Farming on the Moon by Dave Dietzler 7/12/2002 It has been argued that lunar agriculture is not feasible primarily because of the power demand for crop illumination. Greenhouses will need thick glass roofs, crops will be killed by solar flare radiations and overheating of the greenhouses during the two week-long lunar day will occur. None of these arguments are valid, and they reduce the credibility of the Mars First camp, which most Lunans are actually members of. Thick glass roofs will not collapse in the low gravity of the Moon. Greenhouses will be exposed temperature extremes that will cause expansion and contraction of materials that could lead to cracking and other structural failures. Micrometeoroid damage is another hindrance. The fact is, greenhouses will not be used on the Moon. Freshnel lens collectors and light pipes will transmit sunlight to farm chambers in sub-selenar lava tubes which might be hundreds of feet in diameter and many miles long. Areas inhabited by humans in these lava tube cities will also be lit by light pipes and skylights. Underground farms will enjoy a constant temperature of a few degrees below zero in the surrounding rock rather than 250 degree F. days and minus 250 degree nights. It will be easy to warm the chambers up to 72 degrees F. with waste heat from nuclear reactors. Radiation from galactic cosmic rays and even the strongest solar flares will be no problem deep beneath the Moon. Micrometeoroid punctures will be unheard of. Overheating or "supergreenhousing" will not occur. Illumination during the two-week long lunar night will be produced by microwave sulfur lamps with flexible fiber optic light-pipes that direct the light to the places where it is needed most. Light will not simply be scattered all over the place to be absorbed by the stone walls. Sulfur lamps will provide light in the visible range with very little infrared or ultraviolet. These revolutionary light sources can produce 95 lumens per watt.1 Incandescents yeild only 20 lumens per watt and fluorescents give 50 lumens per watt. Sulfur lamps don't even have electrodes to burn out! In the past, illuminance recommedations were not as high as today's. In 1925, A Text-Book of Physics suggested that night time street lighting required less than one lumen per square foot. The average living room only a few lumens per square foot. Offices and classrooms needed 5 to 10 lumens per square foot. Workplaces where fine handicrafts, engraving, sewing or drafting were being done needed 10 to 20 lumens per square foot.2 Today, we find values of 75 foot-candles ( one ft. candle= one lumen/sq. ft. or 10 lux) for reading and office work, 50 ft. c. for machine operation and 50-300 ft. c for bench work.3 The noon-day Sun gives off 10,000 lumens per square foot at Earth's surface! Plants need more light than humans and animals do, but not this much. Many plants only need 200 lumens per square foot for good growth! The small tropical Chinese Evergreen plant, Aglaonema modestum, only needs 100 lumens per square foot ( same thing as 100 foot candles) and can get by on as little as 10 lumens per sq. foot.4 The Bamboo Plant, Chamaedorea erumpens, requires just 100 to 150 foot candles. The coffee plant, coffee arabica , a necessity for us groggy old lunar prospectors and rich travelers, needs 150 to 1,000 lumens per square foot.5 Tomatoes, sweet peas and everbearing strawberries need 1500-2000 foot candles and cucumbers require 4000 foot candles.6 If these plants receive 1500-4000 lumens per square foot from free sunlight during the lunar day and just 1000 foot candles for 16 hours out of every 24 hour period from sulfur lamps during the lunar night they will do just fine. A thousand foot candles is like a cloudy day. Although the Sun might drench the Earth with the energy of 4 MW per acre, 1000 MW per square kilometer, and 2500 MW per square mile, only one tenth of this is needed for light hungry plants like the coffee plant. A one acre garden plot in a lunar lava tube illuminated by sulfur lamps will need 43,560,000 lumens to deliver 1000 lumens per square foot. Only 460 kilowatts will be necessary for one acre if sulfur lamps rated at 95 lumens per watt are used. To illuminate a square mile of lunar gardens, 290 megawwats is needed. This is not impractical given the intense, constant solar energy that's never obscured by clouds available by day on the Moon that can be harvested with silicon solar panels or polished magnesium solar thermal collectors and stored in the form of hydrogen and oxygen that can energize fuel cells for electricity by night. Nuclear reactors can also be used on the Moon with impunity. There is no air, no groundwater, no wildlife and no ecosystem on the Moon that could be harmed by a meltdown or nuclear waste dump. Nuclear fuel could be reprocessed and breeder reactors could be used to tap the energy of plutonium. Massive