Earth Ships: Agriculture in Space

Euphoric Mania

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Have a sit down and a cuppa, sci-fi folks, and talk to me about this.

I love sci-fi, especially when it involves interstellar travel. Authors seem to take different tacks on how to face the supply and self sufficiency issue. Some choose the "resupply and refuel each time we dock" approach, others will grow cultures, algae and yeasts in vats to create food substances that are nutrient dense, some go the route of hydroponics and such to provide fresh food. There's the Star Trek approach of just creating it from... wherever it is that food comes from in that show. One author (my personal favorite, CJ Cherryh) had her characters trying to design and build a zero-G fish farm to help supply the space station.

Arthur C Clarke was the only author I've read who created a ship that was designed to maintain some kind of agriculture (granted, it was weird, alien "agriculture",) in the form of Rama and it's huge rotating drum shape. The movie Interstellar displayed the same principle in the massive Ark at the end, and the show Babylon 5 displayed the same effect in space station form. So far, the last two are the only references to space agriculture, but I don't recall seeing any livestock concerns, only plant crops.

So, instead of falling into the norm of sci-fi supply issues, I'm veering away to try a different approach. I'm trying to brain storm how you could create, essentially, a realisticly sustainable (for lack of a better term) agricultural ecosystem in a star ship, with the idea of creating a largely varied diet for the crew/colonists that didn't involve vats and nutritionally dense mush, but actual real food. Some of my ideas so far included:

-Aquaponics. Slightly more involved than hydroponics, but similar idea. It is the inclusion of a fresh water fish system with plant growing, thus creating a source of plant foods and protein from the fish

-Composting. I figure a star ship has plenty of it's own fertilizer coming from the people alone, so with the right cultures and processing, you could end up with excellent fertilizer. It'd be sorta like using a Bokashi bin.

-Specially designed systems that allow "seasons" and "day/night" passage to be provided for the plants and animals (and people) in order to maximize food production

The hard part is trying to decide on protein sources. Should they all just stick with fish? Would they grow fodder and feed poultry for meat and eggs? Would they take it a step further and try to raise animals like rabbits, and goats/sheep for meat and dairy products? Go the whole hog and include small breeds of pigs and cattle? Include honey bees to pollinate the plants and provide honey and wax?

More over, would the first colonists to man the ships "farms", used to a planet and it's resources, try to use the animals for what they were originally intended on a planet (leather/fiber needs, fertilizer, glue, etc, all the uses we as planet dwellers find for animals). Would they also take with them their traditional food preservation skills? Most of all, how far do I take this idea into interstellar utopia without people rolling their eyes?

As far as the science of it moving well... I was thinking it'd make sense to have a ship like this if all you had was sub-light travel, and expected generations of people to come and go before you reached your intended destination. Which also leads to ideas for consideration like:

-What do we do for fuel/power and how do we sustain it
-What kind of mining/refinery facilities the ship would need to maintain itself
-Banks of stored genetic material, human and animal, to keep things varied enough to prevent inbreeding, especially in the event of anything untoward
-Diverse ethnicity/unrelated groups of colonists and their culture/traditions/practices
-Birth control/child limits/permission to procreate, etc to prevent over population

I'm working under the idea that it would be shaped as a rotating drum on a "back bone", with the engines at the far back, and control central and docking mechanisms at the front, with all the "attachments" such as mining craft and such along her spine or located near the "prow" of the ship. All the living quarters and "farm land" would be contained in the outer parts of the rotating drum, with a zero-G core, and something like .9 G at the outer levels. (I sound like I might know what I'm talking about, but I'm literally learning as I go; I really don't know that much about it yet. XD)

I thought folks here might have some interesting input. Any ideas/considerations would be welcome. It's a large idea, and getting my head around it is proving troublesome in some areas.
 

Marlys

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There are plenty of plant sources for protein: think tofu and seitan, from beans and wheat respectively. I'd think that would be less hassle than trying to keep herds of animals.
 

dirtsider

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There are plenty of plant sources for protein: think tofu and seitan, from beans and wheat respectively. I'd think that would be less hassle than trying to keep herds of animals.

This. There are plenty of vegan options for protein sources now, so I don't think there would be a problem with people getting the nutrients provided with proper agricultural planning. I'm sure they'd probably have a nutritionist onboard to make sure people were getting everything they'd need.

The one thing you'll want to keep in mind is pollination. A lot of plants need bees and insects to pollinate them. On one hand, you could have drones do it (sort of doing it by hand but via machines). On the other, you can have a bee hive or two in the agricultural area. If you go that route, there's always a chance of 'escapees' getting out into the rest of the ship. But you'd also get an extra source of food (honey) if you go with actual bees.

One thing I've often found amusing is that at the local Lowe's, there are birds who have somehow made it into the store. Probably through the gardening section that's open to the sky but has a door into the actual store so shoppers don't have to leave the store entirely if they want to leave that section.
 

SianaBlackwood

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Might be interesting to look at meat vs. vegetarian vs. vegan protein sources in the context of overall energy usage and space requirements. Depending on the direction technology takes in the years between present day and when the story happens, the answer may not even be the same as it is today. Maybe these people would favour laboratory-grown meat, an advanced form of tofu from futuristic GM soybeans, a relatively primitive livestock-based diet that's going to transfer directly to the settlement when they finally land on a planet and so on.

