RedKraken Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 7 hours ago, GregA said: Chickens will just be there And pets...u know people are going to sneak or buy seats for their pets. The first puppy on Mars will be very popular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregA Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 I wonder if Chickens can fly on Mars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregA Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 1 hour ago, kerbiloid said: Chickens eat whatever even the pigs feel disgusting. Brainless reptiles, by all means. So, why pigs? Also, as the chickens will live in a dome, in warm artificial conditions, they don't need feathers. (Which take a lot of energy and food to grow, as any protein structure, but are absolutely useless, unless to make cushions.). They will live in a very stretched room, so they don't need wings and legs. Even more, these parasite structures only decrease the biocycle efficiency. Their only food will be an organic pulp made of algae and biological wastes. So, they don't need nibs or teeth. As the pulp can be pre-digested before feeding the chickens, they don't need digesting system, only the absorbing one. No need in stomach and liver. Of coursem they absolutely don't need any sensors. Eyes, brains, ears, other inedible trash. So, a Martian chicken would should must ought to be a genetically modified piece of flesh intubed from front and rear ends with pulp lines. Next step: monocellular culture of chicken algae. Then even no pulp lines, just a vat with pump. P.S. Not joking. P.S.S. About perchlorates. Physics beats chemistry. Set a powerplant and set the sand on fire. Im curious... Have you ever met a chicken irl? As is you can already cram them into tiny boxes where they will exist as happily as a chicken can. Also chicken meat is almost secondary to eggs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crubs Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 My main concern is how we're going to to provide vitamin D to our early colonists. They're going to be deprived of UV light for a while in their EVA suits and pressurized buildings. It's going to be very costly to send shipments of supplements, so I'm curious what your thoughts are. I suppose they could get it from fish and eggs, but I'm not sure how practical animal farming is going to be early on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregA Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 (edited) 23 minutes ago, crubs said: My main concern is how we're going to to provide vitamin D to our early colonists. They're going to be deprived of UV light for a while in their EVA suits and pressurized buildings. It's going to be very costly to send shipments of supplements, so I'm curious what your thoughts are. I suppose they could get it from fish and eggs, but I'm not sure how practical animal farming is going to be early on. In aquaculture the fish are a critical part of the water cycle. They poop and pee in the water that is fed to the plants. In turn the plants clean the water for the fish. The idea here is to minimize the inputs. Also, the green houses will have high intensity lights, because there is simply not enough light on Mars to grow the variety of food colonists will need. Here on earth under bright lights plants will deplete all the co2 in the air in an indoor grow situation, and greenhouses need to be enriched with co2. So i suspect a bio system like this will be fundamental in a Mars colony, there will be gardens in every room. Vitamin D will come from the hid lights. Yes, livestock is probably out the early years, but fish that can make the trip frozen will probably be early settlers. I was joking about chickens because they are a pervasive livestock animal everywhere on Earth. P.S. All these gardens are going to need pvc, dont burn the perchlorates yet. Edited October 2, 2016 by GregA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSK Posted October 2, 2016 Author Share Posted October 2, 2016 20 minutes ago, crubs said: My main concern is how we're going to to provide vitamin D to our early colonists. They're going to be deprived of UV light for a while in their EVA suits and pressurized buildings. It's going to be very costly to send shipments of supplements, so I'm curious what your thoughts are. I suppose they could get it from fish and eggs, but I'm not sure how practical animal farming is going to be early on. Mushrooms apparently. Although supplement tablets are pretty light - compared to the cost of shipping everything else out to Mars, they're not going to be that expensive. I don't think animal farming will be practical early on, if ever. Certainly to begin with, animals will be a - literal - waste of space and oxygen, although I suppose you could argue for the psychological benefit of having companion animals around. On Earth, lifestyle arguments notwithstanding, you can make a good case for livestock farming on marginal agricultural land - if you have the