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Very interesting talk about Chickens. I made a thread about Chickens a while back. We'd need a whopping 30 acres for Chickens, compared with 1 acre being sufficient for Vitamin A and Vitamin C. http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7377
Apparently, given SpaceNut's chart, it seems like Martians will be eating a lot of poultry! That would be a decent source of Zinc, at least.
According to https://www.healthaliciousness.com/arti … amin-A.php and https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Vitam … sional/#h3, sweet potatoes are the highest-concentrated source of Vitamin A (perhaps Mark Watney was on to something with tubers!) An adult man, according to the NIH, needs 900 mcg/day, leading to 100 adult men needing 90 mg per day or 32.85 g per year. Sweet potatoes offer 1,403 mcg/day per serving, leading to 23,415 servings per year of sweet potatoes for a colony of 100. There is 1 sweet potato per serving (https://www.whatscooking.fns.usda.gov/s … 202012.pdf), so that means a 23,415 sweet potatoes are needed to feed 100 in a year. The Beauregard cultivar yields 100 plants per 100 ft of row (https://www.uaex.edu/publications/PDF/F … A-6018.pdf), and with each row having a row of 1 foot, leads to 1 plant per square foot. This leads to 23,415 square feet, or 0.54 acres of sweet potatoes to feed our citizens.
I have not read anything about any time of maturity of the plant other than the normal 90-110 day growing season despite it being a perennial plant, so I assume that a further boon to it is the ability to grow and consume it right in the first season the colonists are there.
The plan Tom mentions reminds me a lot of how each individual part of Mars would be governed under the regiment of the Space Settlement Institute, with companies each owning and operating a given claim of Mars. However, due to the distance involved, deportations would be far more difficult in that case, so delinquency would be dealt with otherwise.
As for the ocean, being finally able to colonize almost two-thirds of the Earth's surface would pave the way for interesting developments. Given what Terraformer said, you couldn't really own a piece of international waters, but you can still own a ship to move around them, which is what I believe Tom is referring to.
I'm not too much an expert of Kiwis, but perhaps we can start growing them on Earth, and put them in a state of suspended animation on the spaceship, and then continue their growth on Mars to speed it up, though that might be too theoretical at this point.
According to the NIH, an adult man needs 90 mg of Vitamin C a day, and an adult woman 75 mg (https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminC-Consumer/#h2). Assuming we have a colony of 100 men for the case of defensive pessimism, this translates to 900 mg/day, or 328.5 g per Earth year. Two kiwi fruits have around 137.2 mg of Vitamin C (http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0, … 12,00.html),resulting in 4,789 kiwis being needed to supply the colony for a year (this is still more efficient than oranges, which have only 69.7 mg of Vitamin C per serving, per the above source). Kiwi vines in the hardiest conditions, such as Mars most likely, produce ~20 lb of the fruit (http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garde … wing-guide), each of which is around 2.6 oz (http://www.livestrong.com/article/29953 … iwi-fruit/), thus producing 123 fruits. This results in the necessity of around 40 vines needed, each taking 200 sq. ft., ultimately consuming a total of 8,000 sq. ft., or slightly less than a fifth of an acre.
It takes a vine roughly 3 years after planting to bear fruit (http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/index. … pnw507.pdf), so assuming the vines are planted simultaneously after the colonists land, the colonists will need 985.5 g, almost a kilogram, or roughly 2 lb 3oz, of Vitamin C via supplements. Such Vitamin C would most likely be shipped in the form of a multivitamin on the same rocket as the colonists and appropriately rationed.
Maybe tempered glass, which spiderwebs when hit rather than shatter, but I'm not sure eve about that.
I'll be looking at 2 recipes from here: http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/id28.html
With Corn Whiskey, 10 lb of Corn kernels yield 5 gallons of water, so 2,464 gal of Whiskey requires 4,928 lb of Maize. Using data from the Swine thread, this leads to 0.57 acres of Corn needed, yielding 4,319 gallons per acre of cropland.
7 lb of Rye and 2 lb of Barley, and 1 lb of Malt which I'll assume is also made from Barley is enough to make 6 gal of Rye Whiskey, so 2,464 gal of the stuff needs 1,232 lb of Barley and 2,874.66666 lb of Rye. Using data from the Chickens thread and http://www.alseed.com/UserFiles/Documen … e-2010.pdf, that can be produced with 0.43 acres for Barley and a high of 1.71 acres for Rye, taking up 2.14 acres total and yielding 1,150.80 gallons per acre of cropland.
