Some basic questions regarding the process of food consumption and growing before continuing the subject.
- How much food is required for humans to survive?
- How does that ration change in interstellar conditions?
- How much of that food may be recycled?
- How many grams of nutritional potential are removed from the sytem with each pass through a human's digestive system?
- What is the best data available on a subject of this matter?
Overall Diet
Every human has a different set of nutritional requirements, so in depth analysis will be required to determine the best manner of planning for a large population that will have varied needs from the beginning, compounded with offspring that will have brand new sets of requirements not planned for, as well as changing needs in the aging population.
Here is an interesting site that calculates daily dietary needs such as calories, fat, cholesterol, potassium, etc. It will be a good start to efforts at determining the best foods to bring on a trip, from ease of production to vitamin, carb, protein, etc outputs. A more detailed analysis of most of the items described in the previous link may be found on iVillage Total Health. And finally the US Government RDAs and dietary suggestions has a number of links that will provide a wealth of information.
List of Requirements
- Calories
- Fat
- Saturated Fat
- Cholesterol
- Sodium
- Potassium
- Carbohydrates
- Fiber
- Protein
- Vitamins
Calories
Beyond Vegetarianism has a great looking page of calories per lb in different types of foods. Going on the 2000 calorie diet for an average human, it becomes necessary to calculate how much of each food category is needed on a monthly or yearly basis.
So the basic setup of food production must be looked at in a number of ways - how many people will be aboard the ship? How many calories will be factored into the equation on a daily basis? How quickly can crops be grown? How many different crops can be grown with the same equipment?
Food Production Methods
- Hydroponics
- Dirt growing
- Live animals
- Beef vats
This is perhaps the best solution to growing plants available. There are numerous varieties of hydroponics, including aeroponics, static and continuous flow solution culture, and subirrigation. For a space voyage, a large growing space would be required. And there would most likely be high prestige to being a food-tender - and would be one of the main jobs aboard a long-term ship.
Interstellar Travel
No comments:
Post a Comment