Food and Life Support Cost

[Timerover51]

In the 1981 Edition of the Little Black Books, i.e. Classic Traveller, the following is said regarding life support costs, on pages 7 to 8.

2. Life Support. Each occupied stateroom on a starship involves an overhead cost of Cr2000 per trip (two weeks) made. Each occupied low passage berth involves an overhead cost of Cr100 per usage. There is a normal limit of one person per stateroom, travelling couples or groups usually taking adjoining staterooms. Military vessels or chartered ships may be used with a double occupancy system (two persons per stateroom), but this requires twice the normal cost.

Now, that refers only to occupied staterooms, with unoccupied staterooms incurring no Life Support cost, which is reasonable. Doubling up doubles the life support cost, with the cost based on one trip or every two weeks.

The Cepheus Engine System Reference Document has the following concerning Life Support costs, on page 109.

Each stateroom on a ship costs Cr2,000 per month, occupied or not. This cost covers supplies for the life support system as well as food and water, although meals at this level will be rather spartan. Each low passage berth costs Cr100 per month.

The Life Support system cost per stateroom is spread out over a month, but occurs whether or not the stateroom is occupied, and the cost includes food and water, which would not be consumed or used if the stateroom is unoccupied.

However, my focus is on the comment that "meals at this level will be rather spartan", something that has also shown up in the main forum. One post has a Steward putting tray meals into a microwave as the best that can be provided. I am not sure why this idea that food is such an enormous part of life support costs that anything beyond base subsistence is impossible developed.

First, it can be shot down by internal evidence in the Traveller rules themselves. In the same 1981 Edition of the LBBs, in Book 3, on page 19, the following appears. The quote is shortened.

Restaurant meals of ordinary quality cost Cr10 per day

Ordinary Level: good food, Cr200 per month;

High Living: excellent food, Cr600 per month

From that, the food portion of Live Support costs can range from 50 Credits a week for good food, 70 Credits a week for restaurant food (which would include the cost of preparation and service), or 150 Credits a week for excellent food. Life Support costs are 2,000 Credits per trip, so at the high end of the scale, the cost is 7.5 Per Cent of the Life Support Cost. Preparation of food and service would be the responsibility of the Steward or stewards, who are paid separately. I fail to see where the food will be spartan or based on a microwave meal.

In addition, those food costs are actually quite high. In September of 1982, the U.S. military was paying $3.53 per day per man for Class A rations, which are those served in the mess hall, and include fresh vegetables and fruit. The calorie content was required to be between 3900 and 4000 calories per day, which is a lot of food, when the military was figuring that men required 3200 calories per day and women required 2200 calories per day. Many comments to the contrary, U.S. military mess hall food is quite good, I will withhold that statement for MREs. The early editions of Traveller assumed that the Imperial Credit was on par with the U.S. Dollar, so $3.53 would be about 3.5 Credits, so food for a 7 day jump would cost 24.5 Credits or 1.225 Per Cent of the Life Support Cost. The water requirements for cooking for one person per day are under a gallon a day, and the water will end up recycled.

Quite simply, good quality food and adequate water are not going to break the bank in Life Support Costs. I will not answer for the culinary skills of the Steward, however. He or she had better make a good pot of coffee though, or out the air lock they go.:coffeegulp::coffeegulp:

 

[kilemall]

Definitely, food is part of life support costs.


I always figured the microwave meals were for mid-passage passengers to cook themselves, or in extreme circumstances they get access to a vending machine or bring aboard their own food with a culture of 'middies' sharing their meals and different tastes.



Either way, whatever costs for the High Passage meals can be subsumed to be partially subsidized by cheap Mid meals out of the Life Support budget.



CT Tarsus has the figures for life support in bulk, handy for expeditions or colonization trips. Relatively low space cost to have that margin for any Travellers. Interesting question is to figure out how far food preservation techniques have come to store fresh food.

 

[Condottiere]

When I calculated the cost, I estimate it should be CrImp 0.02 per packet when bought in six packs. Add water and seasoning, optional chopped vegetables and presausaged meat.

 

[Timerover51]

When I calculated the cost, I estimate it should be CrImp 0.02 per packet when bought in six packs. Add water and seasoning, optional chopped vegetables and presausaged meat.[/QUOTE]

Remind me never to travel on one of your ships unless I bring my own food. I would take Meal, Combat, Individual for 7 days over Ramen Noodles. I might even be willing to eat Meal, Ready-to-Eat, if I have enough A-1, Lea & Perrin Worchestershire, and Tabasco Sauce along with a small bottle of Curry Powder.

 

[Condottiere]

More places, more choices, more often.

In space, you'll always have space with us.

This is generation easyJump.



Cthonia is the primary hub of easyJump transportation megacorporation.

