First SPACE SALAD on Monday's menu for ISS astronauts Fresh food grown in space will, for the first time, be consumed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has announced the meal will take place on Monday, when red romaine lettuce grown aboard the ISS will be added to the menu. The lettuce was produced under Operation Veggie, an effort that's seen a …
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The ISS is a sealed box, air has been recycled up there for years now. Traces of everything that leaves the human body remain on every surface in the station despite regular cleaning. In some places the actual fabric of the station is being damaged by the high bacteria levels. It's a floating septic tank, and worse, bacteria and fungal behave differently in space which may lead to more potent mutations. If you wash salad vegetables before consumption on Earth, and you should, then you'd be really stupid not to be doing it on board the ISS.
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When I read the title of the article it just said acid wash... Here I was thinking this was a plot to experiment on the poor astronauts by washing their food in acid... aka LSD.
How disappointing that they meant a citric acid wash.
Lucy in the sky ...
I think it is wonderful that the space station dwellers get fresh salad. I would have thought that either sprouts of some sort or an aquatic species (perhaps duckweed or watercress) would have been an easier starting point, but we certainly cannot accuse anyone up there of aiming low!
Corn that grew into hula-hoop shaped cobs ("Budget corn, making both ends meet!" -- Skipper), udder-shaped carrots, and I don't remember what all else besides The Professor no doubt constructing a geiger counter from coconuts and fish bones. Tee-hee!
Energy obtained will not exceed, or even come remotely close to, the energy required to produce the lettuce. Waste produced will considerably exceed the digestible material generated. So the mass of the lettuce comes from 1) water and nitrogen from the astronauts urine and 2) CO2 they breath out. The only energy comes second hand from solar power converting light to electricity and back again. But most of the dry mass is cellulose which is indigestible to humans with normal gut organisms. Only way this could possibly work in long journeys if there was a composting sterilising facility, but even then realistically energy is better spent on earth and sending up dry, high energy, low residue foods, than creating a ecosystem in space. That is why The Starship Enterprise did not grow its own food, resorting instead to the replicator.
... but in Babylon 5 they had hydroponic gardens on board. Which in many episodes was raised as a source of food and argument over amount of ship taken up with growing things.
And grass. No use other than to look pretty.
Yes I realise I might have started a nerd war between genre's - but didn't galactica the original series have crop ships? and who can forget huey, duey and looey, the gardening robots in space?
But interesting article, step in the right direction and all that.
Babylon 5 was relatively huge compared to a galaxy-class starship, and, lacking holodecks, and being a civilian installation, had to provide recreational space as well. This explains the gardens. Also having lots of energy to spare (no warp engine to feed) helps.
"It's also hoped that adding fresh food to astronauts' diets will help them to cope with radiation and may even lift their moods."
So, how long before they start growing marijuana? Or, have they already? Maybe that's what's contributing to the grungy condition aboard the craft. Oh, well, at least the initials will stay the same: International Sewage System.
Dave
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