Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

kodiakbear · 2004-12-05 22:23:54

So you send a group of geologists and mineralogists to Mars and they spend all day in a greenhouse growing plants. Or you decide to free up every spare minute for work outside, but the food they pack along adds a lot of mass. What if, rather than expecting them to farm full-time or sending all of their food with them, you send some of it ahead of time in food drops? These would be large cargo containers filled with food staples and launched on rockets years ahead of time with semi-hard landings near the area where the lander will arrive later to start making fuel for the return trip. What, if any, savings could be bled from this mass of items traveling economy class?

Regards from the Rock

John Creighton · 2004-12-05 22:28:08

I am all for food drops to free up time or to extend the mission. There is the isue of picking up the food. The food landing could be quite far away from the hab.

SpaceNut · 2004-12-05 22:36:18

Use automated planting and crop harvesters to retrieve the food where ever it can be grown.
Now the green house structure and how it will be erected now that's a different set of problems.
My comment of how to make things grow will be in the other thread.

Palomar · 2004-12-05 23:08:43

What if, rather than expecting them to farm full-time or sending all of their food with them, you send some of it ahead of time in food drops? These would be large cargo containers filled with food staples and launched on rockets years ahead of time with semi-hard landings near the area

*Hi. For quite a while now I've considered this as "a given," actually. Can't think of any good reason why food drops shouldn't or wouldn't occur. If anything, "padding the pantry" -- especially with foodstuffs not easily grown on Mars, etc. -- would be welcome, I should think. If not vital.

--Cindy

Josh Cryer · 2004-12-06 01:11:07

Of course, it should happen, but if it was the primary source of food, we may have problems. Not all shipments are guaranteed to arrive, things will go wrong eventually, if they're spaced too far from one another, and one shipment misses, then we're dead. And then there's cost, if we want to be sure that no shipment losses (say, an improbable two consecutive shipments) would result in anyone dying, we'd be sending several shipments a year, at very big costs. Even if we use the "solar highway," it'd cost a lot of money using todays tech.

The real solution, the priamry source of food, would have to be greenhouses, it's the only logistically sound way to do things. The cost of sending two or three food shipments could easily cover the cost of several greenhouses that could feed many more people than the food shipments would.

And that's another thing.

So you send a group of geologists and mineralogists to Mars and they spend all day in a greenhouse growing plants.

The plants grow themselves, they don't need any special care. In the case of hydroponics, you just heck the acidic levels and such every day. This is easily done by relatively cheap monitoring equipment. And yes, it could break down, but it still wouldn't require that much more oversight.

And even then, why not send an argiculturalists, too (who could spend full time in a greenhouse even though they wouldn't have to, and indeed, would probably be helping the others the majority of the time)? We need to study how to most effectively grow food on Mars anyway.

kodiakbear · 2004-12-06 13:36:48

Interesting replies everyone Thanks

So if you send some food staples ahead of the time in semi-hard landing cargo containers on slow travel do you have to worry about solar or cosmic radiation? What I mean is, is it possible for food to be harmfully irradiated in the time from earth. Loss of nutritional value is what I am thinking but any other harmful effects would be a concern.

John H

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-06 14:10:36

The food needed for the mission is such a small fraction of the total vehicle mass, this is one of those things you should be able to bring an excess of for early missions. As far as drops of supplies using smaller rockets, keep in mind that you can only launch every other year or so when Mars and Earth are properly alligned.

With a little basic radiation shielding, I don't think that the food would be damaged by even a modest solar event in transit.

Josh Cryer · 2004-12-06 22:03:20

We've had a horrible hit/miss ratio sending stuff to Mars.

Although the US is doing a bunch better than the other guys.

Austin Stanley · 2004-12-09 14:43:04

Radiation in space is no where near the levels necessary to damage food enrout. It's dead after all, so any changes that ionizing radiation might cause to it's make-up are so minor as to be completely ignorable (and probably not even detectable). It's not like it is going become radioactive or something. In fact space can be an excelent enviroment for preserving food. It's very cold in the shade, and exposure to vacume to leathal to most micro-organisims, and the radiation (which is harmless to the inert food) also helps to santize the rations.

But food is actualy a fairly minor part of the consumable requiments for a manned base, although one of the most complex. I am most worried about nitrogen. While it is not consumed in great amounts by any specific process on mars (plants and some bacteria consume a minor amount) it is a very necessary part of the hab-atmosphere, and some will be doubless be lost due to leakage and whatnot and there is no easy way to replace this lost gas.

C M Edwards · 2004-12-09 16:40:43

Sure, let 'em ship food. It's good practice for sending the pharmaceuticals and other manufactured goods later.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-09 16:54:44

Sure, let 'em ship food. It's good practice for sending the pharmaceuticals and other manufactured goods later.

Nope, sending somthing that is delicate, like shock and temperature sensitive stuff, in a rickity "kinda sorrta accurate" entry capsule is a bad idea. Besides, the mass needed is negligible, just bring it on the HAB.

One concern for nitrogen is airlock cycling, but I guess using a vacuum pump to reclaim 99% of the airlock atmosphere will mitigate N2 loss.

Dook · 2004-12-09 17:51:18

Mars Direct includes more than enough food for the crew. Greenhouses not needed.

Auomated planting and crop harvesters on mars? We must be talking about two different places.

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#1 2004-12-05 22:23:54

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#2 2004-12-05 22:28:08

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#3 2004-12-05 22:36:18

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#4 2004-12-05 23:08:43

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#5 2004-12-06 01:11:07

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#6 2004-12-06 13:36:48

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#7 2004-12-06 14:10:36

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#8 2004-12-06 22:03:20

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#9 2004-12-09 14:43:04

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#10 2004-12-09 16:40:43

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#11 2004-12-09 16:54:44

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

#12 2004-12-09 17:51:18

Re: Food drops to Mars Scientists - or: I am too lazy to plow the back forty

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