containment buildings won't even be necessary. Terrorists will never make it to the Moon and if they do they will never make it back to Earth. Although we can generate the electricity needed to furnish the crops with light, there are many other strategies to make lunar farming successful. It has been found that plants can be grown for two weeks at a time in sunlight and then put into "suspended animation" in darkness by refrigerating them for two weeks at a time. By doing this, some crops can be raised with no artificial light or power drain at all.7 Mushrooms can be raised in the dark. Three pounds of edible fungi per square foot of garden space can be harvested every fifteen weeks.8 Algae like Spirulina can be cultivated during the lunar day. Since blue-green algae can double its mass four times a day, in five days 100 grams of algae could reach a mass of 100 metric tons if it has enough water tank volume, minerals and carbon dioxide. It is therefore possible to grow enough algae while free sunlight is available during the lunar day to feed livestock throughout the month. Fish can eat algae. Goats and pigs will eat anything. Alage is actually very nutritious, high in protein, minerals and vitamins. Chickens might eat pellets of algae. Mushrooms could feed the animals to. Moon dirt could be mixed with algae and mushrooms, allowed to rot and form a rich compost, and earthworms could be farmed in the rich dirt. Chickens and fish will eat chopped worms. Livestock won't need more than a few lumens per square foot to see. Fungi and worms won't need any light and algae only needs to grow by day. Clearly, a lunar diet rich in fish, chicken, eggs, pork, goat meat, goat's milk, cheese, butter and cream can be produced without artificially illuminated crops at all! Eggs and liver are rich in vitamin A, so nobody will die due to a lack of carrots. Meat has plenty of B-complex. Milk contains vitamin D or people can just sunbathe for 10-20 minutes a day. Some vitamins C and E are still desired, and so is some fiber. Some wheat for whole wheat bread and dough, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, grapes, strawberries, cucumbers and pumpkins can be grown with sulfur lamp illumination by night or by using the nightime refrigerating technique, which will not require any heavy machinery; we will simply turn off the heat in the garden chambers and let them cool down. A diet heavy on meat, fish and dairy products consumed during a two-week vacation on the Moon will not irreparably damage anybody's coronary arteries. Hotel workers, miners and scientists spending a couple of years on the Moon won't die of heart disease either if they stay fit. Fish, chicken and lean goat chops might be preferable to lots of eggs, heavy cream and bacon for the health conscious Lunans. The Moon will never support billions of people like the Earth does or Mars could after centuries of terraforming, but it doesn't have to. Millions of miners, scientists, workers and tourists who are the life blood of the Moon can be supported by the underground farms in lava tubes and man-made tunnels that will someday be planted in the Moon. Eventually, craters will be domed over with giant bi-layer silicone bubbles with five meter thick water shields for radiation protection.9 Fusion powerplants will supply electricity for the sulfur lamps and the resources of near Earth asteroids will be utilized. Subway tunnels will interconnect the domed craters. The Moon will become a fantastic playground and a jewel for all citizens of Earth, like the Great American West today. REFERENCES: 1) WWW.SULFURLAMP.COM General Technical Information page, Innovative Lighting: 2000. <http://www.sulfurlamp.com/tech.htm> 2) International Dark-Sky Association-Information Sheet 114. "Illumination Levels, Then and Now." excerpts from A Text-Book of Physics, Louis B. Spinney. <http://www.darksky.org/~ida/infoshts/is114.html> 3) "Table of Illumination Requirements." <http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:PFMEUU_z9KcC:www.olemiss. edu/depts/environmental_safety/light.pdf+illumination+requirements&hl=en&i8> 4) David H. Trinklein, "Lighting Indoor Houseplants." Agriculture publication G6515. University of Missouri, Columbia: 1999. <http://muextension.missouri.ed/xplor/agguides/host/g06515.htm> 5) Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service. Home&Garden Information Center. "Indoor Plants-Cleaning, Fertilizing, Containers and Light Requirements." HGIC 1450. <http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1450.htm> 6) Growco Indoor Garden Supply. Intense Lighting Tutorial from 4hydroponics.com. "High Intensity Indoor Lighting lets you outsmart nature." <http://www.4hydroponics.com/lighting/lighting_help.htm> 7) Peter Kokh, "Our Lunar Agriculture Experiment." Lunar Reclamantion Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 2000. <http://www.lunar-reclamation.org/page10.htm> 8) Mushroom Council. "Six Steps to Mushroom Farming." The Penn. State U. College of Agriculture, Extension Service. University Park, Pennsylvania. <http://www.mushroomcouncil.com/grow/sixsteps.html> 9) Savage, Marshall T., The Millenial Project. Little, Brown & Co., Boston: 1994. |
