space ship food production

[valiant12]

How much hydroponics fields would be enough to feed 70 people ?
Is it practical to breed small animals on a spaceship?
What plant species are best for producing a lot of calories on a very small space ?

 

[Ban]

Probably a lot of insects would be used for meat. Low maintenance, little resources needed and lots of protein.
Seaweed and other weeds would be useful as well. They grow quick and as long as you have water, sunlight and and oxygen they should be easy to maintain.

 

[Butterfly]

How much hydroponics fields would be enough to feed 70 people ?
No idea.

Is it practical to breed small animals on a spaceship?
How you gonna feed them?

What plant species are best for producing a lot of calories on a very small space ?
Bananas, nuts, rice.

 

[pmmg]

Probably a lot of insects would be used for meat.

Well, that ends space travel for me.

How much hydroponics fields would be enough to feed 70 people ?

I can think of several answers to this, but my first inclination is to ask why this matters. I mean, I assume it does, or you would not ask, but…Can’t you just say there was a large chamber for this and leave it at that?

Something's to consider. One: technology may advance before we have such a ship and thereby food production may have a great deal less in way of requirements, so more could be produced in less space, and none of your readers will be able to argue much with that. And Two: The Martian seemed to get quite far on just a few potatoes, so it matters a bit how things are rationed, which again leads me to think if you had one or two or three large chambers devoted to this, the reader would accept and not require much in the way of specifics.



Is it practical to breed small animals on a spaceship?

Sure, if they can handle zero gravity, and people don’t mind taking care of them. It would add to the food consumed though for question 1 above.


What plant species are best for producing a lot of calories on a very small space ?

Peanuts come first to mind. Cheese too, I am sure it was carried on the voyages across the Atlantic much for this reason. And protein drinks, I would think.

The Army has MRE’s, which all have a lot of calories in a relatively small package. When I was in, they would usually contain one entre like paste (pork and rice for example), one protein bar like thing. Coffee grounds, a small handful of candy (MnM’s or such), Some kind of cracker with a spreadable paste (grape jelly or such). They were supposed to have a ton of calories, and generally one was to last all day. I am pretty sure similar stuff would suffice in space.

 

[Ban]

Well, that ends space travel for me.

Snowpiercer's Protein bars for everyone, muahaha.

 

[Nomadica]

What plant species are best for producing a lot of calories on a very small space ?
Bananas, nuts, rice.

Bananas only fruit once and it can take a long time to fruit. Nut trees can get pretty big and only produce seasonally, though I don't know that much about peanuts. Potato would be good for starch but not nutrition. They can be grown in containers and are pretty hardy.

 

[evolution_rex]

How far into the future are we talking? If you've got advanced space travel, then it's not impossible that we've got advanced genetic engineering. So genetically engineered plants that thrive in a space environment, have a ton of nutrition, and don't require a lot of maintenance. Of course, that's sort of a cop out. But that's what I'd do.

As for animals, I think it would be impractical to breed anything but insects. If the ship is intended to colonize a planet or something somewhere, then typically you'd have the embryos of a bunch of species as well as a mechanism to clone them, but it'd be saved for the arrival to the colony.

 

[Vaporo]

Well, what kind of spaceship are we talking about? What will it be doing and how long will it be in space? What level of technology and money will be going into it? Will there be a habitable centrifuge on board?

Asking how many hydroponic crops it takes to survive is a pretty complicated question. The area of hydroponics is still being explored, so a lot could develop in the future. The smallest number that I found for feeding one person (off of normal soil with expert care directed at the plants) was 0.025 acres, which, if you can maintain your plants at that rate for the long term, leaves you with 1.75 acres of intensely-farmed land.

There's no single plant that you can grow that can meet all of your crew's nutritional needs. Peanuts have a pretty good calorie count, but I don't know that they can provide much nutrients.

Is it practical to breed small animals on a spaceship? Depends on the size of your spaceship. If you're on a tightly-packed personal transport, probably not. If you're on a city-sized asteroid miner, making space for a small pasture probably wouldn't be too difficult.

If I were selecting a farm animal for a small spaceship, I'd probably choose chickens. They can lay eggs very quickly, which I believe provide most if not all of the same nutrients as meat. They have a built-in way of maneuvering in zero gravity (a non-issue if you're raising them on a centrifuge), and they can eat just about anything.