space to spare, animals are pretty good nutrient concentrators. However, on Mars, any agricultural land is created from scratch by the colonists - and under those circumstances I think the food and water inputs required to raise animals would be much better used for growing crops. Regarding protein - plenty of plants are protein complete including potatoes. Or legume/grain combinations such as rice and soybeans would also work. Potatoes, rice and soybeans can be grown hydroponically. Soybeans can also be flavoured every which way. and you'd probably want to, again for psychological reasons. If you really, really want meat on Mars it's probably more efficient to ship freeze-dried stuff from Earth. On a purely personal note (speaking as a meat-eater so no particular dietary axe to grind here), I find it just a bit depressing that battery farms would be a priority for a Mars colony. 10 hours ago, Nibb31 said: That does sound like a peachy future for the colonists who have sold their house to buy a ticket. I hope they like Tilapia fish. If they're looking for a frontier lifestyle, the satisfaction of being part of something extraordinary and helping to build that with their own two hands - I doubt they'll care much. Anyone shipping out with SpaceX looking for Disneyland: Mars is going to be in for a rude awakening long before they get there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CSE Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 (edited) Lab-grown protein sounds like the way to go if you have very little space and lots of time on your hands. For the first livestock to provide a delicacy (and pets), fish have an extra advantage in that they can be more easily controlled and are unlikely to cause additional problems by infesting places where you don't want them. Free college for everyone: a society whose ability to breathe tomorrow is utterly dependent on developing, building, maintaining and replacing high technology will want to consider educating its future members to the standard needed to do so. You need to fill different 'trades' in a different 'economy' from Earth's, from a tiny population size, with a much higher proportion of graduate-level skill and higher. You might not be able to make your own choice of courses, though. 11 hours ago, KSK said: Anyone shipping out with SpaceX looking for Disneyland: Mars is going to be in for a rude awakening long before they get there. I actually think this is the best way for Mars colonists to get an ongoing supply of Earth currency, and a major milestone for any Mars colony to achieve. Sustainability for a colony's daily needs, whether that's achieved quickly or slowly, is likely to be a long time before total sustainability for everything in every eventuality. There's a 'trade-sustainable' state where a colony does enough for mother Earth that it's in Earth's self-interest to keep supplying to colony in return. Edited October 2, 2016 by CSE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 (edited) 2 hours ago, GregA said: Have you ever met a chicken irl? Once I've seen them on Discovery. 2 hours ago, GregA said: As is you can already cram them into tiny boxes where they will exist as happily as a chicken can. If they have no limbs and sensors, why not? Also, do you really care about your food happiness? Have you ever seen the end of their lives in chicken farms? Especially when they are being utilized due to epizooty. Personally me find that the less brain they have, the less pain they suffer. 2 hours ago, GregA said: Also chicken meat is almost secondary to eggs Absolutely exactly. So, the best chicken is a monocellular chicken. A chimera cell of algae and chicken egg. (Btw a way to unite vegans and us, troglodytes) Edited October 2, 2016 by kerbiloid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
todofwar Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 4 hours ago, kerbiloid said: Chickens eat whatever even the pigs feel disgusting. Brainless reptiles, by all means. So, why pigs? Also, as the chickens will live in a dome, in warm artificial conditions, they don't need feathers. (Which take a lot of energy and food to grow, as any protein structure, but are absolutely useless, unless to make cushions.). They will live in a very stretched room, so they don't need wings and legs. Even more, these parasite structures only decrease the biocycle efficiency. Their only food will be an organic pulp made of algae and biological wastes. So, they don't need nibs or teeth. As the pulp can be pre-digested before feeding the chickens, they don't need digesting system, only the absorbing one. No need in stomach and liver. Of coursem they absolutely don't need any sensors. Eyes, brains, ears, other inedible trash. So, a Martian chicken would should must ought to be a genetically modified piece of flesh intubed from front and rear ends with pulp lines. Next step: monocellular culture of chicken algae. Then even no pulp lines, just a vat with pump. P.S. Not joking. P.S.S. About perchlorates. Physics beats