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.
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.