green algae meal (Cladophora glomerata). Weight gain decreased as the level of algal protein increased as replacement of fish meal. Protein digestibility was highest on a 5:1 ratio (fishmeal : green algae meal).[446] Protein synthesis (with normal sulfur and carbon content) by green algae during the night may match protein synthesis during the day (in Dunaliella tertiolecta).[447] Protein derived from algae does not promote adequate growth in Rainbow trout.[448] Fish fed 5% ulva meal (Green algae; Ulva rigida) showed increased growth, feed conversion ratio and protein efficiency ratio.[449] Ulva meal may replace soy bean meal to the extent of 20% without negatively affecting growth of male larval tilapia. Feed conversion ratio increased with increasing ulva meal content.[450] Green algae meal (Hydrodictyon reticulatum) may replace meal to the extent of 25% without negatively affecting growth of Oreochromis niloticus and Tilapia zillii fingerlings.[451] Spirulina maxima meal protein can replace up to 40% of the fish meal protein in Oreochromis mossambicus fry diets without negatively affecting growth.[452]


From http://www2.ca.uky.edu/wkrec/TilapiaTankCulture.pdf

Quote
Tank-cultured tilapia can have very efficient feed conversion ratios (FCR). The time period for FCR can be
days, weeks, the length of the tank  production cycle, or a year. FCRs  in the range of 1.4:1 to 1.8:1 are
common with tilapia and are some  of the best in animal agriculture.  While FCR is one of the most important benchmarks for measuring the efficiency of an operation, FCR alone does not give a true measure of production. An artificially low FCR can be created by underfeeding, so it is important to consider the growth rate also.

But as Bawdy et al note at https://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/ISTA8/FinalPapers/11%20Nutrition/8.%20TARTIEL.doc.

At a 75% algae meal, FCR was at 3.24 for Chlorella and 2.74 at Scenedesmus algae.

The high FCRs in the literature and at the JSC experiments are with soymeal and the like, not algae. You will need a very balanced meal approach to growing tillapia, including vitamin and micronutrient supplements for the fish in fish available form.

I am not in favor of a vegan diet (a vegetarian diet is useless, if you have the animal you might as well eat it). However Mars grown animals except perhaps insects shouldn't show up before significant infrastructure is created. Meat ought to come from Earth.

Grains are an integral part of all high quality animal feeds. Chickens cannot grow without grains, cows have bad FCR when relying on a low grain diet. Grains also survive a long time without need for refrigeration or other special storage conditions. I am pretty sure that they will show up quite early in a Mars agricultural system. And yes, algae require nitrogen fertilization.

Offline alexterrell

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Re: Scaling Agriculture on Mars
« Reply #399 on: 01/21/2016 02:16 pm »

Quote
Tank-cultured tilapia can have very efficient feed conversion ratios (FCR). The time period for FCR can be
days, weeks, the length of the tank  production cycle, or a year. FCRs  in the range of 1.4:1 to 1.8:1 are
common with tilapia and are some  of the best in animal agriculture.  While FCR is one of the most important benchmarks for measuring the efficiency of an operation, FCR alone does not give a true measure of production. An artificially low FCR can be created by underfeeding, so it is important to consider the growth rate also.

But as Bawdy et al note at https://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/ISTA8/FinalPapers/11%20Nutrition/8.%20TARTIEL.doc.

At a 75% algae meal, FCR was at 3.24 for Chlorella and 2.74 at Scenedesmus algae.

The high FCRs in the literature and at the JSC experiments are with soymeal and the like, not algae. You will need a very balanced meal approach to growing tillapia, including vitamin and micronutrient supplements for the fish in fish available form.

I am not in favor of a vegan diet (a vegetarian diet is useless, if you have the animal you might as well eat it). However Mars grown animals except perhaps insects shouldn't show up before significant infrastructure is created. Meat ought to come from Earth.

Grains are an integral part of all high quality animal feeds. Chickens cannot grow without grains, cows have bad FCR when relying on a low grain diet. Grains also survive a long time without need for refrigeration or other special storage conditions. I am pretty sure that they will show up quite early in a Mars agricultural system. And yes, algae require nitrogen fertilization.

Those FCR figures are worse than I thought.

However, it's early days for algae and perhaps we need to breed algae better suited to fish and chicken diets.

It seems clear that there won't be a generic algae green gooh that we use, but there might need to be several parallel algae streams.

There is little incentive to focus on different algae breeds, other than for bio fuels. As said above, staple foods are abundant and cheap to produce, given that agricultural land is almost free.

If in the USA, a luxury house costs $2,000/m2. Imagine now that farmland also costs $2,000/m2. We would probably be doing a lot more research into algae and direct synthesis of proteins from methane.


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