> Am 02.05.2016 um 18:35 schrieb Onno Meyer <[email protected]>: > > Thomas replied to me: >> As any artificial garden in a space ship or habitat would be significantly >> too small to be self-regulating, the absence of human would require a >> sophisticated AI, controlling some „manipulators“ of some kind, to keep the >> garden alive over a longer period of time. No idea *how* sophisticated that >> AI needs to be (which TL it should have), in order to be able to control all >> aspects of an eco system and to keep it running, but I would guess that a >> TL10 AI would be the minimum. > > Would it help if it does not look like a natural garden? Lettuce in > hydroponic vats, shrimps in a pond, chickens in a coop, all connected by > tubes and pumps?
I should have put quotes around garden: it does not matter whether your hydroponic „garden" looks like a regular garden or not, it is still a complex eco system. Putting the plants into buckets and connect them with tubes and pumps might simplify that system to some extend, but the complexity remains significantly high. And to be honest, I think it would make it even less self-regulating … Perhaps you remember those ecosphere experiments that failed due to massive problems with the hydroponics in the end. Of course, such a „fungus garden“ as Johannes suggested it might simplify that system further, but for a price. > >> Regarding the O2/CO2: if I remember it right, some plants do „breathe“ O2 >> and exhausts CO2 in some stages (if they are in flower?). Another way to >> produce CO2 would be to burn some organic substances (ethanol?) that has >> been produced previously or was put into the system from the outside. > > Plants consume O2 at night, but they are a net consumer of CO2 and a net > producer of O2. It is important that there is a balance between O2 and CO2 in the atmosphere, not only for the garden. So when plants do consume O2 at night, I assume that they do this due to the absence of light in that period. So it should be possible to control that CO2/O2 balance by switching the light on and off. Extended periods of darkness will of course affect the production of nutritions, but on the other hand, if not so much O2 is needed, there is a good chance that also less food is needed. > > Johannes replied to me: > >> I always envisioned it as generally blob shaped stuff that grows. Algae, >> fungus, vat-meat ect. >> >> "In front" there is a processor, that takes input of a certain range >> (including human waste) and transforms it to nutrient solutions for the >> blobs. > > Perhaps at TL10, but probably not at TL8 or TL7. If I read VE77/78 right, the > rules allow total life support at TL7. Those „processors“ do exist already today; basically it is a box that provides the optimum climate for a selection of bacteria and fungi to degrade the bio mass. -- Thomas Thrien Allemagne Geo 51° 28' 12" N 7° 32' 17" E _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
