Re: food from space
- From: BradGuth <bradguth@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:12:51 -0700 (PDT)
On Apr 24, 3:36 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 24 Apr, 00:59, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
NASA did studies on space colonies back in the 1970s and 80s. Gerard
O'Neill wrote on them in The High Frontier.
http://space.mike-combs.com/SCTHF.html
The costs do not take into account the ability of developing the
technology more gradually in a way that sees it more of an investment
that earns profits, which are then re-invested in technology
development.
One interesting finding was that farms in space support 40,500 people
per square kilometer at US per capita levels of consumption. This
amounts to 730 kg per person per year. To fee 6.6 billion people at
this level requires 162,963 square kilometers of pressure vessel
area.
103,745 spheres each 1 km in diameter each housing a spinning cylinder
707 meters in diameter and 707 meters deep, support 1.57 square
kilometers of growing area - each supporting 63,585 persons.
Each satellite has a rail gun and fires 2 meals per second - to people
all over the Earth aided by low cost GPS guidance systems and ceramic
aerogel thermal protection systems with aerodynamic features. MEMs
based rockets forming a propulsive skin to execute a soft landing at
the desired location for each meal. Terminal velocity of the aerogel
encased meal is about 200 m/sec following re-entry - which requires a
propellant fraction of 4.3% or 30.4 grams of propellant for a 700 gram
meal. The rail gun fires it to the targeting envelope and the kinetic
energy and tail fins of the falling meal are adjusted to bring it to a
precise GPS cooerdinate. A solid state doppler radar determines
precise altitude to ignite the engines, and bring the meal to a halt
at zero altitude at the desired location.
90% of the world's population live in 10% if the world's land surface.
I thin that perhaps a more cost effective solution would be to grow
food on part of the 90% of land surface. Deserts which consitute 30%
of the world's land is a good candidate.
A far better solution therefore would be to export microwaves - not
food and use the energy to desalinate sea water. This would have to
compete of course with terrestrial solar power. We have I think
already discussed the pros and cons. As a European my focus tends to
be the Mediteranean, the Middle East and N Africa rather then the
South West although any remarks I have made is equally applicable.
Deserts if watered are amazingly fertile.
There is one snag with the scheme which you propose and that is that
is that you need to transport water and CO2 to your space stations. If
you had pure recycling this problem would not arise.
My proposal therefore is a canal/pipeline to take water from the
Mediteranean across Lebanon to Damascus. If we were to have peace, and
a joint project would help cement peace, canals could go through
Israel. Solar power, initially terrestrial, would be used to
desalinate Med water thereby opening up vast areas for agriculture.
The dry fountains in Damascus have left an impression on me,
particularly when the energy from 2 or 3 roofs would be enough to
supply them with water.
I feel all told this is a far better bet.
- Ian Parker
Don't bother informing our lord all-knowing willie.moo of such
perfectly viable terrestrial alternatives that wouldn't cost us 0.1%
as much as for going off-world. Seems our willie.moon doesn't care
how spendy energy, food, housing, education and medical care gets,
because he is set for life no matters how spendy his survival gets.
.. - Brad Guth
.
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