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We can mine asteroids for space food

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Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#11

Post by gibspaulding »

api wrote: post #2

This reminds me of US research that was done during the Cold War about surviving a nuclear winter by producing food products directly from petroleum. It's theoretically possible and you could survive on it as a supplemental source of calories. I think optimizing farming for space flight is probably better, especially if you have always-on solar power (as you do anywhere near the sun) or nuclear power. Hydrocarbons fr…

Apparently producing margarine from coal was actually done during WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine?wprov=sfti1#Coal_but...

https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/brave-new-bu...

Edit: The more I read on this the more doubtful I’m becoming that this was actually produced at scale. If anyone has a better source I’d love to see it!

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#12

Post by szvsw »

jvanderbot wrote: post #9
api wrote: post #2

This reminds me of US research that was done during the Cold War about surviving a nuclear winter by producing food products directly from petroleum. It's theoretically possible and you could survive on it as a supplemental source of calories. I think optimizing farming for space flight is probably better, especially if you have always-on solar power (as you do anywhere near the sun) or nuclear power. Hydrocarbons fr…

I can't think of a single reason we wouldn't just eat algae sludge or synthetic protein mash or something else. Farming is not a space- or weight- optimized process.

To be fair, people will still be people… if the sludge/protein mash can be mildly upgraded to diversity/quality comparable to MREs (not that I’ve ever had one) sure, but for long term space flight it seems plausible that the psychological/morale detriments of eating sludge every day (or any single meal for that matter) would be significant.

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#13

Post by marcosdumay »

lupire wrote: post #6

"The asteroid mass needed to support one astronaut for one year is between 160k metric tons and 5k metric tons. " 10 to 500 tons per person per day.

Well, if you never recycle anything and rely only on the extremely low quality reserves you found floating around...

I have no idea why the measurement unities even make sense.

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#16

Post by stoneman24 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #9
api wrote: post #2

This reminds me of US research that was done during the Cold War about surviving a nuclear winter by producing food products directly from petroleum. It's theoretically possible and you could survive on it as a supplemental source of calories. I think optimizing farming for space flight is probably better, especially if you have always-on solar power (as you do anywhere near the sun) or nuclear power. Hydrocarbons fr…

I can't think of a single reason we wouldn't just eat algae sludge or synthetic protein mash or something else. Farming is not a space- or weight- optimized process.

Isn’t there a requirement for lots of fibre in the diet as well as vitamins, protein, carbohydrates and fats. As well as the psychological effect of eating good food and not mush.

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#17

Post by dylan604 »

gibspaulding wrote: post #11
api wrote: post #2

This reminds me of US research that was done during the Cold War about surviving a nuclear winter by producing food products directly from petroleum. It's theoretically possible and you could survive on it as a supplemental source of calories. I think optimizing farming for space flight is probably better, especially if you have always-on solar power (as you do anywhere near the sun) or nuclear power. Hydrocarbons fr…

Apparently producing margarine from coal was actually done during WWII. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine?wprov=sfti1#Coal_but... https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/brave-new-bu... Edit: The more I read on this the more doubtful I’m becoming that this was actually produced at scale. If anyone has a better source I’d love to see it!

I was never a fan of margarine, but the more I learn tidbits like this the more I think it strange.
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