Space Farms

[venus]

I wonder if anyone here has ever thought about a "space farm"? I have and I think that it could be possible to grow a product in space using Solar energy on a grand scale.

[pluto]

It's a cool idea, I assume you mean for consumption on orbit as the costs of launch/retrieval would far outweigh any benifit from increased solar energy if the products are to be consumed on Earth.

[mswhin63]

That feature they have been testing on the ISS for a while. I think it is a standard experiment.

[bindibadgi]

I've been planning a space farm for myself, but my version is simply a dark sky site out of town! :D

[venus]

Hi, no I mean food for anything even to feed the Earth, I think it will be possible in the future...

[Astro_Bot]

As Hugh said, the cost of launch and retrieval (or even just retrieval once the farm is established) would be, well, astronomical.

Estimated launch/transfer cost-per-pound in 2001 was $5000 to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). If we simply double it to include retrieval costs (it'll do for the sake of argument), and convert pounds to kilograms, then a kg of carrots at Woolies inflated prices of $1.88 looks pretty good compared to $22,000 for orbital carrots. And I haven't included the maintenance costs of the space farm either.

It makes sense that space stations and lunar bases should be as self-sufficient as possible, so we may yet see space farms of some sort, but not for Earthly consumption ... IMHO, of course.

Edit: Actually, even once the farm is established, there'd still be launch costs. Consider the simple mass equation. Even if seed stock is maintained in space, the only source of water, carbon and nitrogen, for a farm in LEO, is Earth. A gram of seed becomes 1kg of carrots - the other 999g has to come from Earth. For a fully-established moon base, every gram of waste would have to be recycled with 100% efficiency to support a farm in an ongoing manner. If you think about it, it makes you appreciate how nice it is to have a fully-working planet that takes care of all of that for us.

[Larryp]

Well argued, RG! It just isn't viable. And I can't see any future technology making it viable. No matter what, you cannot change the amount of energy required for a space launch.:)

[venus]

I could say with the price of water.... and they're selling so called 'fresh air' in cans in China which is ridiculous:)

[Larryp]

Lydia, have you breathed the air in China?-its terrible!:)