Vat food - a solution?

Adrian · 2002-03-21 04:23:50

The principal problems of growing food on Mars and in transit to Mars are those of resources and energy; if you want to grow plants, then you have to supply light, water, nutrients, etc etc. If you want to grow meat, then you have to grow the animal and give it food to eat (generally plants). The goal of all of this is to produce a balanced diet for the astronauts/colonists while keeping resources and energy costs as low as possible and keeping the system 'stable'.

So really, what you want is a completely 100% conversion of the 'work' you put in into food. With plants, you will not even approach 100%, since much of their biomass is inedible. With animals, first you have to grow the plants, and then you have to grow the animal (and not all of the animal is edible, and even then it wastes a lot of energy producing heat).

NASA is doing a lot of work on making ever more efficient plants by increasing their percentage of edible biomass and decreasing the growth time. However, they still present a problem since you need a fair bit of space to grow them in and you have to supply light.

The latest work has focused on growing meat in vats - you basically get a bit of meat - fish in this case - throw it in a nutrient solution containing various growth factors, leave it for a while and soon enough, you get an enlarged bit of fish. Practically no wastage, very nutritious and much more appetising to most. You can read about this research in an article at New Scientist.

My opinion is that vat grown food presents an excellent and humane way to vary the diet of astronauts and colonists.

Michael Bloxham · 2002-04-02 23:14:06

I think a more viable solution is not to grow meat, as such, but rather microbes. Huge amounts of nutritious microbial gowth could be grown in relatively small water tanks. What the astronauts would think of this, I'm not sure. But the fact is these tiny plants grow effeciently even under extreme overcrowding; Presenting the most effecient source of food per square foot than anything else on the planet.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-04-03 07:29:08

This is an interesting topic at a number of different levels. One of the levels sprang to mind as I read about the microbes in water tanks!
I don't expect anyone to take this seriously, but there were two books published in the seventies about the Israelites of the Old Testament: One was called "The Spaceships of Ezekiel" by Josef Blumrich (a former NASA engineer), and the other was called "The Manna Machine" by George Sassoon and Rodney Dale. Each book theorised that Jehovah, the god of the Old Testament, was in fact an alien who, for some reason, kept the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years as part of some kind of genetic isolation experiment. This alien "god", Jehovah, used nuclear technology not greatly surpassing that available to us today; which seems to be a flaw in the argument since it probably limits the number of places in the galaxy he could have originated from!
Anyway, the manna machine is described as essentially a small nuclear reactor which feeds electricity to powerful lights in the centre of a vat full of some kind of algal broth. The specially engineered algae grow at a furious pace, producing huge quantities of a nutritious substance which the jews have always known as manna. Thus, Jehovah fed his chosen people in the barren desert for decades. The book goes on to describe how many of the very esoteric and difficult passages in the jewish bible are, in fact, garbled instructions to the priests on how to operate and periodically clean (every seven days) the "miraculous" food machine.
However you take this story, it makes for entertaining and thought-provoking reading. (As does J. Blumrich's book).
But the point, of course, is how this concept might apply to early Martian outposts where food production may be a problem; at least in the initial stages. The idea of a self-contained, pre-tested, and guaranteed-reliable food production unit may be very reassuring for early settlers on a desolate world.
If you remember your Sunday school lessons, though, you will recall that the Israelites tired of manna after a while and pleaded for a change of diet! Maybe there's a limit to how many ways you can prepare and cook algae-based nutrient and still make it appetising!
I think I'd start to miss fruit, vegetables, and bacon and eggs after a while, myself!!
Any thoughts on this?

Disland · 2002-04-03 10:26:45

No Way shaun! I have that Spaceships of Ezekiel book, though I wouldn't have admitted if you hadn't bought the subject up, for fear of being rejected from the forum for being a loony 'Mars Face boy'. I haven't read it for ages but I do remember bits of it, like the wheels within wheels etc, but didn't realise the Manna was microbes made by nuclear reactors. I will have to dig it out again!
As fars as vat food is concerned I think for as long a trip as a Mars Mission, good food with lots of variety is a must (for health and moral reasons), so vat 'mush' doesn't really sound that appealing but I admit there have to be sacrifices.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-04-04 02:41:20

Hi Disland!
You're the only other person I've ever heard of who knows "The Spaceships of Ezekiel" by Josef Blumrich! I thought I was the only one who bought the book!!
I have no qualms about mentioning books with unconventional themes, as long as they are not written by obvious wild-eyed lunatics and as long as the science they are based on is at least self-consistent. Of course, it also helps if I express no opinions as to the ultimate plausibility of the book in question and ask nobody else to place any credence in it either!
I have a background in applied science and am eternally grateful to the people who have taught me to think clearly and rationally about evidence presented to me. There are many crazy books out there, written by cranks, which are taken seriously by people without the training to analyse critically what they are reading. That leads to all manner of lunacy; from believing in fairies to planning your day around your newspaper horoscope! As Carl Sagan would say: We owe it to ourselves to be sceptical, or else we'll all be believing in hobgoblins and we'll be back burning innocent women as witches! Although I didn't agree with everything he said, I very much admired his clarity of thought and enjoyed his books enormously.
I fear I may have inadvertently caused confusion about the nuclear-powered food-producer; this device is the central feature of "The Manna Machine", not "The Spaceships of Ezekiel". The book about the manna machine has the following identification code: ISBN 0 586 04743 3 and was published by Granada Publishing Limited.
I note your comment about having to make sacrifices if you want to be an astronaut. I agree! I'll eat algae steaks until they're coming out of my ears if that's what it takes to get a ticket to Mars!!

