is this a good idea?

Total number of votes: 14

64.3% yes

35.7% no

May 7, 17 / Gem 15, 01 19:08 UTC

Oxygen concept  

I have an idea on a efficient way to get oxygen easily in space. Trees! We don't want to get the massive ones like those of the amazon but we want a okay sized tree. i was thinking like a farm type area? we can have lets say, 20 trees in an area, bring up like 50 saplings to the station when its bulit, and plant them. (hydro planting or planting them in water is probably the most efficient. this can eliminate the whole oxygen system, all we have to do is breath and water the trees to get oxygen. Also not to waste water we can have the whole thing closed off from the rest of the station, we can them find a way to hook up a water collection system that will collect the water from when the trees transpiration( give off water) then re-feed the trees and water them again. this will be a better way to recycle air threw out the station then any man-made air, and has the possibility's of being better for us then other existing styles. Comment your thoughts below.

May 8, 17 / Gem 16, 01 12:20 UTC

It would be relatively easy to create an "oxygen farm" in a space habitat. It would just take time, some effort and attention to set up. It doesn't have to be trees though - for the most part, this area would also double as an aquaponic food production area.

I wouldn't be throwing the CO2 scrubbers out the airlock though. It would be prudent to design a CO2 removal system will multiple layers of redundancy designed to deal with a worst case scenario.

May 8, 17 / Gem 16, 01 14:13 UTC

Trees are already part of my station concept write-up. It is psychologically pleasing to the majority of humanity to see a tree every now and then. Their exclusion would be detrimental to our psychological well-being.

RZK

May 9, 17 / Gem 17, 01 01:41 UTC

it sounds like, for the most part, everyone wants trees in the habitat. but why are people voting against the idea of having trees if you like them in the votes? there maybe a better way with other plants that are better at the oxygen:carbon thing which is better and wont take as long either. It is also not a bad idea to keep the CO2 airlock to make sure in the worst cases. There can be MANY points of failure here and we need to get all of them down as a group,and not just asgardian government officials. If the people work together as a team to concur all possible failure points, it will be much more efficient for the whole asgardian population.

Jul 12, 18 / Leo 25, 02 22:29 UTC

Trees would be a poor choice, far too heavy, far too little oxygen, too much water needed.  A football pitch filled with trees would only give enough oxygen for 50 people at peak output, and only supply oxygen for half the time assuming perfect conditions. This is also assuming they are near to or fully grown.

By the time you have taken into account the tree's full respiratory pattern (they take in oxygen when they are not photosynthesizing) a football pitch full of trees would be lucky to supply a handful of people (5 to 8) with oxygen and if these people were active (10k steps a day) that number would drop further.

The need for redundancy would also be high.  In an artificial environment like this, a 10% to 15% loss of trees would be common place and could happen quickly and result in losing the oxygen for 1 person. I would suggest a safety factor of 10 to 1 for which we, depending on the efficiency, would need 1.5 to 2 football pitches of trees each.

To give you an idea the oxygen the Amazon rain forest produces only supplies oxygen to the life that lives within it; next to no oxygen from the Amazon benefits the rest of the world.

However, all is not lost.  Most of the oxygen on earth comes from plant life in the oceans, namely phytoplankton. Now comes the good bit...

Imagine a large skylight above your grow area which is double glazed. Instead of being empty it is filled with water and phytoplankton.  This mix is continuously circulated and fed nutrients.  The first bonus: a window the size of a football pitch has the potential to provide oxygen to 1000 people. And second: water has a good weight to radiation protect vaule.

Under the window I would have a farm stocked with fast growing, green stem, edible plants.  Fast means more oxygen green stem will photosynthesize as well as the leaves.  A football pitch sized farm could supply 750 to 1000 people with food at full efficiency and a little help from science (being developed at the moment).

If set up correctly, the phytoplankton would meet the oxygen needs of the population and the farm below would supply the safety margin.  Once enough oxygen has been stored as a back up supply, the ongoing excess would be used for rocket fuel etc.

The estimates above come from projects based here on the planet's surface.  We can recreate most of the needs for plants in space. Two things we don't have an easy or clear answer to though: how will the lack of gravity and the exposure to radiation affect the amount of oxygen produced and the quality of the food for consumption?