The big consideration is space. How many acres of farming 'land' do we have relative to the number of people on the ship? How big can the ship be made?

I'm also fascinated by how fish might feel about zero-g. Would it make any difference to them? They're sort of weightless in their natural environment anyway, aren't they?
 

Dennis E. Taylor

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It sounds to me like you haven't really defined your parameters yet. Are you examining alternatives, and trying to figure out what's involved for each? Are you talking generation ship, space station around an alien star, starship with transit measured in a few months or years, colony planet where the colonists haven't established planetary sources yet?

Unless you're just spitballing, I'd suggest starting by defining the circumstances, then take it from there.
 

lbender

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A number of these things have been done. I've read about hydroponic tanks used to grow plants, with fish in them also (see Lois Bujold and Elizabeth Moon). There have also been a multitude of vat grown proteins of beef and poultry origin - think cell cultures.

Others have given you other choices. Options abound.
 

Twick

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Fish would likely not be practical. They would need huge amounts of water, introducing weight and space problems.
 

veinglory

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However in outer space weight and space are of limited importance, so long as they have a way to get it all in orbit in the first place.
 

Maryn

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Clearly you need to watch the old movie "Silent Running," in which various earth ecosystems are sent into space with human and robotic caretakers (while earth is at war, IIRC).

It hasn't aged terribly well, but there are still aspects you can use.

Maryn, who rewatched it a couple years ago
 

Brightdreamer

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Clearly you need to watch the old movie "Silent Running," in which various earth ecosystems are sent into space with human and robotic caretakers (while earth is at war, IIRC).

It hasn't aged terribly well, but there are still aspects you can use.

Maryn, who rewatched it a couple years ago

Our seventh-grade science teacher made us watch that. Talk about depressing... Yeah, an agenda and a half, but - dang...
 

Maryn

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You may recall the main character swimming in a forest pond in one scene. Bruce Dern said the budget did not have the money for heating the water, and it was 54 degrees. Brr!

Maryn, glad she's not an actor
 

RikWriter

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They could clone the meat. We're fairly close to being able to grow muscle tissues in a lab and it should get easier and cheaper as time goes by. This may not be practical for feeding everyone in a ship or space colony for every meal, but it could be available to supplement soy products for those that want it.
 

blacbird

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However in outer space weight and space are of limited importance, so long as they have a way to get it all in orbit in the first place.

Aye, there's the rub, ain't there? Seriously, this is a ginormous drawback to any of these ideas. In particular, WATER. Water is heavy, and you can't get around that, period. In a spaceship, you'll need to take all the water with you that you need, or get resupplied somehow. One of the major resupply efforts for the ISS is simply, water.

Can you recycle water? Sure, but with what efficiency? And just getting enough into a spaceship to make agriculture viable is a profoundly difficult matter, involving stupendous amounts of energy.

This purely practical problem is a major reason why Star Trek never worried about its practicality, and just invented "replicators".

caw
 

Chris P

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As far as growing plants, you will need to simulate gravity in some way so the shoots grow up and the roots grow down (to put it simply). You will also need to separate plants based on their photoperiods: some plants don't flower or set seed until the length of daylight exceeds a certain threshold or falls below a threshold, and each plant and climate-adapted varieties are different. Read up on short-day and long-day plants. Some plants also require a period of cold and some seeds need to be frozen before they sprout (read up on scarification).
 

Chris P

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However in outer space weight and space are of limited importance, so long as they have a way to get it all in orbit in the first place.

You might not have weight but you still have mass, and therefore inertia to consider, which might make a difference.
 

nonplayingcharacter

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For protein, it's not impossible, given sufficient time for technology to progress, to have genetically engineered plant/animal mixes. Picture a sizeable climbing plant, like a cucumber vine, that grows headless pigs as its fruit.

Or eggs. I think you can live on chicken eggs as your only protein. Consider the possibility of a genetically engineered animal that produces eggs at a huge rate. These could be processed into some kind of powder or liquid substance and turned into a basic nutritional ingredient. Meats and cheeses etc. can be faked using this egg substance and some flavoring.

As far as agriculture goes, things have advanced a lot since Arthur C. Clarke was around. Plants can be engineered to be nutrient dense, so as to make the necessary growing space much smaller. You could have an incredibly nutrient dense algae that grows in an encapsulated area, unseen by anyone and tended entirely by automated machines, that gets desiccated and powdered out. Send this off to the kitchen robots to combine with the egg powder.
 

benbradley

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Aye, there's the rub, ain't there? Seriously, this is a ginormous drawback to any of these ideas. In particular, WATER. Water is heavy, and you can't get around that, period. In a spaceship, you'll need to take all the water with you that you need, or get resupplied somehow. One of the major resupply efforts for the ISS is simply, water.

Can you recycle water? Sure, but with what efficiency?
I dunno what the efficiency is, but apparently they DO recycle water on the ISS:
https://twitter.com/Space_Station/status/581514190642348033

And just getting enough into a spaceship to make agriculture viable is a profoundly difficult matter, involving stupendous amounts of energy.
This is one reason why discoveries of water/ice on Mars and the Moon are always so exciting - it will help with future manned bases. It's much cheaper to extract water that's already there than to send it up from Earth. Even getting it into orbit is easier from Mars and the Moon because of the lower gravity they have.