 

[Timerover51]

Joking aside, what do you expect will be the main costs for Life Support for one week?

I think that you would inspect the system, or rather systems, as I would go with redundant systems on something as vital as life support. You might need to replace the CO2 scrubbers, depending on how you do that. If you can run a line out through an empty fuel tank, you could freeze the CO2 out of the air, or vent the scrubbers daily into the empty tank. You might need to replace the Activated Charcoal odor scrubbers, depending on how much they were used. You are going to have to pump out the waste sludge tank, although that would likely be turned into fertilizer by the planet you are getting rid of it on, so that may or may not be a cost to the ship.

Then you are going to have to buy food for passengers and crew, and that food is going to have to be reasonably good or you are going to have to recruit a new crew at every port, or be suppressing a mutiny on every trip. You will need to replace the oxygen consumed during the trip, at a rate of what I assume to be 10 kilograms per person per week. Note, that is quite conservative. Then you have to replace the small quantity of water that was not recovered by the water recycling equipment, or completely replace the water on board, whatever is required by the port. Lastly, there would be things like toilet paper and cleaning supplies to replenish.

The food costs on an Agricultural Planet are going to be less than the cost of buying it on an Industrialized Planet, or a planet without an atmosphere of 5, 6, or 8, and maybe 13 and 14. Depending on your ship and how often you visit Agricultural Planets, you might want to stock up on non-perishable items.

When it comes to feeding and watering the crew and passengers, I am using the U.S. Army manuals for food and water supply, and my experience from being on cruise ships and talking with the supply people on them. I am not picking numbers out of the air or off the ceiling.

If you are going to shave costs on food to the degree some seem to think, then really reduce costs by putting a microwave and a small refrigerator in every stateroom, and tell the passengers and crew that they are on their own for food. Given the 500,000 Credit cost of a stateroom, a microwave and refrigerator represents a minuscule expense. Just be ready of someone decides to bring the local equivalent of Durain fruit onboard. If you do that, then instead of viewing life support cost as an expense, view it as a profit center and reduce your voyage costs accordingly.

 

[Enoki]

Could be worse, the ship's galley could be this place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

 

[Timerover51]

Ah, yes, the Monty Python Spam Skit. And I do like Spam, by the way. Spam would qualify as a non-perishable with a shelf life if properly stored of 36 months if stored at 70 Degrees Fahrenheit. The Meal, Combat, Individual had a shelf life of 5 to 7 years depending on storage temperature.

However, I am trying to find out what forum members think the Life Support costs are spent on.

 

[Winged Cat]

However, I am trying to find out what forum members think the Life Support costs are spent on.

If it's not food, other options include air scrubbing, water purification, waste disposal, minor medical bits (such as anti-rads, if the ship's shielding is insufficient), and possibly even laundry (not that this will be much, but every little bit), just off the top of my head.

 

[kilemall]

One major cost I can think of is biohazard prevention and processing.


Remember, our ships are either landing directly on the planet, or bellying up to an orbital station with direct connects to spaceports below and plenty of opportunity to pick up or drop off threats, from microbes to spores to hitchhiking flora or fauna.



There isn't generally speaking a quarantine period, so those life support systems have to be really robust in effectively being a ship-sized immune system.

 

[whartung]

Ah, yes, the Monty Python Spam Skit. And I do like Spam, by the way. Spam would qualify as a non-perishable with a shelf life if properly stored of 36 months if stored at 70 Degrees Fahrenheit. The Meal, Combat, Individual had a shelf life of 5 to 7 years depending on storage temperature.

However, I am trying to find out what forum members think the Life Support costs are spent on.

This is not (should not be) the routine situation with Starships.

They're not U-Boats on 60 day tours.

They have refrigerators. Heck, if anything, keeping things cold IN SPACE, should not be an issue.

Normally, ships replenish every 10 days. Milk is fresh for 10 days. Meat is fresh for 10 days. Starships have the capability of keeping things not just in cold storage, but even VACUUM storage. Your bread isn't going stale in that environment. And then, of course, there's always frozen foods.

There's no reason to subject anyone to Spam Ramen Delight unless they special order it at booking.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on the profit margins your're operating on.

Food's easy to calculate, since we can compare that with our grocery bills.

The rest of life support is very much a mystery religion.

 

[aramis]

They have refrigerators. Heck, if anything, keeping things cold IN SPACE, should not be an issue.

uh, no...

There are 5 ways to dissapate the atomic energy we call heat...

