StarshipTitanic wrote:That's probably the biggest problem, and we might see a solution very soon since it was foreshadowed by Baltar during the strategy session in "Water." They have an agroship that's fairly large, but it looks more like a mobile park. Hydroponics shouldn't be too hard to set up in cargo bays of the bulk carriers. You're right about the meat, though.
Hydroponics isn't that hard, 'tis true - my dad had a set-up in our basement when I was a kid, kept it going for years. Very low tech, but very effective - we didn't even have pumps, we had a system that worked with muscle power and gravity, the only power needed was for the supplemental lighting. That's was 30 years ago, today's hydroponics are much easier to use and more sophisticated, and I would expect the technology would be even further advanced for a space-faring race such as we see in BSG.
Yes, you can certainly set things up in trays. You'll need a substrate, but any sort of pebbles will do, and "space rocks" should be readily available. Ordinary basalt, for instance, should be available on various rocky bodies, as would various forms of silica. No problem. (We used to use cheap aquarium gravel, ground limestone, and such). But it's more than just "add water" - you need to add
all the chemicals and nutrients required by the planets to the water that percolates/circulates on the plant roots.
Including trace elements. If the plants are deficient in something, YOU will be deficient down the road. Not a problem for my family - our hydroponics supplemented our diet, we didn't depend on them for everything we ain't. In BSG, what they grow will be all they have. Where are they going to get those? You'll need a steady supply because the plants absorb it and incorporate these chemicals into their parts, so they need a constantly replenished supply - food for the plants, in other words.
No doubt some of it can be refined from human waste, but you can't use raw human waste, it will need to be processed. And given the inefficiency of biological systems, and the need to expand their "biosphere", they will need a source of fresh supply. Soon.
And while hydroponics works very well on leaf, stem, and fruit crops, it's not very good for root vegetables (as a general rule). There probably are techniques to grow root veggees hydroponically, but using dirt might be more efficient for any number of reasons. Certainly, if they have dirt already there's no reason not to use it. It would also give them a use for composting.
But with the hydroponics I used, we had to constantly be on guard for algae, mold, and various other fungi - periodically we had to sterilize the substrate (dad, being a guy, preferred a propane torch for this - I think he just enjoyed playing with fire
) Using hydroponics for a civilization's food supply, even if the power needed to run the lights and such is essentially unlimited, is still going to be labor-intensive. Either you use a lot of piping, tubing, pumps, etc. which will require checking and maintenance, or you use a low-tech system like my family did, which requires human labor. Actually, given the limited space for exercise, utilizing human labor would probably help maintain human health and strength.
BSG also has to be careful about putting all their eggs in one basket - they need
more than one agroship, just in case they lose one. There's probably no reason they could utilize space on ALL ships for at least some hydroponics. People benefit psychologically from having green living stuff around them, and it would also help with oxygen recycling. May not help a
lot but these folks are on the margin anyway, can't hurt, right? I could see trays of, say, strawberries on the BSG - don't require a lot of room, provide lots of healthy stuff like vitamin C and fiber, help recycle the air...
Depending on how much agro capacity they have already, it MIGHT be feasible to keep small stocks of, say, rats and rabbits for meat. Chickens - hens to lay eggs, then to the soup pot when too old for that, keep just a few roosters and eat the rest...
Small livestock. People still need a source of B12, and that's animal-origin. But you won't see cows.
