Automating a Mars Garden

SpaceNut · 2019-01-08 18:34:00

Trying to create a fresh topic From BenVA's image, to which I zigged when I should have zagged...

bcc0472bc5d78607bdc51fcf2768cd83_704x480.jpg?v=1538455662

Like Robert Dyck posted scale and size is also part of the ability, Crops" thread under "Life support systems", post #477
Large scale cotton harvester...
the+development+of+the+cotton+picker+has+helped+farmers+harvest+their+crops+more+effectively+john+deere+has+been+at+the+forefront+of+this+technology+a_2034_800628598_0_0_14009526_300.jpg

Not saying that weill never see one on mars but its going to be quite somethime I would say.

The gardening is very much dependant on the type of food and enclosure that we are striving for.

As louis indicated in his post the use of lighting natural and via LED makes a difference as well for the crop yield. The drawbacks for failure and activity that can be automated.

I was sort of negative in my reply to calling it robotics as its really automation...to remove as much of the human hands on which is better put to use elsewhere.

You positive reply was to see that and suggest that the machine could be altered and I would agree in that as we need it to have the capability and form that will do what we want it to do.

I have more to add but need more time so in voids sig...

NOT Done yet...

RobertDyck · 2019-01-08 18:53:48

My point was a large scale cotton harvester will not be what we see on Mars. Not for a long time. We could grow cotton in a greenhouse, but expect something smaller. A small scale harvester...

louis · 2019-01-08 19:28:13

I liked Ben's posted image. I can really see that translated to a Mars agrihab.

But essentially there are already robot seeders and harvesters for virtually all crops.

On Mars we can probably eliminate crop disease - so eliminating one aspect of farming (the need to continually check on the health of crops), although no doubt we could still have remote camera viewing.

In many ways soil farming is a lot more straightforward than hydroponic farming. So I am quite attracted to garden style raised beds with something like the robot gardener passing over.

A lot of the equipment could be produce on Mars. You could use basalt tiles/slabs as retainers for the soil. The basic soil could be manufactured on Mars, and nutrient solutions shipped in from Earth, thereafter supplemented by recycling of human, food and plant waste.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-08 19:30:36

Robotic Tomato Harvester

list of topics that relate for Biomes, garden and crops as well in them why we need each type and into what will produce the quantities for the crews that go to mars....

Water based farming
Sea life Aquarium food and more source

Crops, Aquatic

Land or soil plus hydroponic
Crop production and food variety

Greenhouses

Greenhouse Architecture

Indoor farming update

Mars first crew greenhouse

100 colonist production greenhouse

Greenhouse - hydroponics vs soil

Crops, Unconventional

Growing plants on Mars

Eat like a Martian

The Greening of Mars Indoors - Low-pressure tests on plants

Biomes not food for human
Food for Thought, what does a garden need to grow

Moss

Trees

bamboo

What Biome's are needed on Mars

Cattle

Chickens

Swine

Crop type food we will want
Food! - Marsians=vegetarians?

Spirulina

Turning Mars regolith into soil - or How can I grow potatoes on Mars

Crops

China's "Space Vegetables"

indirect side topics
Mars Homesteads colony plan to recycle waste

Mushrooms - organic waste recycling, and vegan leather

Material Choices for Mars

Physiology of Martian crops

Space Plant Pathology

Nutrient Management in Closed system for Martian Greenhouse

What would be the best method of maintaining fertile fields?

Research @ USU Crop Physiology Laboratory

Genetic Engineering on Martian crops

Marsian Horticulture

Soil Manufacture on Mars

Possible timelines for martian agriculture?

starving on five acres

Genetic-modified crops - Another angle (legal)

Nutrition

SpaceNut · 2019-01-08 20:02:30

There is also some more topics that have farm or farming and the verticle type as well but my post went out with the ions....

Thanks for correcting the view on what you had posted before.

Luois thats why I started the topic with it as I did as well...

Its a 3 coordinated stepper system, computer programmed for what ever is on the z or up and down transducer arm.

I can see lots of different sensors being attached to that as well as others that deal with watering nutrition for the plants on that one or on others that use the same track system.

We could sense soil temperature, moisture content, use it to measure the verticle hieghts of the plants and so many more things.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-10 21:08:39

Sharing some of the images on BenVA twitter

His garden apparatus would work well enough in a design taylored to its purpose.

Void · 2019-01-11 11:51:25

It seems like good work.

SpaceNut · 2019-04-07 17:31:24

The first food from mars growing will not be easy and we will need to look to places that have simular challenges to learn from.

Earth from Space: Egyptian Crop Circles

Egypt is over 95% desert, making a very small proportion of its land suitable for agriculture. As the demand for food grows, the need for agricultural development in desert areas has intensified.

The circular shapes in the images, each approximately 800 metres wide, indicate the irrigation method used here, with water being supplied by a set of sprinklers rotating around a central pivot. Fossil water, stored underground for thousands of years, comes from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, the largest known fossil aquifer discovered.

SpaceNut · 2019-06-24 19:08:54

This will be posted in dual topics....

Robot ‘duck’ could help Japanese rice farmers keep paddy fields clear of weeds

robot-duck-keeps-weeds-out-of-rice-paddies__381156_.jpg?content=1

SpaceNut · 2020-02-15 09:44:28

How would we create a deliverable greenhouse in a box with all of the automated equipment required to monitor soil conditions, atmosheric and water content for making the food grow at its optimal levels that we require. This would control watering, fertilizing and looking for plants in distress.
Later we might think about automated planting and harvesting of some of the crops.

louis · 2020-02-15 14:48:11

Ask Elon! That was his original idea but NASA disinterest in his proposal prompted him to set up his own rocket company to get to Mars...