1. Conduction: transferring some of it to neighboring molecules on a molecular scale
2. Fluid expansion: the energy makes the substance expand
3. Convection: technically a subset of conduction - but where the heat results in fluid motion on a macroscopic scale
4. Blackbody radiation: converting it to light
5. Endothermic chemical reactions: essentially, a variation on conduction as well, but storing it for later

Conduction cannot happen in a true vacuum; the interplanetary medium isn't a true vacuum, but is close enough to one to be inconsequential.

Without conduction to a working fluid and a stable acceleration regime, convection doesn't happen.

Fluid expansion is great - literal conversion to kinetic energy of motion - but requires the item to be in a liquid state. This is one of the ways the JWST is going to be cooled. It's reaction mass limited.

Endothermic reactions are inefficient, and generally serve only a storage medium.

Which leaves Blackbody radiation. It's the only one not impeded at all by vacuum. It's also very slow. And dwarfed by the fusion powerplant's minimum possible energy.

 

[mike wightman]

You mean endothermic not exothermic.

Endothermic reactions store energy in the products, exothermic reactions release energy to the surroundings.

Example - photosynthesis is an endothermic process while respiration is an exothermic process.

 

[aramis]

You mean endothermic not exothermic.

Endothermic reactions store energy in the products, exothermic reactions release energy to the surroundings.

Example - photosynthesis is an endothermic process while respiration is an exothermic process.

I always get those messed uo. Editing.

 

[vegas]

However, I am trying to find out what forum members think the Life Support costs are spent on.

What goes into life support? From the real world:

1) Atmosphere Control Equipment
atmosphere, fire control & airlock control panels
2) Atmosphere Constitution
O2 & N2 Tanks, airlock pumps, overpreasure pumps
3) Vacuum Systems maintenance
4) Atmosphere Revitalization System
constituent analyzer, trace contaminant control, CO2 removal, O2 generator, airlock contaminant removal
5) Temperature & Humidity Control
heating, cooling, ventilation, general air filter, clean room air filter
6) Fire Detection & Suppression
central fire suppression, portable fire extinguishers, smoke detector systems
7) Water Recovery and Management
water processor, water quality analyzer, urine processor, condensate tank, water pump, water plumbing and valves
8) Waste Management
commodes, sewage pumps, sewage lines

Are there some far future life support systems this leaves out? Maybe, don't know.

All those systems have to be inspected and maintained. What is particularly expensive? Probably the atmospheric and water analyzers, the pumps, the filters especially airlock contaminant and clean room. But really its just a lot of different things to maintain and you can't really afford to have any of it fail when you are underway, so it all just adds up.

Then there is food. As you surmise, that is probably pretty low on the list of cost items.

 

[Enoki]

Ah, yes, the Monty Python Spam Skit. And I do like Spam, by the way. Spam would qualify as a non-perishable with a shelf life if properly stored of 36 months if stored at 70 Degrees Fahrenheit. The Meal, Combat, Individual had a shelf life of 5 to 7 years depending on storage temperature.

However, I am trying to find out what forum members think the Life Support costs are spent on.

The cost of life support-- air water, and waste disposal, would actually be pretty minimal. It would be the energy costs for cycling and filtering the air, and processing the waste (the "blue ice cube").

Septic holding would be a minimal cost. You pump the mess overboard in deep space with a velocity to carry out of the system in a few centuries. In the meantime, it's never seen again.

Air would be something that could be generated as a byproduct of making and processing fuel. The cost of energy for these ancillary systems (aka "hotel loads") is tiny compared to running the ship's engines and major systems. Much of it could probably be run on waste heat.

I'd think the majority of the "cost" is really just profit and paying the crew to do keep the passengers happy. A skill 1 steward could serve high quality "airline" food and likely not have issues with all but the most discerning or annoying passengers. Even having a small laundry aboard wouldn't take much energy to run.




Emirates airlines serves some pretty good fare and it's all prepared on the ground. I could see there being companies that have the technology to do this as a general service in a future like Traveller.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Gallery/index.php?n=1285

That's my take on the water and waste system on a Princess Marava far trader.

 

[Spenser TR]

...
That's my take on the water and waste system on a Princess Marava far trader.

Points to you for including a laundry, sir. Though in the far future, i’m wondering they’re doing it with water. Hmmmm.

 

[Timerover51]

Points to you for including a laundry, sir. Though in the far future, i’m wondering they’re doing it with water. Hmmmm.

Water is cheap and pretty much universally available for a minimal cost. Chemicals for cleaning might not be always available. Laundry soap is easy to stockpile and does not spoil. One container of Tide does 52 loads, and does not take up that much room. A year's supply would not take up that much room at all.

 

[Spenser TR]

Fair point. I was thinking maybe some ultrasonic solution, or some other way of removing grime from threads. Not too much thought behind the "hmmmm" beyond wondering if there was a more efficient way with a little technical nudge. But as there are shotguns in space, so might there be soapsuds.