For my Factorio friends out there, this sounds like grounds for a mod that let's you "mine" nutrients in space
This is roughly a thing in Space Age!
We can mine asteroids for space food
41–50 of 216 posts
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If I'm in a fragile metal bubble in the deep black vastness of space, the texture of my nutrisludge will be the least existential of my worries.
> If I'm in a fragile metal bubble in the deep black vastness of space...
... maintaining your mental health is probably a significant concern, which may indeed be surprisingly impacted by the texture of your nutrisludge.
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#43I wonder if it would be possible for e.g. asteroid material to work as an indirect source of nutrition? I.e. carry a specialized yeast on board that can "eat" the asteroid, and, sort of like sourdough, use the yeast's excess growth as food for humans... Sounds nasty now that I say it out loud haha.
We're the scary aliens other ETI's make sci-fi horror movies about. " ...and they wield GREY GOO that turns *everything* it touches into nutrients they lap up in their flappy appendages... "
We always have been
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#44I am a layperson for astrochemistry but IIRC comets have much higher hydrocarbon content by an order of magnitude or more (and obviously more water, fewer metals to contend with for extraction energy requirements).
Anyone have more insights? Did I miss mention of comets in my skim of the paper?
Ps usually HN not a punfest, but kudos for the Starmite(tm) @andai
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#45Title should really be "How we might be able to ..."
We're just lucky the HN title ruiner bot didn't change it to "We can food"
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#46The relevant comparison is the energy needed to turn asteroids into food vs. the energy needed to turn exhaled CO2 and poop back into food. Astronauts live in closed ecosystems, so you don't need to bring in additional mass. Just close the cycle.
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#47As a young child I was filled with hope, and some other mixed feelings, as it was anouced that the lunar astronoghts would be testing to see if the moon was made of blue cheese.My hope was that this would be brought back to feed all of the hungry people, but as I didnt want any myself, I had mixed feeling of not sharing
there lot.And was quite disapointed to hear the anouncement from the moon, that it was not in fact made of blue cheese.
No one is going to be disapointed if the
astroslime cakes dont work out.
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#48I wonder if it would be possible for e.g. asteroid material to work as an indirect source of nutrition? I.e. carry a specialized yeast on board that can "eat" the asteroid, and, sort of like sourdough, use the yeast's excess growth as food for humans... Sounds nasty now that I say it out loud haha.
This is very close to the subject of the article. In the following quotation, "consortia" means (I think) globs of algae: > After comparing the experimental pyrolysis breakdown products, which were able to be converted to biomass using a consortia, it was hypothesized that equivalent chemicals found on asteroids could also be converted to biomass with the same nutritional content as the pyrolyzed products. This study…
Ah, thanks. Exposing my non-academic reading comprehension ;)
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Soluble fiber is broken down partially in the gut by bacteria/fermentation. Lots remains. Insoluble fiber passes through mostly unchanged. You see where this is going. You need only minimal new inputs and the rest can be recycled.
To extend D Rumsfeld there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And now things that we know and wish that we didn’t (ie spaceship recycling)
Pee is largely recycled right now on the ISS. It's mostly water.
And nitrogen is good for growing plants - the cellulose of their structure is the ideal insoluble fibre for us. Though, cows turn it into usable sugars.
Re: We can mine asteroids for space food
#50I know this whole thing is just a thought experiment, but I had to wonder about not only the cost of all of this per "astronaut" (off the cuff - $10M per person per year), but the massive amount of energy needed for "life and food production". Just a single line item on my list of "doubtful, but not impossible" is the three quarters of a million Joules of energy needed to melt just 1000 grams of asteroid ice inside your protective environment. And you are gonna need a LOT of liquid water to accomplish all of this out in space...