chemistry. Set a powerplant and set the sand on fire. Peta will have a field day, also that kind of tech is far in the future. By then we'll just be able to grow vats of meat of the beef, chicken, or pork variety. Pretty sure it won't taste all that great. And like was already mentioned, for most bang for your buck get used to eating bugs. Or gmo bacteria. PS that sounds almost exactly like a chicken/sea urchin hybrid they had in Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, one of my all time favorite Sci fi books, heavily recommend. PPS fire is chemistry, if burning the sand is most efficient than by all means burn it. There is an enzyme that catalyzes the reaction ClO4- to Cl- and O2, so there is definitely a less fiery solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Anyone who mentions an animal then the sentence "does not need x, y or z part of it's body" does not know how biology or animals work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 (edited) 21 minutes ago, todofwar said: Pretty sure it won't taste all that great. Pretty sure it will taste at least not worse than everything else with sodium glutamate instead of meat at all. 21 minutes ago, todofwar said: eating bugs A wide-known fantasy, probably to get funds. If the bugs were so edible, why people bother with cattle herding? Of course, ancient hunters/gatherers were not too fastidious. A small creature by default eats more food per its body mass than a big one. Yes, there is probably more protein per biomass in a bug than in a pig, why not. But how much grass leaves should they feed to these bugs to get a ton of bugs instead of a ton of cow? Bugs are less predictable and stable entities. When a cow is ill, you can cure it. When a bee family are ill, they most often die all at once at get replaced with another bee family. Unlikely weevils differ a lot. Spider silk is much better than silkmoth's silk. And there were attempts to farm silk spiders. But with no result, because moths don't try to eat each other. So, bugs and gnats are not an option. Only unicellates, only hardcore. 9 minutes ago, Technical Ben said: Anyone who mentions an animal then the sentence "does not need x, y or z part of it's body" does not know how biology or animals work. Broiler chicken is a middle of that way. Spoiler Spoiler Edited October 2, 2016 by kerbiloid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 It is no where near middle. Most domestication changes the size of values, it does not remove them entirely. And it has it's own problems. All things have trade-offs. Why are you sending chickens? Then ask what are you taking off the chicken, and what it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Watch the next picture, about the bull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregA Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 (edited) Or we could just take chickens... A Mars colony doesn't need to be sustainable, it just needs to be self sustaining. Because there are like a trillion crap tier planets in the Galaxy like Mars that people can live on. Edited October 2, 2016 by GregA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 4 minutes ago, GregA said: Or we could just take chickens... And a chicken farm at least as large as on Earth, and several times larger because they need much of water, air and place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
todofwar Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 I still think the only argument that has made sense so far is the tilapia because it will be useful for helping the hydroponics out. You don't need that much meat, most Americans especially eat way more meat than they should. Ask any vegetarian about that. A vegan diet of potatoes, vegetables selected for their nutritional content, and supplemented by bacterial grown vitamins hard to get from plants will be the most efficient diet to maintain. Once the colony has been going for a decade or two, a livestock chamber can get set up. And I will argue for sheep to go in there, for the wool and milk benefit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregA Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Just now, todofwar said: I still think the only argument that has made sense so far is the tilapia because it will be useful for helping the hydroponics out. You don't need that much meat, most Americans especially eat way more meat than they should. Ask any vegetarian about that. A vegan diet of potatoes, vegetables selected for their nutritional content, and supplemented by bacterial grown vitamins hard to get from plants will be the most efficient diet to maintain. Once the colony has been going for a decade or two, a livestock chamber can get set up. And I will argue for sheep to go in there, for the wool and milk benefit. Right, as I stated in my first post on Chickens, they will just appear at the colony. There will be no organized plan to bring chickens, they will just happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Yes, they will occasionally find them by smell, cleaning an artificial lake with 3.5 tilapia. Fish needs much water. You can't press a 1kg of fish into 1 l tank. Chicken (I mean, original ones) need place, water. All of them need sewers. GMO eggalgae do not need a sewer. The live in it. They take much less place, they are happy with this, and they grow much faster. Also, imagine: you break an egg shell, and from inside sticks out a pseudopodia, catches your spoon and lugs it inside the egg. Bioengineer didn't wash the vat and occasionally grew up an eggamoeba. