New Mars Forums

HeloTeacher

Member

Registered: 2002-01-26

Posts: 38

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

Outside of the more palatable species, has any research been done, or is accessable, to do with purely nutritious plant types.  A good example I can think of is simple algaes and other low-maintenance fods that are ugly but effective.

This may help avoid the whole greehouse and associated systems mess.

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"only with the freedom to [b]dream[/b], to [b]create[/b], and to [b]risk[/b], man has been able to climb out of the cave and reach for the stars"
  --Igor Sikorsky, aviation pioneer

Phobos

Member

Registered: 2002-01-02

Posts: 1,103

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

Even though green houses might be a pain from an engineering point of view I hope they aren't completely phased out.  I think there could be a positive psychological factor to greenhouses in that they can act as a minor escape from the desolate Martian surface and completely artificial surroundings provided by the space hab.  I know if I was living on Mars I'd probably spend a significant amount of time tending to plants.  As for low maintenance but nutritious
food sources, your guess is better than mine.

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To achieve the impossible you must attempt the absurd

Lil_vader

Member

Registered: 2001-09-06

Posts: 33

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

Low-maintenance but nutritious? Actually, there are a lot of weeds that would fit that category

With the colony design I'm currently working on, each set of living quarters has a small section devoted to a garden, in addition to having the main greenhouse. That way people can have a little space all to themselves. So, one person might just have a flower garden, a family might put in a swingset, or a group of people might pool together to raise animals (i.e.: chickens, rabbits, a goat, etc).That way, people not only have the psychological advantage of having their own space, but there could also be a sort of marketplace where people can buy, sell, and trade what they grow or make.

Of course, that would only be practical for a large, permenant colony.

Phobos

Member

Registered: 2002-01-02

Posts: 1,103

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

That's a good idea giving Mars bound people a little plot in their quarters to grow their own garden.  How large of a gardening plot did you think of putting in the private quarters?
Hopefully enough water will be found to make such things a possibility.  And I think on Mars weeds could find new respect.

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To achieve the impossible you must attempt the absurd

Lil_vader

Member

Registered: 2001-09-06

Posts: 33

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

I was thinking the plots would be about 10x20, but like I said, that would only work for a large, permanant colony.

The plants that are largly considered weeds would definitely find new respect on Mars. Most food crops take large amounts of time, space, and water and don't yield much per plant. But some "weeds" will grow in spite of how they're treated, and the entire plant can be used.

Phobos

Member

Registered: 2002-01-02

Posts: 1,103

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

Can you think of any specific species of "weed" that makes a good and durable food plant?  There's one we call miner's lettuce (i have no idea if that's the actual name or not) its a plant that merely has a grass like stem with a flat green disc stuck on top of it.  It grows like mad up in the mountains where I live and doesn't taste to bad even though its not particularly attractive.  I wonder if mushrooms and its related kin would make good plants considering that they're perfectly happy in the dark. Onions would probably grow well to.

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To achieve the impossible you must attempt the absurd

Lil_vader

Member

Registered: 2001-09-06

Posts: 33

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

Mushrooms might grow well, but they use up oxygen and give off CO2, so they might not be the best thing to grow.

Somewhere I have a book about wild edible plants that gave the nutritional information, but I moved last November, and, well, it's in a box somewhere.

I do remember that purselane is high in omega-3, nettles are high in iron and vitamin b (they have to be cooked first, of course), and cattails have so many uses that its possible to live off a marsh. And don't forget, you can eat every part of a dandelion!

Yang Liwei Rocket

Member

Registered: 2004-03-03

Posts: 993

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

space dinner - Greenland

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMIW28X9DE_index_0.html

   
"This expedition gave us another opportunity to have our space food evaluated by people under stress living in hostile environments similar to those experienced by astronauts," says Pierre Brisson, head of ESA’s Technology Transfer and Promotion office. In 2003 ESA gave rally driver Henri Pescarolo several cans of space food to try during the 2003 Dakar Rally. The menu included pasta, squid, duck confit with capers, and rice cake with caramel sauce. "Delicious," was Pescarolo’s comment, after his ‘space-dinner’ in the Saharan desert at Siwa, Egypt. Earlier this year, space food was served to the 12 women participating in the ESA/CNES 60-day bed-rest study at the MEDES (French Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology) space clinic in Toulouse. Their reaction was also positive.

"The challenge is to have a variety of good and nutritious food that also provides physiological support for astronauts living in space for a long time," says Brisson.

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X

Member

From: Alabama

Registered: 2007-02-02

Posts: 134

Re: Food for Survival's Sake

There's manioc (I hope that's what I'm thinking of), but then a lot of folks actually do eat it.

There's a lot of the stuff that hunter gatherers and farmers with a limited crop selection throughout the world used to eat, but a lot of the knowledge about that has been lost.  Not sure about how palatable or tolerable it is though.  Just as an example some of the Indians in what is now the US used to grow some stuff like goose grass and sumpweed as crops, and they were apparently so horrible they were abandoned as soon as Old World crops were introduced.  Not to mention the fact that a lot of folks are allergic to them.

There's a book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond where he presents evidence that most domesticable plants and animals were domesticated.  Of course he also talks about how hunter-gatheres and limited resource farmers are able to utilize so many wild plants.  Similarly I've seen a fair number of folks argue that there are a good number of animals that should be domesticable if folks would simply put their mind to it so why not some of these marginal plants too?