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No, the dinosaurs really did blow it...because (maybe I got it from Arthur C. Clarke) if they'd only had a space program, they could've nixed that pesky astroid before it hit! And then...er...gulp... come to think about it, maybe it's just as well they blew it, eh?
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Robert, I agree. I wasn't thinking our greenhouse would give us all our oxygen. I was suggesting a good mix between agriculture and technology. If you can think of a better term for such a system than ?biosphere,? I'd gladly use it.
What kind of garden or greenhouse does Terry Kok's toilet fertilize? Soil based? Wasn't there a thread recently about a process which converted waste into something useable by plants without soil?
What's an isolated chlotplast device,and how is it useful? Are you proposing growing protein packs or something? ?[...] backup for air and food production[...]? I've never heard of this device before.
I think your co2/oxygen conversion ideas are good, I was indeed thinking that we'd need a CO2 scrubber instead of greenhouse-provided oxygen. I'm not that great in the whole waste reclamation area, though.
Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
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The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.
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The "Chloroplast" device is an idea I had back in 1974 (when I was in grade 7), that I have researched the last couple years to flesh-out into a practical device. I presented a paper as a poster display at the 4th Canadian Space Exploration Workshop, and will be presenting it as a paper (in person presentation) at the Humans In Space symposium this May.
The idea starts with the realization that all photosynthesis in plants occurs in tiny organs within individual leaf cells call chloroplasts. A tiny organ within a cell is called an organelle. The chloroplast has the chlorophyll. The steps involved in photosynthesis are a little complicated, but basically they use light to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar. They then polymerise sugar into dextrin, starch, and pectin. Chloroplasts from peas produce mostly starch with a little pectin. All these polymerized forms of sugar are carbohydrate.
The device will use isolated chloroplasts from leaves of pea plants in sterile water in a transparent plastic bag. An aquarium pump will circulate the water. The water must be sterile to ensure the chloroplasts are not consumed by bacteria or mould. Sunlight will shine on the bag, but filtered with spectrally selective window coating to keep UV out. Isolated chloroplasts cannot repair themselves from UV damage. The plastic of the bag will be semi-permeable to let oxygen out. The same reusable CO2 sorbent used on the space station will take CO2 from cabin air, but when the sorbent is regenerated the CO2 will not be dumped into space, instead it will be pressured in a storage tank. Some of the water will be pressurized and CO2 bubbled through to carbonate the water. Additional water will be added from the potable (drinkable) water supply, but further filtered with a reverse osmosis filter to ensure it is perfectly sterile before adding to the chloroplast bag. The water from the bag will be filtered to extract carbohydrate, which will be removed as syrup. That syrup can either be dehydrated into a powder, or directly fed to fermentation tanks. Fermentation will add protein, vitamin B complex, and lipids. Fermentation will require yeast nutrient: di-ammonium phosphate. That provides phosphorus and nitrogen in a form the yeast can metabolize. A tiny quantity of yeast nutrient translates to a large quantity of protein. The yeast may also require a pinch of minerals: calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron. It may seem gross, but the best means to provide those minerals is the ash from incinerated human waste. (Don't worry, it's ash, it's incinerated.)
If we want to sell the device, the commercial version may require yeast nutrient that has minerals added from a more traditional source.
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Getting back to boot-strapping the mission, we need to find something that can earn money. The chloroplast device can provide carbohydrate and oxygen directly from water, electricity, and CO2 extracted from the air with a reusable sorbent. Oxygen can be released into the air, which will not produce more than a good size house plant; or most not more than residents consume by breathing. An automated fermentation system can add protein, vitamin B, etc. to the carbohydrate, making it a flavoured food suitable as a substitute for mashed potatoes. The by-product of fermentation is alcohol. Alcohol distilled from fermentation of starchy food is vodka, if distilled to 40% alcohol. Would consumers want a device that can produce mashed potato substitute and vodka from electricity and a little water? Could this be produced economically enough to be sold as a low-cost in-house food production machine? Could we make money from selling these?
Robert, is it necessary to go to Mars to sell this technology?
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About getting rid of waste plant material:
Mammals are the least efficient animals to do it. They use most of the material to keep up their body temperature. Though, I would suggest a few chickens and the like just for the variety of food.
(This would really help to segregate the classes. Meat would be very expensive. The lower classes could rise up in rebellion in the "Meat War of 2116". Their new constitution would include meat as an inalienable human right.) :laugh:
Whoa...was that out loud?
Anyway,
I know of a couple highly efficient ways to use the plant waste. I think Zubrin wrote about these.
Tilapia fish: They live in small enclosed tanks and turn about 70% (I think) of the waste plant material fed to them into meat.
Mushrooms: They also take up little space and don't need sunlight. I think they also turn about 70% of waste plant material into into edible protein.
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Robert, is it necessary to go to Mars to sell this technology?
Nope. The idea is something we can sell right now as a consumer product. Would anyone be interested in buying this as a household product? I wonder if the government types would have a cow over the idea of producing vodka in the home. I think Canadian law prohibits distilling liquor without a series of commercial licenses. You can brew beer and wine at home, but cannot distil anything. What are the laws regarding this in the U.S.? Perhaps we should just build the consumer device to produce carbohydrate. We can still enhance the protein, vitamin B complex, etc. with yeast. When we cook the mash we could just let the alcohol evaporate into the air, as happens when you bake bread.
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