Aquaponics

[Spinward Flow]

Although this technology is currently in its infancy out here in the (so called) "real world" ... I can easily imagine that once the technology and techniques involved mature with additional research and testing, this could potentially become an exceptionally useful Life Support Engineering Strategy for Humaniti living in hostile environments (such as space). Combine the aquaculture (fish) with hydroponics (plants grown in water) with aeroponics vertical farming techniques (plants grown in air) ... and you've got a miniaturized close loop biome that provides meat proteins (fish) and vegetable proteins (plants) which is relatively sustainable with monitoring and supervision oversight using the appropriate knowledge and skills. Just add robots(!) to assist with the monitoring and supervision and you've got a lean crew requirement for managing a regenerative life support biome that is usable on a starship for a closed loop system that can be sustained in between annual overhaul maintenance cycles (just add fuel purification plant "waste byproduct chemistry" feedstocks).

 

[Baroun Tardis]

I had some friends who were doing this at home years ago. Small scale garage thing.

Best cucumbers I have ever eaten. The rest of the veggies tasted better than the grocery store, but the cukes were like another level past that.

 

[kilemall]

Just one engineering thought- going to need vacc suit survival type capacity ready to go for a week, cause once the life support farming sector goes to vacuum there won’t be air, much less food.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Just one engineering thought- going to need vacc suit survival type capacity ready to go for a week, cause once the life support farming sector goes to vacuum there won’t be air, much less food.

To be fair ... MOST sealed environments lack "backup capacity" if they are breached and completely vented to vacuum.

 

[mike wightman]

I think what is meant here is the first hull hit causes depressurisation - if you haven't alread zipped up in vacc suits and depressurised then your ship just lost a lot of air.

Thing is your regenerative life support system - ie living stuff - dies when exposed to vacuum. So you are going to need vacc suits for every plant - not so cheap after all

 

[Condottiere]

Close the bulkhead hatches and repressurize.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

I think what is meant here is the first hull hit causes depressurisation - if you haven't alread zipped up in vacc suits and depressurised then your ship just lost a lot of air.

Thing is your regenerative life support system - ie living stuff - dies when exposed to vacuum. So you are going to need vacc suits for every plant - not so cheap after all

I went with something like this for my "Frontier Yacht" design.
And added an emergency low berth with spare plants and fish in it for one complete re-start.

 

[Grav_Moped]

To be fair ... MOST sealed environments lack "backup capacity" if they are breached and completely vented to vacuum.

One can reasonably assume there's stored air (compressed) for at least one refill -- or at least a refill of critical spaces -- on board.
Standard life support systems are chemistry-based and can probably be restarted with minor effort once a given section is re-sealed.

That resilience is what you get for paying the high resupply cost for the standard systems.

 

[Daidoji Dave]

Aquaponics has been the next big thing for the two decades I've been paying attention. Apparently it's hard to beat our already existing infrastructure, and there's nothing too wrong with grazing herbivores or seed-feeding chickens when you have the space, but I can see a space station or off-world colony going all in on it.

There's even a plot point around it in Ethan of Athos, a stand-alone in the Vorkosigan space opera novels that are all worth reading for Traveller ideas.

Just one engineering thought- going to need vacc suit survival type capacity ready to go for a week, cause once the life support farming sector goes to vacuum there won’t be air, much less food.

Why is the life support farming sector going to go to vacuum in the first place? I'm pro-vac suit and pro-restart capacity with or without aquaponics, but where's the extra risk coming from?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Why is the life support farming sector going to go to vacuum in the first place? I'm pro-vac suit and pro-restart capacity with or without aquaponics, but where's the extra risk coming from?

Already covered up-thread, but the risk is that a hull puncture will expose the biological life support system to vacuum, killing off the plant life that makes it work.

Chemistry-based life support can be exposed to vacuum without being damaged by it. Patching hull damage would allow repressurization and restarting a chemical life support system.

I suppose it could be armored and self-isolating in the event of local depressurization, with its own "inverse life support" system to feed it CO₂ and scrub O₂....