Space Ship based Hydroponics

[Dangerious P. Cats]

In various sci fi you have space ships with hydroponic food gardens but I'm wondering how viable such a thing would be. I guess the question should be devided into two parts, firstly how viable would one be to build on purpose (like the food ships in BattleStar Galactica) and how difficult would it be to improvise one together (like in Stargate Universe) and what supplies/technologies would you need to do so and how could you improvise without them?

[Nogford]

It's very viable. There are several species of vegetable that actually grow far better in low gravity than on Earth. I don't know about ships specifically dedicated to growing food, but the technology required for hydroponics is very simple - heat and light, plus some sort of rack to keep the nutrient-laden water and plants in.

Any spaceship with a fabricator would be able to set up a hydroponic farm, provided they had the space.

[walkir]

AFAIK, real world astronauts watch salad (or whatever they have up there) grow for hours a time when there's nothing to do, and it even helps morale. Can't find the link on the moment, though.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Nogford

Any spaceship with a fabricator would be able to set up a hydroponic farm, provided they had the space.

Well, plus a source of water, nutrients, lights with enough brightness in the blue to drive photosynthesis and, probably the most difficult one, viable seeds. Hydroponics is not a difficult or expensive technology to implement - there are commercial greenhouses that make money at it, at least notionally competing with open field agriculture - but it does require stuff that probably isn't lying around on a *spaceship* that wasn't planning on it. And the last little bit to fully close a life support loop is so far pretty difficult - it takes more weight of equipment to close the last fraction of a percent than it does to store a lifetime supply of those last few micronutrients.

[Nogford]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Well, plus a source of water, nutrients, lights with enough brightness in the blue to drive photosynthesis and, probably the most difficult one, viable seeds. Hydroponics is not a difficult or expensive technology to implement - there are commercial greenhouses that make money at it, at least notionally competing with open field agriculture - but it does require stuff that probably isn't lying around on a *spaceship* that wasn't planning on it. And the last little bit to fully close a life support loop is so far pretty difficult - it takes more weight of equipment to close the last fraction of a percent than it does to store a lifetime supply of those last few micronutrients.

I'm not sure what TL is intended, but closing the life support loop would be pretty trivial from TL10 onwards.

[DaltonS]

I'm more interested in hydroponic gardens as habitat cabin replacements. Total life support doubles the size of cabins and bunkrooms but GURPS Spaceships doesn't explicitly say if hydroponics is part of that. And even if the accomodations already have total LS, a few fresh veggies make a nice supplement to space rations. How much would something like that cost?

Dalton "being a locavore in space is tough" Spence

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

I'm more interested in hydroponic gardens as habitat cabin replacements. Total life support doubles the size of cabins and bunkrooms but GURPS Spaceships doesn't explicitly say if hydroponics is part of that. And even if the accomodations already have total LS, a few fresh veggies make a nice supplement to space rations. How much would something like that cost?

Dalton "being a locavore in space is tough" Spence

Call it an Open Space system.

[Flyndaran]

Isn't the point of the general-ness of spaceships the fact that the details are up to the GM? How you grow your food for total life support or garden systems is below its resolution.
It can be fiddly hydroponics, little monitored vat facs, gene modded mana gardens, etc.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Isn't the point of the general-ness of spaceships the fact that the details are up to the GM? How you grow your food for total life support or garden systems is below its resolution.
It can be fiddly hydroponics, little monitored vat facs, gene modded mana gardens, etc.

Or a combination of technologies.

If you look at some of the early Star Trek: TNG deck plans you'll see that a huge part of the Enterprise-D's saucer (which I assume is mostly Habitat) is used for replicator bulk storage and other locations have things like hydroponics, which I can't help but assume has at least some space devoted to food growing.

If you can manage to find them, they're great for doing away with the plot-driven "black box" that was the Enterprise deck plan and can help inspire your own designs. (Of course they're not considered "canon" but they were contracted as a part of the series production.)

[hari]

I know nothing about hydroponics in space. But I can tell you that aquaponics would definitely be better. It's a mix of hydroponics and aquaculture. It takes the negatives of each, adds them together, and makes something much better. A major drawback of hydroponics is that you have waste water that pollutes natural waters. That might not be a problem in space. A major drawback with aquaculture, the raising of seafood in captivity to eat, is also waste water and the pollution it causes. Again, maybe not an issue in space. In aquaponics water is continuously cycled back and forth between the fish and plants. The fish benefit by having the plants filter the water for them. The plants benefit by getting their nutrition from the fish. Beneficial bacteria that break down ammonia make up the last unseen part of the system. All in all, it makes up a closed nitrogen cycle that grows incredibly healthy food. For example, the plants can be grown unconventionally close together and are surprisingly resistant to disease simply due to being in very good health. It would also require significantly less water to do then hydroponics, as you would never have to throw any water out.