Posted on 09/25/2019 7:58:13 PM PDT by BenLurkin
With bugs, algae and other resource-efficient foods we could feed one million people on Mars within a century of arriving there. Scientists even invented a martian diet.
Cannon and colleagues modeled the food needs of a human population on Mars that grows to one million over about a hundred Earth years through a combination of immigration and reproduction. Though the settlement would need to import a lot of food at the start, it could transition to an entirely Martian-grown diet in about a century with the right food choices, they found.
The major limiting factor is space — or rather, the ability to create spaces suitable for growing food. On Earth, the amount of available arable land restricts our ability to grow food, whether plants, animals or something else. On Mars, we’d have to create these spaces — enclosed, pressurized and heated structures. For efficiency’s sake, a Martian society would need to choose food sources that are high in nutrients and calories relative to the space they need to grow.
Traditionally farmed animal products and certain plants need a lot of resources and may be impractical on Mars, Cannon says. But that doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing variety in Martian diets. His team’s models include three main categories of food sources: plant-based foods, edible insects and “cellular agriculture” — protein-rich foods like algae and lab-grown meats, dairy and eggs that we can grow from cells.
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This includes eating plants like beans, tomato and potato, as well as GMO products modified to include more nutrients and grow more sustainably. A number of companies today make insect-based products — whether that’s whole crickets or powdered insects to use as flour — that aspiring Martians can sample as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at astronomy.com ...
*ping*
Biosphere 2 in Arizona was a closed system such as envisioned on Mars. I have visited this facility and it is very energy intensive to run all the environmental systems. One pump, one control system, one plumbing leak would be disaster. A smoking electric motor would fill the complex with toxic fumes. The backup equipment would be staggering.
Biosphere 2 was an absolute disaster because the project failed to produce enough food to meet the calorie requirements of the participants. The hungry Biospherians began eating seed stocks that had not been grown inside the Biosphere 2. Such a situation will not go well on Mars because of the time it takes to send emergency food or other critical equipment. A colony of one million people would require a perfect system. Any little failure would have big consequences. I wouldn’t risk my life in such a situation.
1,000,000 people who are starving would find some slower moving members of the colony to fill their appetite. And reduce the community’s food needs.
I was going to include a comment like yours about human cannibalism but did not to let others, like you, to illustrate the extreme nature of such a colony. The horror of a colossal failure creating a starvation situation is enough to give me nightmares. It would also make a good science fiction movie.
“Send more colonists!”
Thanks fieldmarshaldj. Unfortunately, we'll have two million living there at the time. ;^)
Stole my thunder.
I am amazed at people like Ernest Shackleton and Cabeza de Vaca who did not lose any of their men (to illness, fatigue, conflict, etc.).
Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.
Do you think that the billions and billions and billions of barrels of petroleum already used or that have not been used yet came from biomass? If so, how many trillions of animals would it have taken? And how would oil get miles down into the ground? My opinion is that God created the petroleum just as He created the water. And people do not run around calling it “fossil liquid” or saying it came from biomass. Just wondering.
Yeah... exciting life when it’s -80 outside. No beach, no boats, no golf, no...
bugs and algae? yuck!
put Pizza on the menu (and a good 5 Guys burger joint) and I’ll go
Yes, increasingly more stupid people have been preferred as employees and spouses for a couple of generations. That’s why drug problems and other aberrations (hooking up, misinformation about sex, etc.) are so common. Get stupid people to eat stuff like that, and we’ll have an overabundance of good food for ourselves. Just give them mountains of refined sugar to go with those nasty dietary tangents.
One million people, huh? Do you really think the 7.6 billion other people on earth are going to give them a “bon voyage” party and wave as they sail into space and away from death. Trust me, the animal in people isn’t that tame and/or trained.
And as for protecting them and the vehicle, does the name Custer ring a bell?
rwood
This plan needs to be improved, there’s way more socialists than one million.
Reminds me of the kind of people who went to Venus in the following (great classic short story in a free, online book).
The Marching Morons by C. M. Kornbluth
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51233
The stylish and more educated folks should go to Mars. We’ll cheer them on.
Mars would be a veritable Utopia for all those who find life with White people difficult. There they could start a new society based on African and other third world principles and traditions.
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