 

[TheKillerBs]

As much as you need it to? I mean if you got the tech for a flipping spaceship very few people are going to question your per area/volume yield.

 

[CupofJoe]

Probably a lot of insects would be used for meat. Low maintenance, little resources needed and lots of protein.
Seaweed and other weeds would be useful as well. They grow quick and as long as you have water, sunlight and and oxygen they should be easy to maintain.

I don't know about Seaweed [or Algae farms] bit for more traditional plants, you don't even need sunlight or that much O2. There are a lot of commercial growers around the world looking Hydroponics with LED lighting at specific frequencies to grow Tomatoes, Salad plants, Strawberries. Flowers and a host of other things faster and "better" and in places they don't currently grow. They use an enclosed environment with increased CO2 and lower O2 levels. The transpiration of the plants is collected, checked for quality/content and recycle it in to the system so there is not much water needed. You need an oxygen mask to tend the crop, if you needed to. Otherwise the place is left alone until the crop is ready.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Well, what kind of spaceship are we talking about? What will it be doing and how long will it be in space? What level of technology and money will be going into it? Will there be a habitable centrifuge on board?

Asking how many hydroponic crops it takes to survive is a pretty complicated question. The area of hydroponics is still being explored, so a lot could develop in the future. The smallest number that I found for feeding one person (off of normal soil with expert care directed at the plants) was 0.025 acres, which, if you can maintain your plants at that rate for the long term, leaves you with 1.75 acres of intensely-farmed land.

There's no single plant that you can grow that can meet all of your crew's nutritional needs. Peanuts have a pretty good calorie count, but I don't know that they can provide much nutrients.

Is it practical to breed small animals on a spaceship? Depends on the size of your spaceship. If you're on a tightly-packed personal transport, probably not. If you're on a city-sized asteroid miner, making space for a small pasture probably wouldn't be too difficult.

If I were selecting a farm animal for a small spaceship, I'd probably choose chickens. They can lay eggs very quickly, which I believe provide most if not all of the same nutrients as meat. They have a built-in way of maneuvering in zero gravity (a non-issue if you're raising them on a centrifuge), and they can eat just about anything.

Birds can't swallow in zero gravity, or so I've heard.

 

[Vaporo]

Birds can't swallow in zero gravity, or so I've heard.

Oh, really? Well, that's news to me, then. Just further highlights the advantages of having a centrifuge on your space ship.

 

[valiant12]

I can think of several answers to this, but my first inclination is to ask why this matters. I mean, I assume it does, or you would not ask, but…Can’t you just say there was a large chamber for this and leave it at that?

The main character is working in the ship kitchen and the ships hydroponics. He is supposed to be a very unremarkable everyman type of dude who wash dishes and sweep aliene pirate blood from the floors, fix unimportant stuff etc. I plan to make him a tough badass by the end of the story, but at the beginning he is a everyman recruit on food duty.

 

[pmmg]

I wondered if birds could fly in zero gravity, thinking that, if there is air in the capsule, they could still push off of it, or if the Zero G means they air would not have sufficient weight itself to be used in this way. But, I think you are right, they need gravity to swallow, so they would have a much different problem.


Okay, did some research

From this site, I get it takes .17 acres to feed a man for 1 year.

How much land does it take to support one human being? : askscience


From this site, I get that Hydrophincs grows plants 20-50% faster

Why Hydroponic Plants Grow Faster

and from this site I get that the space savings is 375 million acres to 3750 million acres (or, takes up 1/10 the space)

Hydroponics vs. Soil ? Advantages and Disadvantages - Urban Garden Supply


So lets do some math...

1 human being for a year takes .17 acres
And hydrophonics takes up 1/10 of that, so that is .017 acres.
But, Hydrophonics grows faster by a rate of 20-50%, thereby I exptrapolate that I need only 50-80% of that space for single person. I'll go with 80. 80% of .017 acres is .0136 acres.

You have 70 people, so Multiply by 70 and I get .952 acres, or essentally 1 acre for 70 poeple for one year.

Consider that Hydrophincs can be vertical and not just horizontal, and it could be a very small places indeed. Also given that sceince may find new methods it could be even less. Who Knows?


Also, I think it would take up more space if you want more variety.