Quote:
Originally Posted by nyrath
NASA would love to have a box like that as well. The technical term is "closed ecological life support system" or CELSS.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3g.html#cess
The idea is to reproduce in miniature the situation we have on Earth.
Human urine, faeces, and exhaled carbon dioxide are fed to Spirulina algae. The algae consumes the wastes along with energy from sunlight, and makes more algae along with exhaled oxygen. Humans then inhale the oxygen and eat the algae. Then you repeat the cycle.
As a rough guess, about 12 liters of algae will produce enough food to feed one person, every day. |
Interesting link, thanks. I hadn't given any thought to producing oxygen as well. Wow! And we get food without slaughtering something with a nervous system. That seems both efficient and nice (though I'm not a vegetarian I have sympathies in that direction).