Humans living peacefully in space
HYDROPONICS IN SCIENCE FICTION WRITING AND BEYOND
Humans living in space, outside the protective cocoon provided by Earth’s atmosphere, the sustenance of Earth’s organic compounds and the thirst quenching, life-catalyst, referred to as the universal solvent by many, water by most, the answer is a resounding absolutely! This is a scary thought for humans who routinely rely on the knowledge and work of others to provide them with the necessities of life. Most of us would have trouble obtaining the food, water, and shelter necessary for human life to survive on planet Earth if we had to get up each day and venture out into the wilderness to obtain them. What no grocery store your thinking, no electrical power provided by the infrastructure, no shelters to buy or rent, for the first human colonists that move to the moon this will be reality.
How will humans survive in the cold of deep space without everything mother Earth provides for life? We won’t, we will in fact, at least for the first phase of human space exploration, be required to take mother Earth’s bounty with us if human life to survive the coming exodus. The materials required will be obtained from sources outside Earth’s vicinity eventually, but until then we will take the elements of Earth based life with us into space.
Eventually water will have to be located outside of Earth’s locality or manufactured from other materials, food will be grown with the help of hydroponics, most likely in huge tanks, and solar heat will be collected and distributed as needed for energy needs.
Hydroponics as a discipline was first used for food production near the end of the nineteenth century. It remained relatively obscure until reappearing in various science fiction stores in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Hydroponics first appeared in outer space in John Brunner’s 1972 novel ‘The Sheep Look Up’. Today hydroponics is used primarily by hobbyists, organic farmers, and marijuana growers, although it is used by researchers living in the Antarctic to grow ‘killer tomatoes’ and other fresh vegetables during the impenetrable Antarctic winter.
Advances in hydroponics technology will certainly increase yields in the future; we will devise additional methods of growing nutrients other than hydroponics, but for now hydroponics appears to be the best choice for hungry humans wandering beyond the womb of the human race, the planet Earth.
By “Warren Hayashi”
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