Hydroponics in Ragamuffin

Jim Vassilakos (jimv@uia.net)

On February 27, 2001 NASA Quest hosted an online chat featuring two experts from Johnson Space Center's BIO-Plex
(Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Systems Test Complex) Project. The full text of the chat can be found at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/farming/archives/chat022701.html, however, here's one salient quote to consider: "The BIO-
Plex is intended to model a planetary habitat, specifically the life support systems that will be needed to keep people alive.
It consists of 5 chambers (15' in diameter, 37' long) connected to a central tunnel (12' diameter, 66'long). It will contain
equipment to keep 4 people alive continuously (air, water, food, solid waste management). The current plan has our first
test of 120 days occurring in 2005."

5 × (π × 7.52 × 37) + (π × 62 × 66) ≈ 40000 cubic feet, or around 10000 cubic feet per person.

That's an awful lot of cubic feet. It makes one wonder how this figure compares to the crewspace and life-support
requirements mentioned in the rules of various popular SF-RPGs.

Traveller: Although hailed by its fans as a hard-SF RPG, there is little mention of life support in Traveller. However, there
are space requirements for housing a starship's crew. The typical double-occupancy stateroom requires two displacement
tons plus an additional two tons for common areas (corridors, the galley, and recreation areas). This apparently includes life
support equipment, although the Classic rules provide only a cursory mention of such.
Now, a displacement ton is roughly equal to 14 cubic meters, and there are 3.28 feet per meters, 35 cubic feet per cubic
meter, so each crewperson in Traveller gets one ton, 490 cubic feet, of personal living space plus the same amount for
common area space. Just for purposes of visualization, imagine a cube which measures 8 feet to a side. That cube would
have a volume of 512 cubic feet. In terms of personal space in Traveller, a crewmember gets just a tad less.

GURPS: Life support is defined as "heat, light, and oxygen" in GURPS-Space. Full (indefinite) life support requires 4
cubic yards plus half a cubic yard per person. So, for a four person crew, the breakdown would be 6 cubic yards, or 162
cubic feet, which comes out to around 40 cubic feet per person. Now clearly, being able to add crew for only half a cubic
yard (13.5 cubic feet) per person is clearly a nice economy of scale.
As for living space, GURPS-Space requires 25 cubic yards per crewmember. If we assume the 50%-50% breakdown used
in Traveller, that would leave 12.5 cubic yards for a personal space, or 337.5 cubic feet. Even after you add space for life
support, that's still less space than required in Traveller.

Of course, these are not fair comparisons, because NASA is talking about hydroponics, which includes food and solid
waste management, whereas the life-support rules in both Traveller and GURPS seem to be talking about a more
rudimentary level of life support, sort of a limited support where the ship can dump it's solid waste into space, and it can
pick up food at most ports of call. This is a fine assumption, but it isn't necessarily the case in the Ragamuffin setting (see
A&E #298 & #310) where voyages may be long, and humanity is scattered into isolated pockets. In such a situation, long-
term life support is likely to be a major problem, and hydroponics seems to be the most likely solution, whether it be aboard
long-range starships or aboard small base-camps hidden away in various asteroid fields.
Nonetheless, 10000 cubic feet per person is still quite a lot. I'd assume that with economies of scale and technological
improvements (most notably in the area of temperature control), they might be able to drop this down to 5000 or perhaps
even 2500 cubic feet per person, but that's still a lot of space, particularly aboard a starship where space is at a premium.
Furthermore, at a certain point the crew is no longer going to be eating hydroponically grown fruit and veggies. They'll be
eating fast-growing algae sprinkled with powered vitamins, because due to the limited space available, that'll be their only
choice. Imagine, for the third month in a row, eating algae gruel made from recycled sewage, and you begin to get an idea
of what shipboard life might be like in the Ragamuffin setting (at least aboard Solian Starships). When crews are deep in
space and far removed from human colonies, either they need to have lots of storage space for supplies, or they need to be
self-sufficient. Furthermore, if the ship's main engine gets crippled by an errant space pebble, the crew could end up
stranded for years. Either they have hydroponics, or they get to eat each other until the rescue ship arrives with the
appropriate spare part.