The table, excluding hitherto-included luxury versions of alcohols, is now:
-Beer: 171.11 gal/acre
-Wine: 444.44 gal/acre
-Potato Vodka: 524.26 gal/acre
-Rye Whiskey: 1,150.80 gal/acre
-Gin: 2,865.12 gal/acre, but limited by supply of sufficiently-alcoholic base
-Corn Whiskey: 4,319 gal/acre
yes IanM the sensor would be for everyone as a preventative measure to not allow for such a tragedy to occur....I should have done a better job of finishing my thoughts.....
It's alright. I think such a sensor would be worthwhile if we're getting serious about alcohol, and shouldn't be too resource-consuming.
So Gin doesn't have the magical yield per acre that you hoped.
That is true, which is why I put the phrase "but in practice limited by Vodka" at the end of the Gin. Absinthe and several other flavored spirits are similar.
A common spirit is Gin, made primarily from Juniper berries. The definition of Gin is rather nebulous, the only legally-mandated condition being that it must have a "predominantly" juniper flavor. In fact, many botanicals such as citrus zest, asine, and licorice can find themselves in Gin (http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/06/d … d-gin.html), but I'll limit myself to the ingredients of the given recipe. 2 tbsp of juniper berries yields 2 cups of Gin (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012 … e-gin.html), extrapolated to 16 tbsp per U.S. gallon. 8 berries is 1 teaspoon (http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/ingredient … iper-berry), so 16 tbsp = 48 tsp = 384 berries. The canonical 2,464 gallons thus require 946,176 berries. Unfortunately, juniper berries take 18 months, or 1.5 Earth years, to mature, reducing their "annual" yield by a third, though perhaps a Martian growing season could alleviate that. Large trees of other juniper species can produce 100,000 to 250,000 berries per tree (https://texnat.tamu.edu/library/symposi … r-ecology/), and in the absence of any other data I can only assume that so can trees of Juniperis Communis whence juniper berries can come. This leads to 10 plants being needed. Plants should be planted 5-7 feet apart (http://www.greenwoodnursery.com/plant-s … een-plants), and that leads to a 3x3 square encompass 203 sq. ft. of land, which I'll round up to 225 sq. ft. to account for the extra tree and spread of the outside trees, which is in any case 5.17 * 10^-3 acres, negligible compared to the values of the other plants used.
The recipe also calls for, for every 2,464-gallon batch: 19,712 teaspoons of Chamomile, 9,856 teaspoons of Coriander and Lavender, 19,712 bay leaves, 59,136 cardamom pods, 78,848 allspice berries, and 39,424 pieces of 4-inch grapefruit peels. The surface area of a grapefruit is around 50 square inches, and assuming the width of such zest pieces to be 1 inch, this yields 12.5 pieces per grapefruit, necessitating 3,154 grapefruits, which, per https://cals.arizona.edu/fps/sites/cals … efruit.pdf, can be obtained in 0.11 acres. Per http://murramarangcommunitygarden.weebl … omile.html, 986 Chamomile plants are needed for the job. Rounding that up to 1,000, a 50 x 20 rectangle, each head spaced 10 inches apart per http://growagoodlife.com/growing-chamomile-for-tea/ results in 100,000 square inches, or slightly less than 695 sq ft. The lavender needed is 275.97 oz, or 17.25 lb (http://www.eliteabar.com/blogs/tea-brew … aves-weigh), which can be made with 1.73 * 10^-2 acres (http://naturalingredient.org/wp/wp-cont … ng_web.pdf). The weight of needed coriander (further sources available upon request, but not given here as they're getting intrusive) is 29,568 g, using 1.22 * 10^-2 acres. Bay leaves are the real killer, needing 16.26 acres. Cardamom needs 0.70 acres. I could not find any useful data on Allspice, so I'll have to ignore it for now.
The total to be added is 5.17 * 10^-3 acres + 0.11 acres + 695 sq ft. + 1.73 * 10^-2 acres + 1.22 * 10^-2 acres + 16.26 acres + 0.70 acres = 17.12 acres. Without the Bay Leaves it's simply 0.86 acres.
The table I have been collecting of such data is now:
-Gin: 143.92 gal/acre (w/ Bay Leaves)
-Beer: 171.11 gal/acre
-Potato Vodka: 254.55 gal/acre (w/ heirloom potatoes)
-Wine: 444.44 gal/acre
-Potato Vodka: 524.26 gal/acre (w/ just Russet potatoes)
-Gin: 2,865.12 gal/acre w/o Bay Leaves, but in practice limited by Vodka
It seems Beer has been deposed as the Drink of Kings for Martians with the help of a little leaf.
