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All I said is that you don't need big windows. If big windows are easier, well okay then.
Is this idea difficult and cumbersome? Sure. But it beats the heck out of using electricity gobbling grow lights. And fresh food and asp-1 sweet potatoes (transgenic and high in protien and amino acids) beat MREs hands down for morale purposes.
Even with nuclear reactors, power remains an issue. Reactors run out of fuel and there will be no shipyards to refit and recore those reactors.
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On this issue of psychology and crew happiness with good food, I have heard Canadian soldiers point out that US soldiers are "whimps" regarding food. US military rations are better food than most low income families get to eat. MRE's include dessert, often sliced strawberries in strawberry sauce. Perhaps it's just become part of the culture to complain about food; if so it's just a pattern of behaviour and has nothing to do with the food. The chloroplast idea replaces SOME of the food with a bland paste, just the carbohydrate. So instead of mashed potatoes you get synthetic poi. The rest of the meal would still be dehydrated food brought from Earth. In the morning instead of oatmeal or cream of wheat or grits, you get more synthetic poi. If replacing half the mass of dehydrated food with something bland and made enroute is considered too arduous, then I have to quote from Robert Zubrin's book where he pointed out America was colonized by "iron men in wooden ships, not wooden men in iron ships". We need astronauts who have "the right stuff".
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Thats not what i'm after Bill, i'm talking about an all chemical system, no plants or living material anywhere in the system, which we can do for the most part, it simply takes quite a bit of energy to operate. As for what kinds of food would be produced, Roberts' pea chloroplast system would not make potatoes or salads, just tasteless pea-meal.
As for the notion that "whimpy Americans, if it saves a pound they ought to only eat bread, pea grits, and water for three years!" Nonsense... it is going to be psychologicly taxing enough as it is to be millions of miles away from home for two, three, four, plus years cooped up in a tin can, shipping them good food instead of pea grits will help keep them in top mental and not just physical condition...
If you take a look at MarsDirect's ERV, Dr. Zubrin obviously has this grand storybook notion of invincible intrepid explorers stuck in his head... its just not true, these are human beings, and they will be robbed of stimulus enough if you make them eat tasteless pea-meal. Better to ship more Nasa-grade MREs, the extra mass is worth it to maintain the condition of the most important componet of the mission.
As for power or mass concerns, Mars missions must not be bound by the "Mt. Everest Climber" mantality, sawing the handles off toothbrushes kind of thinking is a sure-fire way to make a dangerous spacecraft. A small Prometheous-class reactor or quartet of bimodal MITEE style NTR rockets would provide more than enough power for the whole mission for fuel condensers, LSS, communication etc, and ought to have enough Uranium fuel to last for two or three missions, perhaps more.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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I think sending astronoauts to a space station like the ISS can be hard as I can imagine that it gets boring at times. So good food is a good moral booster.
But on Mars with all the new exciting areas and features to explore and then more. I think you will need to remind the astronauts to eat at all.
Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
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