Further Reading:

Life Into Space: An Overview of Space Life Science Research in two downloadable pdf volumes or via html.
http://lifesci.arc.nasa.gov/lis_home

Advanced Life Support: Research Page from NASA's Johnson Space Center w/ downloadable documents.
http://advlifesupport.jsc.nasa.gov
 Food in the Hells
While running the "Jinx in Hell" Campaign (see A&E 318-321, 335), I've run into trouble regarding the general lack of
information in Planescape regarding what devils eat, or, for that matter, what sort of food grows in the Hells. The
Planescape Monstrous Compendium #2 has entries for Ironmaw and Razorvine, indicating that these two plants are fairly
common to the lower planes. Likewise, the book mentions Abrians which are essentially planar ostriches, a good source for
low-intelligence protein. But what of the many forms of fruit, vegetables, grain, and esoteric forms of plant life which
ought to exist in the Hells and the other lower planes? Precious little is said on this topic. What follows are some ideas for
two common foodstuffs of Hell:

Living Flesh: When souls of the dead first enter Hell, they come crashing to the surface of Avernus as little more than
sentient organs. These may be fired into a hardened clay brick for construction purposes, or they may be harvested as
foodstuff. If eaten, the soul simply returns to Avernus and is reborn, once again, as living flesh. Such flesh is high in
protein and often imparts strange dreams (memories of the soul's prime-material incarnation) to anyone who has eaten it.
The only problem is that it squirms a great deal when being bitten and chewed and is often somewhat unsettling to the
untrained stomach, at least during the first hour of digestion. Nearly all petitioners to the hells start out as living flesh
before promotion to larva and then lemure status. Memories of such incarnations are, thankfully, hazy at best.

Bad Apples: Apple seeds which are planted into living flesh may draw their sustinence from the stuff, eventually
consuming the souls contained therein. The apples which grow from such a tree each contain the soul of a petitioner,
albeit in plant form. They are generally poisonous except to devils, demons and their ilk (which are, of course, immune to
poison). They retain the color and taste of their original breed, but each apple takes on the likeness (i.e. the facial features)
of the prime-material incarnation of the soul it contains. Like living flesh, they are known to impart strange dreams, but
they are much easier to stomach. Their only other oddity is that their flesh and juice is usually blood red.

Food Article Index

I've mentioned some time ago that I'm slowly working on an RPG-magazine index program. As it so happens, this index
also includes a few issues of various popular science magazines. Just out of curiosity, I did a search on the word "food", and
the program spit out the following results:

Arduin Grimoire: Drunk & Disorderly: NS-2275: food of the immortals

Ard-004: bill of fare for dirty dorg's
(fantasy menu, restaurant, fine food)
Ard-006: food & drink (alcoholic
beverages) of arduin
Ard-008: culinary wonders (food)
Challenge:
Ch-033: food-packs for twilight 2000
Ch-065: it plays with its food (dark
conspiracy scenario)
Dru-028: recipes: pasta fagioli, bagna (telomerase, immortality/longevity,
cauda (italian food) (nc) growing skin)
Gamer: Omni:
Gam-006: reviews: fast food franchise Om-05/85: mind nutrients: food/diet and
(boardgame) the brain/neurotransmitters
Game Oracle: Polyhedron:
GO-007: you are what you eat Po-075: living city: eye of newt and food
(food/edibles in science fiction rpgs, sfrpg) for familiars

Codex: Games Unplugged: Pyramid:

Cod-v1n3: imtherian cheeses: guide for the GU-002: food lovers guide to gencon 2000 Py-022: munchies for gamers (recipies,
temple cook (food, edibles) (restaurant reviews) easy food ideas)

Discover: Harnlore: Rifter:

Di-10/00: biocrops (genetic manipulation, HL-006: innkeeper (all about taverns and Rif-9.5: food manipulation powers &
food of the future) the innkeepers guild, w/ food list) heroes/villains (heroes unlimited, humor)

Dragon: Jour. Travellers Aid Society: Star Trek Magazine:

Dr-0A4 (Annual #4): bare necessities
(magic items for water, food, and shelter)
Dr-271: return to falcon's bazaar (food of
greyhawk)
Dr-277: dragonwing stew (food in the
realms, volo)
Dr-282: monsters (humor, snack foods):
pizza slice, gummi bear, lurking dorito,
JT-005: foodrunner (scenario) STM-007: replicators (food dispensers of
the 24th century)
NorthCoast RolePlaying:
NC-002: common foods, drinks, and Vortext:
snacks in traveller Vor-005: review: fast food franchise
(boardgame)
New Scientist:
NS-2275: eat beans (idea for food taxation White Dwarf:
based on resource use & pollution) WD-005: food & water on the starship
warden (metamorphosis alpha,
plants/flora)