> it costs so much to send astronauts food on the ISS
Doesn’t the same total mass still need to be sent up in the form of water and CO2? Plants don’t create food out of nothing.
“Doesn’t the same total mass still need to be sent up in the form of water and CO2? Plants don’t create food out of nothing.”
Water and CO2 are waste products the astronauts produce in bulk, you will need to recycle that right back to food. It’s a closed carbon cycle and also hydro cycle. The total mass needed is only what is in the whole cycle split up around its parts.
Look at a steer, it’s 1800lbs on the hoof. Right off the bat half of that is inedible being bones, guts/gut content, tendons, and fat. What is edible is 450-500lbs of actual meat dressed out in primal cuts. You had to feed , water and get oxygen to that steer in a 10:1 feed ratio, tens of thousands of gallons of water and one lb of O2 per lb of live weight per day. It should be immediately obvious why we are never taking cattle to space. Or you take a biopsy of said steer grab some cells and put them in a tank with synthetic blood serum itself made in a tank by genetically engineered microbes feed, CO2,nitrogen,water and either H2 ,CO,or acetic acid any of those last three made with electrons via a electrochemical cell.
Steer cells plus synthetic blood serum grows and multipies those cells into chunks of protein at a near one to one ratio of input materials to output. It should be very very clear why this is the way NASA and everyone else will have to go.
Boffins have already grown , sugars, starches and lipids in tanks via microbes and electro cell inputs we call that food. Protein is the last component monogastric mammals need to function. Those four are what all good anywhere, everywhere is made of in various proportions.