SPACE FOOD I hate space food. I want real food in space. Space food was made for consumption in micro-gravity. Space stations and ships of the future will rotate or have centrifuges to produce 'artificial gravity.' This will allow travelers to sit down and eat and drink normally. Cooks will be able to do their stuff in kitchens where they can crack an egg and fry it up or flip pancakes. There will still be some limitations on space cuisine, depending on how much a traveler is willing to pay. To reduce shipping costs, most food will consist of ordinary dry stuff like rice, beans, pasta; flour and fresh baked bread, pastries and biscuits; powdered milk and eggs, dried fruit, raisins, pancake mix, instant soup and gravies, cakes, instant mash potatoes and drink mixes, and other dried stuff you can find in the grocery store. These will all be hydrated with recycled water. The mass of these dried foods will be one-third to one half their hydrated mass, so there will be shipping cost savings while allowing travelers to consume familiar foods. Most of these ordinary foods don't require refrigeration-another plus. Some foods can be partially dehydrated like condensed tomato paste or salad dressings. Meats can be freeze dried, but canned and/or frozen meats, cheeses and fish will taste much better. If we have to eat some freeze dried meat, it will be good for morale if there is also some of the real thing. Real eggs instead of powdered will be nice from time to time. Spices pack a lot of flavor power in a small mass, so it will be worthwhile to ship them into space. Artificial sweetners will probably replace sugar. Concentrated forms of alcohol like 151 Rum will be shipped in low mass plastic bottles. At first, food will be shipped up from Earth and only the wealthiest travelers will be able to afford the 'up-porting' of real fillet mignon rather than the freeze dried stuff. In time, orbital gardens and farms in the Moon will produce fresh fruit, tomatoes, salad greens and vegetables at a reasonable price. Producing livestock feed and raising rabbits, chickens, goats, sheep, fish, pigs and cattle for milk and meat in space will require many years of development on the high frontier. Hopefullly, most space travelers of the future will opt for a vegetarian or vegan diet rather than necessitating the creation of an inefficient meat farming industry in space. Algae like spirulina can be cultivated easily and this can supply protein, if it's tasty enough. Quinoa is one of the only grains that has complete protein. We could always develope a diet centered around beans and rice, perhaps refried beans and seasoned rice. We could cultivate soy for soy milk and protein instead of keeping milk cows, goats or sheep in space or on the Moon. Mushrooms are also a good protein source. Livestock would probably be unmanageable in weightlessness. Should we choose to raise animals we will have to wait until rotating stations or bases on the Moon exist. People of the future will probably be more health conscious and fatty meats will be less popular than they are today. Even so, low fat milk, cheese and yogurt are desirable and healthy foods, so there may be dairy animals kept in space. On the other hand, soy milk and cheese may replace milk from animals, if something can be done about the taste and estrogen it contains. Broccoli sprouts will be popular because of their cancer fighting ability and it will be normal to dose up on vitamins A and E to prevent radiation damage. Dried & Whole Foods in Space by Dietzler It has been suggested by some writers that whole food be shipped into space along with dehydrated and freeze dried foods for the sake of morale. The fact is that dehydrated food doesn't always have the same quality as fresh, frozen or canned food when rehydrated. Ask any backpacker. Some whole foods will be essential to keep everybody eating happily. This seems like a job for Martha Stewart. There are many familiar dried foods that we consume on Earth that could be mainstays in a space traveler's diet. Beans with a typical water content of 10% or less could supply high quality protein when combined with rice which is about 66% water when cooked. Pasta is another familiar dried food. When cooked it is 72% water. Spaghetti sauce is also mostly water. Raw potatoes are about 85% water, so instant mashed potatoes will be an economical item to be shipped into space. We'll need gravy. A 25 gram packet of dried gravy mix like the stuff you buy at the supermarket can be combined with one cup of water (250 grams) to make the same amount of gravy. Wheat