Space Farm Papers, Videos, and Presentations
What is a Space Farm?
The combination of organisms and machinery that recycle human outputs into human inputs for space settlement and future space bases, outposts, stations, and ships. A fully functional space farm provides for complete nutrition in a palatable menu, and will feature crop growing areas, waste management for human wastes and crop wastes, using biology and biochemistry to make a mostly closed mass flow cycle.
Professional (Technical Papers, Engineering Space Farms):
- Electrical Requirements for a Spectrum of Multi-Stage Space Farms : https://nss.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NSS-JOURNAL-Space-Farm-Electrical-Requirements-updated-2023.pdf
- Mass and Volumes for a Spectrum of Multistage Evolving Space Farms: https://nss.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/NSS-JOURNAL-Multistage-Evolving-Space-Farms.pdf
- Economics and Food Provision Options for Luxury Food in an Orbiting Space Hotel: https://www.combat-fishing.com/animationspace/meyer-2016-economics-and-food-provision-options-for-luxury-food-in-an-orbiting-space-hotel.pdf
- (Draft) Nutrient Balance and Nitrogen Cycling In a Multistage Multispecies Space Farm http://www.combat-fishing.com/animationspace/Space2016paperspacefarmNearFINALed.pdf
Presentations (Technical and For Any Level):
- The Basics of Farming in Space
- Key Space Farm Flows for Efficiency: Algae, Plant Crops, And Fish, Space Ecology Workshop 2024
- Space Settlement: Space Communities: The Difference Between Surviving and Living! (NSS ISDC 2024)
- Living In Space: The Role of AI in Space Agriculture (NSS ISDC 2024)
- Bio- Sustainability: Role of Aquaculture in Space
- Moving from Earth to Space: Transferring in use High Density Farming to Space Settlements (ISDC 2022) Related: Combined Plots of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and US Crop Production for Space Setlement
- Space Farming and Bioreactors: Growing Food and Recycling Waste for Sustainable Living in Space (ISDC 2022)
- Keto in Space: Menu Options and Food Processing for Vegan, Kosher, and Carnivore
- Related: Keto in Space: Protein Targeted Space Agriculture and How it Affects Overall Mass Flow
- Going from Poop to Plate: Recycling Wastes into Food in Space
- The Messy Details of Going from Excrement to Entrée (more on Poop to Plate)
- Farming in Space for Future Space Settlements: Not just Glop and Salad!
- Mars as Breadbasket of the Outer Solar System, More on the same topic: https://spacesettlementprogress.com/mars-as-breadbasket-for-the-outer-solar-system/
- Student Level Presentation on Space Farms (ISDC 2023)
- Achieving Earth Independence: How Food Will be Grown? (ISDC 2019)
- Space Agriculture: Current Technology for Future Settlements (ISDC 2021)
- Space Economics Slide deck
- Luxury Crops In Space: Coffee and Truffles on the Moon (Archon 45 Oct 2022)
Video and Audio on Farming in Space
- NSS Space Forum - November 30, 2023 - Is Space Development Best Left to AI-Enhanced Robots?
- Video of my NSS Space Forum Presentation 28 Oct 2021 Farming in Space for Future Space Settlements-Not just Glop and Salad!
- My Presenations at ISDC 2021 see: My Space Ambassador preso (1:49), and on Space Farms 101 (4:16)
- My talk on The Space Show 03 Dec 2019 on space farms and space life support
- my talk at St. Louis Gateway to Space 2018, 01 Sep 2018
Why do you need a space farm?
It is expensive and energy intensive to ship food, oxygen, and water from Earth to space. As a result, in the long term, space settlements need to efficiently recycle biological materials, water, and air to minimize shipping cost. If the settlement is on the moon or Mars, we want to minimize the energy cost to pull matter from the atmosphere (Mars) or regolith (Moon).
Why should we put humans long term into space?
The only way to get to trillions of happy, smiling babies, and relieve pressuree on the environment of Earth is to use the abundance of materials beyond the atmosphere! 'Be fruitful and multiply!' spread humanity accross the universe, and people will be happier!
Want me to speak somewhere?
Books?
Children's Space Books:
- You Will Design Space Engines
- You Will Design Space Habitats
- You Will Farm in Space
- You Will Design Spaceships
Space Farm Text for Professionals and Collegiate level late 2024 (~430 pages)
Space Farms are all about budgets!
Humans (and animals) breathe oxygen, consume water, consume proteins and carbohydrates, and many trace minerals and vitamins. We exhale Carbon Dioxide (CO2), excrete water and salts (and other things). It will always be a bit expensive to ship the inputs up the gravity well to people in settlements or space stations, so astronauts must also be farmers. Plants and algae can convert our wastes and CO2 using light of certain wavelengths and water into food and oxygen. Animals can also convert plants and algae (and in some cases wastes) into protiens. Ships and stations have the tightest budgets...no more inputs other than light (others are very limited at best). Settlements and bases on planets, moons, and other bodies have some inputs, but they might need some kind of transformation. In any case, effecient farming (even on Earth) focuses on reuse, closing the cycle as much as possible. A thing to note about making an ecosystem, it takes lots of work to keep it balanced in a way we want. Near the sun we have ample sunlight (though maybe too much radiation..another topic), and likely ample energy (from solar, nuclear, etc.), so we assume we get these at need. We will then need to balance what humans need to take in. To do this mathematicaly we will need to find out how much each person takes in and lets out, and the same for any candidate species, including energy requirements (like heat, sunlight) and water. Ideally a profile of every species in the mix should be taken.
Other Papers and Presentations on Space Related Topics
Space Cybersecurity:
- Common Aerospace Threats from Coding Practice to Full Exploit: Tracing Threat Angles, AIAA ASCEND 2023 (Presentation) (Paper) (Paper at AIAA)
- Perilous Paths: The Cybersecurity Issues of a Space-Based Cloud Imagery Processing System, AIAA ASCEND 2022 (Paper)(Presentation)(Paper at AIAA)
- Cybersecurity in Space: Now and in the Future, NSS Space Settlement Forum, 11 Jul 2024 (Presentation)
- Cybersecurity Issues in Space, The Space Show broadcast 4230, audio stream