Solar Dawn

Food and the Carbon Cycle

Today I talk about food production and the carbon cycle.

Because of their nature, it’s imperative for the colonies are self sustainable for their basic food supplies. Having to rely on Earth for their food is an unacceptable long-term risk. They still imported luxury food and other items from Earth as required, but these are above that needed to survive.

They produce this food using hydroponics, although they also use soil based farming, too, for specific crops on the moon and Mars.

Humans manufacture proteins from plants use digestion vats to process the plant material into artificial meats and other protein products.

Food is important for more than nutrition. The plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air, reducing the load on any carbon dioxide scrubbers used for atmospheric control. They lock away the carbon which humans eat, using it for our daily energy needs and growth.

Earth is carbon rich, so we have no scarcity to meet our needs. But the moon has no carbon on or within its soil and rocks. Population growth is not possible unless they introduce carbon into the moon’s ecosystem. New animals (humans) will reduce carbon circulation — plant to animal to carbon dioxide, etc. Food production will reduce and animals/humans will starve unless they introduce enough carbon into the cycle to balance the ecosystem as the population grows.

The survivors of Solar Dawn face this problem. Find out how in the story.

And that concludes this blog post. Hope you enjoyed reading it. I discuss gravity and how the people of Solar Dawn solve low gravity issues in my next blog. I explain the propulsion systems used to travel in space, too.

See you then.