The compelxities of extra-terrestrial farming

[farmerben]

Great ideas so far!  Farming is very synergistic.  Almost every type of farm production benefits from inputs that can also be produced on farms.  

If we had a way to make cheap biodegradable float trays, then we could be highly efficient.  Rabbits are rodents who can't help chewing on stuff.  They will knock apart the trays and vegetation where it falls to pigs.  Pigs will eat rabbit poop and fish skeletons roughage and kitchen scraps.  They will dig though giant piles of compost to find a few fermented grains.  

Meat production has two huge advantages on the Moon.  One is that freezer space on the Moon might as well be free, just put a tarp roof over it and store it outside.  

Everything drains in an orderly fashion.  After a 3-6 month round of pigs, we pump the accumulated bio sludge out, suck the gasses and moisture out of it slowly, sterilize it with sunlight, and later put it back into the trays and the hydroponic water.

The alternative to sterilizing things is to introduce a bug to control another bug.  I think we will want to be able to fully sterilize each room and reintroduce the things we want.  

Rabbit fur felt, and reconstituted leather bonded with hide glue, are probably adequate for 90 day float trays.  Straw and corn stalks would not be good enough by themselves, but with a little chemistry maybe.  

 

 

 

 

[DDE]

10 hours ago, Thor Wotansen said:

Rabbits are quite dependable when kept as livestock in a controlled space.  Breeding and raising rabbits for food is already quite common in some health food circles, and it certainly isn't hard to encourage them to reproduce.  Their low individual food needs are also a plus if the system gets shocked to a point of near failure.  You could butcher all but a few breeding pairs and keep those few fed on stored feed until the crops can catch back up.

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Rabbit eaters, if they have no fat from another source—beaver, moose, fish—will develop diarrhea in about a week, with headache, lassitude and vague discomfort. If there are enough rabbits, the people eat till their stomachs are distended; but no matter how much they eat they feel unsatisfied.

10 hours ago, Thor Wotansen said:

Producing a magnetic field strong enough to repel the ionizing particles in solar radiation isn't too demanding, compared to the kind of field you'd need to protect from the galactic scale stuff.

Some of GCRs are gammas and they don't care about your magnetic fields.