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To: exDemMom

Well, I am not going to comment on the market value, or the ethics, but could this eventually offer a way to produce meat for long-term space exploration? It would make sense in that environment.

Many of the people commenting have obviously not been around commercial meat processing. While many cultures speak of using every part of the pig but the squeal, they have nothing on modern meat companies . Sausage-making has never been pretty, but chicken nuggets puts them all to shame. LOL


39 posted on 04/10/2015 10:21:26 PM PDT by antidisestablishment ( Everyone is equal in the state of desperation. GOP delenda est!)
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To: antidisestablishment
Well, I am not going to comment on the market value, or the ethics, but could this eventually offer a way to produce meat for long-term space exploration? It would make sense in that environment.

I don't see it happening. In order to grow cells, you have to replicate the conditions that exist in the cell's natural environment--the salts, hormones, amino acids, sugars, etc. And you have to maintain an absolutely sterile environment, which would be quite a challenge in the weightless environment of space. Plus, growing cells requires supplies, lots and lots of them. I doubt that I've grown even close to a pound of cells in my career, but I've probably generated hundreds of pounds of trash doing so, not to mention the gallons and gallons of discarded liquid.

For long-term space flight, you'd probably want to set up a small ecological system, not try to establish some sort of lab for growing cells.

42 posted on 04/11/2015 2:42:22 AM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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