PROHIBITION DOES NOT WORK.
I am aware, I'm simply disarming theoretical arguments for it. I think that such heavy-handed laws as the War on Drugs are dangerous in fostering a disrespect for authority on Mars, and unnecessary as Mars'll be the environment where people more or less police themselves.
Use the same system breathalizer that locks out a drunk from operating a car here on Earth for the habitual offender at the air lock and for the space suit locker as well.
To play the Devil's Advocate, Tom's scenario seems unforgiving the first time around, so there wouldn't be any "habitual offenders." Though, if we're so inclined, we could have a breathalyzer for everybody.
I don't drink, and I see Tom's point, but I don't think that should be grounds for prohibition. I think the early colonists will be vetted by any agency that sends them for ability to drink in moderation under Martian conditions, and in any case the airlock doors would be failsafe in the case of any obstructions, such that these drunkards wouldn't hurt anyone but themselves.
Perhaps lol. Though I do believe that Whiskey and Brandy, which are, put loosely, the distilled versions of beer and wine, respectively, might be less efficient than those two, and thus even a mediocre bottle of Martian Jameson would be top shelf.
Ah! Thanks for that correction. Vodka's figures did seem to be a bit too good to be true haha.
Going on my previous work with beer and wine, 1 bottle of Karlsson's Vodka uses 15 lb of Russet potatoes and 2 lb of heirloom potatoes (http://www.alcademics.com/2014/10/how-m … vodka.html). That produces a 750 mL bottle, so 2,464 gal, or ~12,436 of such bottles, of potato-based Vodka requires 186,545 lb of Russet potatoes and 24,873 lb of miniature potatoes. Granted, Martians would likely use more efficient processes as Karlsson's, but I'm using these values for the purposes of defensive pessimism. For Russet Potatoes, the yield in Idaho is generally 398 hundredweight (398,000 lb) per acre (http://www.idahofb.org/index.php?action … s.potatoes), resulting in 0.47 acres devoted to such usage, and the heirloom potatoes would vary but come in at around 5,000 lb/acre (https://www2.ag.purdue.edu/hla/fruitveg … Potato.pdf), resulting in 4.98 acres devoted to their usage. As such, 2,464 gallons of Karlsson's Vodka requires 5.44 acres of cropland, yielding 452.56 gallons/acre, slightly higher than wine. Of course, the settlers can ditch the heirloom potatoes and, assuming the lost volume due to such jettison is negligible, vastly increase the yield to 2,464/0.47 = 5,242.55 gallons/acre. Thus, at least in the interests of economy, potato vodka seems the clear winner, although I have yet to calculate stuff for other alcohol.
The table I have thus gathered so far is:
-Beer: 171.11 gal/acre
-Wine: 444.44 gal/acre
-Potato Vodka: 452.56 gal/acre (w/ heirloom potatoes)
-Potato Vodka: 5,242.55 gal/acre (w/ just Russet potatoes)
True, I just meant it's not specifically an American thing. But America's territorial defensiveness does suit its highly-patriotic attitude well, IMO.
Table sugar is sucrose. A sucrose molecule is simply the combination of a glucose molecule and a fructose molecule. Starch is a polymer of glucose molecules. So in order to make sucrose one would need to both break the bonds of the glucose molecules in the starch and introduce fructose to it. This is essentially the process of making High-Fructose Corn Syrup. (http://blog.fooducate.com/2012/10/09/th … orn-syrup/) HFCS differs from sucrose only in that the glucose and fructose included therein are not chemically bonded to each other. Also, fructose is just a structural isomer of glucose, and an enzyme is used to convert glucose molecules into fructose molecules until the desired proportion is reached. So it'd be fairly easy to make HFCS from starch, though I'm not quite sure what processes would be used to turn that into sucrose if that's the desired product.
There's... er, well, there's not any precedence, but that's because the US are very sensitive about states leaving. Though they were happy to accept a breakaway part of Mexico, so they really shouldn't have an issue with parts of one country deciding to leave and join another.
I mean, we did fight a war to prevent states from leaving. And I guess the whole breakaway double-standard is just part of good ol' selfishness (i.e., it's good if they want to join America, but it's not so good if they want to leave it), which I think might be common to a lot of countries in general, not just the US. IIRC, the only piece of land that has ever been part of the US proper and is no longer is the northernmost part of the Louisiana Purchase, ceded to what is now Canada in 1818 in exchange for a larger chunk of what had been Rupert's Land south of the modern border.