flour, corn meal and complete pancake mix are also favorites when combined with water, yeast and some baking powder to make fresh breads, cakes, biscuits, pastries, donuts, cookies, waffles and pancakes. Baking will be a recreational activity for some crew members. There will also be full time cooks in space hotels, ships with centrifuges, rotating cycling stations and lunar bases. Coffee and tea are desirable. One gram of aspartame can sweeten a cup of coffee or tea and a kilo of it can sweeten a thousand cups. Aspartame can be used instead of sugar in many recipes for cookies and cakes. There are some foods that have such low water contents that they are not worth drying and will be shipped up into space in whole form, sometimes in refrigerated containers. Almonds (7% water), pecans (7%), shelled peanuts (trace) and peanut butter (trace) are some of them. Dried coconut (7%), butter (20%), margarine (20%), American cheese (37%), honey (15%), molasses (25%), jams and preserves (30%) could also be shipped whole rather than dried due to the low water content. This pleases me. I like to sweeten corn bread with honey, eat pancakes smothered with butter and molasses, snack on almonds and peanuts, eat grilled cheese sandwhiches, spread jam on my toast and most folks like peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. With plenty of fresh baked bread, these foods should boost morale. We won't be stuck with trail food. Vegetables like olives (80%), lettuce (96%), broccoli (91%) and tomatoes (93%) are almost all water. Dried veggies soaked in water get kind of mushy and unappetizing. They will be rehydrated in steamers that gently rehydrate them and allow them to slowly expand as they soak up moisture. Fruits, which are all 80-90% water will be treated the same way. We might take various vegetables and stew them up in butter. We could put rehydrated fruits in pies. This might make them more palatable. We are all familiar with dried milk. Perhaps some cream can be added to improve its flavor and consistency. Recipes that call for whole milk could be supplanted with extra butter or eggs. Raw whole eggs are 74% water, so we will be eating scrambled eggs made from powdered eggs and those aren't too bad. Meat will be demanded by the materialistic space travelers of tomorrow. Broiled chicken is 71% water, hamburger is 54% and roasted turkey is 62%, so we will freeze dry these and ship them up into space. Some people are picky about their meat. They want the "real thing." We will simply have to ship some canned or frozen meat and fish into space. We could mix rehydrated meats with rehydrated vegetables to make various stews and soups. As mushy as those can get, who's gonna be bothered? Rehydrated meat could be combined with whole cheeses, rehydrated tomatoe sauce and fresh made dough to make pizzas. That should ward off complaints about the food. I like to make a concoction of rice, boiled bell peppers ( I want them to get soft), ground beef and tomatoe sauce. Rehydrated ingredients might work just fine for that sort of one pot meal. For those who insist upon steak we will just have to supply them with real steak shipped up in frozen containers when the lionish characters get sick of our various mixtures. That's going to cost tourists a small fortune, but some people must have their steak. I hope they don't mind the rehydrated steak sauce! All this food is going to be rehydrated with the same recycled water over and over again in the controlled environment of the space station or surface base. Human wastes could be broken down in a super critical water oxidizer. The effluent could be boiled down leaving fixed nitrates and mineral salts behind to recover water. Carbon dioxide from the SCWO could be stored in high pressure tanks. All the food we ship into space is eventually going to become valuable fertilizer for the establishment of space farms in the future. Food will be burned in the bodies of space travelers and exhaled as CO2 which will be captured by air scrubbers and broken down into carbon and oxygen. The carbon could someday be burned with oxygen from lunar rocks to make CO2 for lunar farms. Years of waste product accumulation from space tourists in LEO could form the basis of closed ecological life support systems in larger tourist hotels and colonies of the future. The idea of rich people traveling in space and leaving their wastes behind to create food for less wealthy travelers later on seems like the makings of class warfare in space, but nothing can be wasted in the scarcity of the space environment. Perhaps cremation and the use of ashes for fertilizer will be practiced someday by permanent inhabitants of the high frontier to keep the elements of which our bodies are composed flowing through the artificial ecosystem cycles of the space colonies of the future. |
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