h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Space travel was supposed to be about the future, not the past!

We are still traveling through space, as we always have done.

Of course, some of my angst is caused by my appetite for science fiction. The author who wrote "The Martian" went on to write "Artemis," a novel about a colony on the Moon. The great virtue of both books is the description of things that might work from a practical point of view.

The downside, as far as "Artemis" is concerned, is that the most likely food supply would be algae grown in huge tanks. The main character calls it "gunk,"not a very appetizing word. But then, the main character in "The Martian" grew potatoes.

Potatoes and gunk..........

This is still farther in the future than people think. Cmdr Chris Hadfield warns that they haven't licked the radiation issue yet. There's no way we're sending people to Mars until this issue is solved, and it's not going to be easy.

The science fiction writers have a solution to this: terraforming. It sounds simple when you're reading a book about it, but the massive scale on which it would have to work renders it centuries away, at best.

I expect that you and Cmdr Hadfield are correct.

Watched "The Titans" on Netflix just yesterday, where volunteers are genetically "improved" to be able to survive on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.

The general idea is survival of the species, but the result could only be called humanoid.

The likelihood of transferring a large portion of the population of Earth to Titan is remote. So it should probably be more like a kind of legacy. Send some "people" there to procreate so that not all of humanity becomes extinct.

My idea is that the simple solution is maintaining a viable Earth. The trouble we see now in averting climate change (if at al possible) are nothing compared to the trouble to move planet. (A lot has to change on Earth to make it less habitable than anything within reach.)

>>The downside, as far as "Artemis" is concerned, is that the most likely food supply would be algae grown in huge tanks. The main character calls it "gunk,"not a very appetizing word. But then, the main character in "The Martian" grew potatoes. <<

As I recall the main character in "The Martian" grew potatoes *in human waste*

Certainly put me off putting my name down for a one-way trip to

They used human waste as manure in Chinese and Japanese agriculture, at least after the Second World War. Just saying it's not new.

Aha! The ancient Greeks used night soil as fertiliser. Mesoamericans. Various peoples in South Asia and East Asia. And.... Tudor England. Look up 'gong farmer'.

The danger in this practice is the spread of pathogens and, er, worms. The solution is proper composting techniques.

Conclusion: I'll bet NASA could solve that problem. Besides, on any lengthy space journey, what do you think you'll be drinking?

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/26/us-astronauts-recycled-urine-international-space-station

I am proud of US and Canadian astronauts.

Plants and animals use each other's waste products. Animals produce CO2, which plants use to produce oxygen and sugars in the presence of light and chlorophyll. Animals then go and consume the sugars and breathe the oxygen, releasing CO2 again.

The ancient Romans sometimes used urine as a disinfectant for their laundry.

The problem in space is storage and loss. If you don't capture all the CO2 you will end up with dead plants. While eating, astronouts grow. This matter is captured until the astronout dies. So you have to compost that very carefully. Unless the planet of choice does have useful resources.

I'm not sure how minerals fit in. On earth, many plants grow in sand. Perhaps their roots extract minerals from the sand?

Hmmm astronaut, not astronout

I won't be disappointed if space colonies fail to get established within my lifetime. It's just that in my youth there was this exciting thing that was happening, and then it sort of went dormant. The more recent space probes and orbiting space telescopes were unmanned. I'll admit, though, that the international space station was a step in the right direction.

Still, having a planet or large moon under my feet seems important.