Ah! Well, the thing with Alcohol is that almost everything organic can be used to produce it. You could make alcohol from blood, a literal blood wine of sorts, but it'd be excruciatingly dry.
Dexter has a point with crop yield that might be better to grow for alcohol than others. From my earlier post a colony of 100 would use a total of 14.4 acres of barley and hops for 2,464 gal of beer, or 171.11 gallons/acre of cropland. By comparison, the equivalent value of wine would require 44,352 lb of fresh grapes (https://winemakermag.com/369-how-many-p … ose-groups). With the figure of 4 tons of grapes per acre (https://grapesandwine.cals.cornell.edu/ … ard-bottle), this becomes 5.544 acres to make the 2,464 gal of wine, or 444.44 gallons/acre of cropland.
And we might yet want to revisit mead as bees could be useful for honey and crop pollination purposes.
I remember something on here saying that processing sugar from beets was quite a bit strenuous. Perhaps second and third-wave colonists could use honey as a simple alternative.
Martians could make strong alcohol and use the good ol' Roman custom of watering it down prior to consumption.
The United States has state laws for presidential elections. All hodgepodge, inconsistent.
States are sovereign entities and thus have virtually full power for stuff fully in their jurisdictions. Indeed, the US is probably the most aggressively federal country in the world. It is debatable whether a full nationalization of election laws is thus permissible; one could argue that Congress with the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution has such power, while one could also argue that that's a stretch, since elections aren't really commerce. The best bet for that is either to have the DNC and GOP, both private entities, synchronize their internal laws across the states for conventions, and/or draft model legislation like the Uniform Commercial Code and hope the states adopt it.
In any case, we do have some uniformity via the Constitution; maximum minimum age of 18 via 26th amendment, no poll taxes via 25th amendment, women's suffrage via 19th amendment, etc. And we do have a Federal Elections Commission, which governs election financing and campaigning and does take action when such regulations are breached, but it is mostly concerned with individual candidates' campaign financing and spending and not as much with the actual administration of elections, which is at the state level.
Checking... Section 1 of the Constitution governs the President, clauses 2, 3 & 4 states how elections are run. The Twelfth Amendment changed how "electors" are chosen. The "electors" being the college of electors. So changing this requires a constitutional amendment.
Actually, there is an interstate compact going around that would allocate each of the adopting states' electors to the candidate who wins the national popular vote, and which would take effect when adopted by enough states to give the majority of electors, and would avoid the cumbersome process of a constitutional amendment. http://www.nationalpopularvote.com
The way presidential elections were run in years 2000 & 2004 made the US look like a banana republic. One individual who was involved with "election anomalies" said he has no intent to stop. That statement was on TV news.
On a similar note, in Chicago a lot of the Election Judges are High School and College students who volunteer with the Illinois Board of Elections. I plan on being one in the general election.
I agree with BWhite about how the main dubiousness of GM food is with the ethical implications of its production and distribution rather than any ill effects thereof. Similarly, while I can see the value of Intellectual Property in stuff like books and images, it becomes pointless when someone tries to trademark something that is at most only partially in Man's control and which, as Dexter pointed out, is very subject to outside, non-human forces.
Have I given my vision yet, for Canyon City?
10-20 storey buildings built along the walls of the canyon, a clear roof that uses water for radiation protection, and open space on the canyon floor. Probably an artificial canyon, maybe built by digging down to the floor of a frozen sea.
Do you mean something like the Pueblos of the American Southwest?
We can't build everything here and carry it with us. It just isn't practical. So, drones will be needed to find and stockpile resource materials. Iron, certainly, but why not have them also creating stores of oxygen, nitrogen, and water?
Welcome to NewMars. I'm not entirely sure if we need drones to carry Iron, as it is abundant in the regolith for humans to pick up themselves. That being said, the other elements might not be so apparent or accessible, and it can't hurt to have robots for that.
With Iron, we could sinter it to make bricks, and use that as a building material. I downloaded a PowerPoint from 4Frontiers (http://www.4frontierscorp.com/library/d … ations.php) a while back that detailed how to make Martian Cement to use as mortar. The main drawback of it is that the cement described therein doesn't hold well in moist environments, which could be an issue as Mars is terraformed.
Interesting. Looks like we can have the best of both worlds!
a direct sublimation
My bad, I meant the opposite, the direct deposition of graphite in the reaction.
Also, there is potential for research of electrolysis of CO2 for many uses such as fuels, so it could be used also for that purpose: https://acswebcontent.acs.org/prfar/201 … 10782.html.