douglasi34
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Commented on Thanksgiving on Mars
Snails, fed on vegetable scraps. Yummy....
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Charlie Stross commented on
Thanksgiving on Mars
Speaking of suit seals, though, I'd be much happier if the Russians designed my space suit. Comparing the Shuttle EMU suit to the Russian ORLAN-M and derivatives is illuminating. The US-pattern suit is a two-piece item with a seal at the waist. You can't get into one unaided, and you need to pre-breathe oxygen at low pressure for four hours before sealing it (because it operates on low pressure pure O2 to allow its joints to move). In contrast, the ORLAN design is a one-piece suit with a "door" on the back -- the door is a side-hinged backpack full...
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Charlie Stross commented on
Thanksgiving on Mars
By then, someone may have worked out how to do a skinsuit. You mean a Space Activity Suit? The latest iteration is the MIT BioSuit. It's a really neat idea, but in practice turns out to be challenging to make -- it requires very accurate custom tailoring. I'm inclined to wonder what happens the first time there's a whoopsie in the greenhouse and everyone has to go on half-rations for a month. Be kind of a bummer if all the astronauts lose enough weight that their whizzy tailored elastic spacesuits don't fit any more and they end up with blood...
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Charlie Stross commented on
Thanksgiving on Mars
Aquaponics is simple. Its tanks,water,pumps and ballast. You missed out the most important ingredient: biology. Without which it's just tanks, water, pumps, and ballast -- none of which the astronauts can eat. Upon arrival they bring a few hundred fish out of hibernation (for bonus points the species they brought with them will be partially vegetarian but can also eat scraps, and can survive a long time partially frozen in hibernation. Some kind of tilapea / carp hybrid) and plant the first seeds into the setup This is semantically equivalent to (but more verbose than) "... and then something magical...
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Charlie Stross commented on
Thanksgiving on Mars
The algae can be stored frozen. So can the fish eggs. Cite, please. Freezing -- especially in water -- tends to involve the growth of ice crystals that play merry hell with cell membranes. I'd like to see some concrete examples of known species of fish species whose oocytes can be revived after freezing before I let this one pass, thanks. (Freezing of mammalian ova and sperm is a rather different matter from that of a non-pacental organism.) We're also back to the question that has been chewed over previously, i.e. how many interdependent species we need in order to...
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scott-sanford commented on
Thanksgiving on Mars
Apparently I'm the first one to link to this Thanksgiving message from space! Dan Burbank reports from the ISS and notes some obvious things, like the fact that their families can't drop by to visit. He does show food: a bag of turkey, a bag of potatoes, a bag of cherry/blueberry cobbler for desert - you get the idea. Apparently it actually tastes fine, and the view from the dining room is great....
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