Basically you would need robots with good eyes and hands that can operate autonomously but also receive general direction from Earth e.g. go check on how the lettuce is doing...

I don't really get the point though why anyone would try unless humans are going to Mars and if they are going, then they can be part of the greenhouse management system.

SpaceNut wrote:

How would we create a deliverable greenhouse in a box with all of the automated equipment required to monitor soil conditions, atmosheric and water content for making the food grow at its optimal levels that we require. This would control watering, fertilizing and looking for plants in distress.
Later we might think about automated planting and harvesting of some of the crops.

tahanson43206 · 2020-02-16 10:17:06

For SpaceNut re this topic ...

Here is an update on automation of agriculture ...

The article is longish. The detail I picked up on is the really interesting idea of measuring the growth of each ** individual ** plant. This is something that was not practical before the present age of cloud computing and inexpensive data storage.

This technique seems particularly appropriate for Mars, where the greenhouses are likely to be operated at pressures below what humans will prefer.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/growing-pres … 47119.html

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-02-16 12:06:44

Nice robotic autometed crop unit 1ecbf66a50462f154e41918b31b78ed8

I was in a walmart the other day and in the ailse was a robotic floor cleaning unit. The unit had 6 -8 camera's on it to detect people and other obstructions in the lane of travel. The unit was going from one to the next ailse with multiple sweeps within the same one to asure its total floor area was cleaned in the process.
That means we need depth perception as well as lane width defining with its own internal ability to tell where it is in the blueprint of the total greenhouse that we would have a unit attending to to.

That said it appears its a matter of building the unit and test trials of it from the existing for a mars altered unit.

tahanson43206 · 2020-03-06 20:14:28

For SpaceNut ... the article at the link below is about lettuce grown on the ISS.

It ** may ** be a good fit for this topic, because automation of the growing conditions is essential.

However, it would appear to be good news for travelers making the long, slow trip to (and from) Mars.

https://www.engadget.com/2020-03-06-let … ition.html

(th)

louis · 2020-03-06 20:28:07

Farm robots are going to totally transform agriculture. No longer will farmers be dependent on expensive pesticides to protect their crops.
As a result the consumer will get a high quality product with no pesticide residues.

Just imagine when a farmer in Africa can use their mobile phone to call in a squad of tiny flying locust-eater robots to eat up all the locusts threatening their crop.

The future is looking good!

SpaceNut · 2020-03-15 07:30:03

repost

Ancient Mars wrote:

Why don't we just use plants? All the colonists have to do is introduce some of the CO2 into the greenhouse and the plants will do the rest, right? This seems much simpler to me.

Actually not true with the mars level atmosphere as we must compress a level to allow for the plants to take root as they need oxygen and nitrogen to at a comparible level and you can find that in the other topic. The moxie system is used to convert co2 for our breathing and other uses.

Agriculture Study Mars Pure CO2 Greenhouse
Optimal air pressures.. - Which is best? More O2 or more pressure?

kbd512 wrote:

Ancient Mars,
If only it was that simple...
As a Mars Society contributor famously noted, "just" is another one of those dirty four-letter words in the realm of real engineering.

Ancient Mars wrote:

kbd512 wrote:
Ancient Mars,
If only it was that simple...
As a Mars Society contributor famously noted, "just" is another one of those dirty four-letter words in the realm of real engineering.
Yes, just opening the airlock and hoping some of the CO2 will just waft in over the plants would be a horrible idea. But perhaps the idea of bringing in CO2 from the outside and letting the plants "process" it might be an attractive alternative to the Moxie. (But maybe I'm missing something?) Of course, your plants could die, and then you'd be wishing you brought a Moxie instead.

kbd512 wrote:

Ancient Mars,
That part about everyone and everything dying if Biosphere 3 doesn't work is usually where the conversation stops.
That said, if we could just bring enough plants and everything they require to thrive, then it just might work.
See what I did there?

Ancient Mars,
you do know why we have airlocks as its about the air pressure from one area to the other and what wemust do to equalize the chamber to. Mars is sub 100mb and the chamber for plants will be at 400mb possibly or more so men can enter it safely. That said once the airlock chamber is equalized for exit there is nothing of mars air within it to allow in as its replaced with greenhouse habitat air pressure once we are to comeback in...
Also plants die at those low presssures that mars has on its surface....in addition plants need oxygen and nitrogen as well as water inside the greenhouse area.

edit
as noted in the moxie topic finally getting to adding this in a topic where its more appropiate.

A pump from the outside would still need to warm and push the air from the outside to change the on growing process of food growth which will make more oxygen for a crew to draw off as a function of life support

SpaceNut · 2020-03-31 16:25:36

Autonomous systems are part of a new class of systems now evolving that go beyond basic automation.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-02-22 08:16:27

How over-regulating hinders autonomous farming technology

https://www.futurefarming.com/tech-in-f … echnology/

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#1 2019-01-08 18:34:00

Automating a Mars Garden

#2 2019-01-08 18:53:48

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#3 2019-01-08 19:28:13

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#4 2019-01-08 19:30:36

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#5 2019-01-08 20:02:30

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#6 2019-01-10 21:08:39

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#7 2019-01-11 11:51:25

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#8 2019-04-07 17:31:24

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#9 2019-06-24 19:08:54

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#10 2020-02-15 09:44:28

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#11 2020-02-15 14:48:11

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#12 2020-02-16 10:17:06

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#13 2020-02-16 12:06:44

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#14 2020-03-06 20:14:28

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#15 2020-03-06 20:28:07

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#16 2020-03-15 07:30:03

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#17 2020-03-31 16:25:36

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

#18 2023-02-22 08:16:27

Re: Automating a Mars Garden

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