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 (edited) 38 minutes ago, kerbiloid said: Watch the next picture, about the bull. Again. To make that claim you don't know about animals. What happens when you do that to the bull? Think about farming. How do they do it? You are missing a big ingredient I doubt they will have in large supply on Mars, and hence why you would send normal domesticated animals, not stripped down ones. Mushrooms are a good resource, and we have almost closed cycle already. We don't for animals. Edited October 2, 2016 by Technical Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 1 minute ago, Technical Ben said: Mushrooms are a good resource Mushrooms are bad resource, They have much protein, but it's mostly DNA protein, protected with the undigestible chitinous cellular cell walls. So, almost all their protein is useless, it just passes through the bowels. 5 minutes ago, Technical Ben said: What happens when you do that to the bull? What part of that bull is a natural bull, rather than additional protein bags grown over the animal? Does a domestic pig differ from a wild boar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Think carefully. That bull. What does it require? What do we do to it here on Earth that we will not have on Mars. Go through the list. Tell me, and show me you have it on Mars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 It requires cellulose and (less) protein and a meat/bone powder to eat, steroids to grow fast, antibiotics to stay healthy for 1-2 years until being killed, water to drink, water to remove and utilize wastes (manure and mats), air to breathe, place to walk, it must be castrated to make its meat soft and not smelly. It can live 9 months per year in a stall. Maybe, can more, but mostly it's killed 1-2 years old. From one side, it requires a walk to stay healthy, from another side - the more it walks, the less it's fat. So, if it's a breeder one, they care much about its happiness, let it walk upon a grass, feed with the best food, kiss its nose. If not - it's just a piece of meat with odd parts which consume odd food. No place for it on Mars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 How would it respond to the conditions? How would it effect the reliability? How strong is it? How are we getting it there? How are we producing the steroids, antibiotics and it's food? There is a difference in claiming "just add a rocket to my car to go faster" and actually doing it. Some good ideas may take decades to get one single result (there have been a few rocket cars, and one more is in production now to attempt to hit 1000mph). But here, if it does not work and does not give a result in 1-2 years, what happens? People starve! I ask you. Why do people not farm at the Arctic, Antarctic or on the ISS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 2 minutes ago, Technical Ben said: How would it respond to the conditions? How would it effect the reliability? How strong is it? How are we getting it there? I have a feeling that I'm trying to say "Let's bring it on Mars", and you are disproving that. We don;t need to get it there, as we don;t need to grow pear trees on Mars. Exactly because the low reliability of such enterprise. 4 minutes ago, Technical Ben said: How are we producing the steroids, antibiotics and it's food? Antibiotics - from mildew, steroids - synthetic and special pigs(?). It's food is anything edible for it what we'd feed to it. 5 minutes ago, Technical Ben said: But here, if it does not work and does not give a result in 1-2 years, what happens? People starve! A people unit consumes <1 kg of dry food per day. 400 kg per year. This bull can feed, say, 2 people per year. But it will require 10 times more food and probably up to 100 times more common organics to grow it (soil organics, etc) and other materials. Instead of building a farm on Mars, you can send much more ready-to-use food from the place where it grows at will and with pleasure - from the Earth. Also don't forget that any farm requires personnel, which also must be fed. So, until the eggalgae vats become commonly used technology, no extraterrestrial farming make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted October 2, 2016 Share Posted October 2, 2016 Then why not just send normal meat? Why are we sending this? Why not just send frozen chicken breasts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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