pootechie · 2003-06-19 18:36:27

Huge amounts of nutritious microbial gowth could be grown in relatively small water tanks[...] presenting the most effecient source of food per square foot than anything else on the planet.

I realize this is a bit of dead topic, but I have a few points to make that cannot be suppressed. I'm quite ignorant in this field, so please correct my concerns:

1.) I've never heard of humans eating microbes before: it's not exactly what we're evolved for, and any critters on the menu would likely have to be specially modified in order to be edible to us.
2.) It doesn't seem like a diet of microbes could be quite complete (yes, I know whales manage on it, but they're rather different from us, and are eating mostly zooplankton). They don't produce many complex carbohydrates, dietary fibers, or protein, to name a few. We'd be far better off growing broccoli and beans.

RobertDyck · 2003-06-20 09:23:51

Actually, humans do eat microbes. Spirolina is a common health food. That is a form of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae. Yeast is also sold as a food supplement, and of course it is used to cause bread to rise and fermentation. If you have ever drank an alcoholic beverage such as beer or wine you have drank the result of yeast metabolic activity. Yeast breaks down sugar as an energy source, the result is alcohol. Yeast itself contains lipids, the complete vitamin B complex, and protein. Which variety of yeast determines how much vitamin B and how much of each of the amino acids used to build protein. Most yeast are missing one or two of the amino acids, but yeast used as a food supplement typically has all of them and quite a lot of vitamin B. Lipids are fatty acids used to build cell membranes; yeast has plenty of cell membranes.

This isn't to say that yeast and/or Spirolina will provide all the food you need, but it will provide a lot. A greenhouse is great for the surface of Mars but just too big for an interplanetary spacecraft. Vat grown food could be grown on the spacecraft, so that could reduce (not eliminate) the quantity of stored food a mission must bring along.

Echus_Chasma · 2003-06-20 15:53:34

I like the idea about growing meat in a nutrient solution. I love meat, but I can't bring myself to kill an animal.

Hehe, I can imagine pulling a fresh sirloin steak out of a broth.

Josh Cryer · 2003-06-20 18:23:26

Echus_Chasma, yeah, with like zero body-fat. Can you imagine, perfect meat!

Anyway, with regards to this discussion, I think many of you might find the following article interesting:

http://www.aibs.org/biosciencelibrary/v … .text.html

It's regarding Russia's Bios-3 (CELSS) project. This is basically the most extensive text I've been able to find regarding CELSS (NASA's old CELSS website is quite confusing, and I've never got around to digging at it). I think I posted it before, but what the hay.

Alge was one of the foods in these systems.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-06-30 01:22:02

Never having been much of a biologist (and not having studied it since I was 16 y.o.) I tend not to attempt to contribute to threads about growing food on Mars.

However, being 50% Irish I'm proud to say my father's country is contributing to NASA's program for future colonisation efforts!

For details, read this article.

It may only be a relatively small contribution, so far, but it may blossom into something more significant and it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside!

Bill White · 2003-06-30 09:58:14

I like the idea about growing meat in a nutrient solution. I love meat, but I can't bring myself to kill an animal.
Hehe, I can imagine pulling a fresh sirloin steak out of a broth.

Question? Where does the nutrient solution come from?

colonist · 2003-06-30 20:42:49

While the growth of microbial food suplies in vats is a good idea, dont forget the water surface (at least on Mars). Duckweed has been found to be a 100% substitute for alfalfa nd can be grown on the otherwise wasted space of the vat surface.

Echus_Chasma · 2003-06-30 22:26:55

Question? Where does the nutrient solution come from?

Can't remember,
it said in earlier in the thread didn't it?

Bill White · 2003-07-01 09:55:05

Question? Where does the nutrient solution come from?
Can't remember,
it said in earlier in the thread didn't it?

I believe it needs to be imported from Earth.

Vat meat is like hydroponics IMHO - it might work *IF* you can locate a reasonable source of supply. I have asked several times for an explantion of how to make hydroponic solution exclusively from inorganic materials found on Mars and no one has yet answered.

Feeding plants and microbes native materials and sunlight, as much as possible, needs to be the goal, IMHO.

clark · 2003-07-01 13:14:49

I would imagine the number one thing would be nitrates.

Couldn't these be gleaned from human or animal waste?

I remember a discussion about farm fishing, and using the fish waste as a possible fertilizer for plants.

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Re: Vat food - a solution?

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