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We can mine asteroids for space food

cambridge.org

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Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#121

Post by Animats »

"but there are substantial areas of future work."

Well, yes.

Most plant mass comes from air and water, not the ground. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen all come from the atmosphere. This is why farms don't dig themselves into the ground. If air and water can be made from asteroids, that's most of the raw materials problem by quantity. Hydroponics already works.

Direct synthesis of food from hydrocarbons has never really caught on, although it's been done experimentally and is an area of active research.[1] DARPA has a project.[2] "To address vulnerabilities in food supply chains across a variety of operational and humanitarian scenarios, Cornucopia will demonstrate the capacity to produce all four human dietary macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate, fat, and dietary fiber) in ratios that target Military Dietary Reference Intake (MDRI) daily requirements for complete nutrition. Outputs will be in multiple food formats (e.g., shake, bar, gel, jerky) that meet military nutritional standards and palatability requirements in a system minimizing inputs, handling, and footprint."

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09242...

[2] https://www.darpa.mil/program/cornucopia

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#122

Post by ElevenLathe »

Terr_ wrote: post #56

I suppose the next step beyond vegetarianism and veganism will be mineralism: Food using molecules certified never to have been part of any known living organism. I remember there was a fictional advertisement for such a product in a sci-fi story, but not exactly where.

Bruce Sterling's /Islands in the Net/ has a character that is this kind of vegan (forget what they call it). He finds the idea of agricultural food disgusting and only eats sterile synthetic food.

Edit: had the wrong Sterling book.

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#123

Post by luqtas »

Terr_ wrote: post #56

I suppose the next step beyond vegetarianism and veganism will be mineralism: Food using molecules certified never to have been part of any known living organism. I remember there was a fictional advertisement for such a product in a sci-fi story, but not exactly where.

veganism is about reducing suffering to a practical extend. no vegan is ditching transportation or plastic because it may contain by-products of the animal industry... thus if one day we can make food out of minerals, for sure that would be vegan; although i can't see ANY harm done to a fruit tree or a soybean/corn that dries out because of its short life cycle being a 'bad thing' but maybe minerals based food will avoid taking land of native species

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#124

Post by luqtas »

throwawaycities wrote: post #87
ada1981 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think such a technical advancement would parallel a moral one. I’ve been vegan 25 years and would be happy to silence the “but what about plants” people once and for all.

Obviously some plants die and others don’t in harvesting. Mostly the “even broccoli screams when you rip it from the ground” is a joke more often than actual trolling. I think the valid moral argument is that as a result of modern agricultural practices substantially more animals are killed than animal husbandry. Usually the counter-arguments involves moving the moral goal posts by valuing farm animals over “pests an…

like all meat we produce is grass fed... livestock lives out of grains in a high % and if you want to take all meat production to free-roam practices, good luck destroying the entire planet for that

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#126

Post by jorgesborges »

lkbm wrote: post #96
jorgesborges wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually makes sense to me in terms of logical coherence. I understand and support people who follow ethically-motivated diets but the fact is a line is always drawn somewhere. Plants are alive. Why is a carrot’s life less important than a rabbit’s? I don’t think we’re good at making claims about where particular organisms sit along a gradient of consciousness we can’t even properly define. I like to imagine oth…

I'm pretty sure you draw the same line: * Pealing a carrot: not cruel * Skinning a rabbit alive: unnecessarily cruel For all the nonsense about plants experiencing "pain", they, uh, don't. Animals do. Outside of bad philosophical arguments, everyone behaves broadly in accordance with that belief.

Yep, my argument isn’t grounded in whether a carrot feels pain — the comparison is to underscore the idea that in each case a living thing is extinguished from the world, and that they’re equivalent contrary to metrics like pain or “more like us”, simply for having experience.

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#127

Post by spookie »

luqtas wrote: post #124
throwawaycities wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously some plants die and others don’t in harvesting. Mostly the “even broccoli screams when you rip it from the ground” is a joke more often than actual trolling. I think the valid moral argument is that as a result of modern agricultural practices substantially more animals are killed than animal husbandry. Usually the counter-arguments involves moving the moral goal posts by valuing farm animals over “pests an…

like all meat we produce is grass fed... livestock lives out of grains in a high % and if you want to take all meat production to free-roam practices, good luck destroying the entire planet for that

I don't think the aim would be to be able to achieve the same level of production that way :)

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#128

Post by ant6n »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #116
ada1981 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think such a technical advancement would parallel a moral one. I’ve been vegan 25 years and would be happy to silence the “but what about plants” people once and for all.

What about the atoms?

Not too much fission or fusion happening in your body, afaik.

Re: We can mine asteroids for space food

#130

Post by luqtas »

spookie wrote: post #127
luqtas wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like all meat we produce is grass fed... livestock lives out of grains in a high % and if you want to take all meat production to free-roam practices, good luck destroying the entire planet for that

I don't think the aim would be to be able to achieve the same level of production that way :)

glad you answered.

what's your opinion on the dialogue between people producing eggs in battery-cages (those classic confined chickens) vs. free-roam ones? so far the discussion points out to _way_ more disease spread in free ones, leading to more suffering and death, specially when we are doing in a commercial scale. wild animals killing those free roam animals also occurs. so far the science on battery-cages went far as: sizing perfectly the cages so you don't have cases of cannibalism between them because they are stressed, decent ventilation........ red meat is also confined for a lot of months before their death to receive proper treatment to not screw the population that's eating their meat. that's also involves tons and tons of (insectoid murder) grains & please don't forget that free-roam practices, considering the amount of land they use, i wouldn't get surprised that the pesticides/herbicides used on the grass fields prior to cows introduction kills a comparable if not more amount of insects vs. plantae/fungi production

seriously, this insect rights argument is pure bullshit from people trying to justify their holocaust-like-inducing diet

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