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I wish you'd read your own links. The machine that measures volatiles on ISS works against a target list of 20 or so compounds. This is an excellent solution as

I wish you'd read your own links. The machine that measures volatiles on ISS works against a target list of 20 or so compounds. This is an excellent solution as long as your compound of interest is on the list. But when it's not (like when siloxanes turned out to be a big problem for catalyst bed poisoning) then you are entirely dependent on an earth lab. Here's the Journal of Nutrition saying that five-year stable food adequate for space flight doesn't exist: https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/150/9/2242/5870322 https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/150/9/2242/5870322. You should write them with the good news that this is trivially solved. These arguments about "everything is trivial with big enough rockets" remind me a lot of trying to have a discussion with blockchain people. Yes, if you have a warp drive, you can resupply Martian astronauts daily with fresh foods. But maybe let's see it in action before we call it a solved problem.

Robotbeat 5y ago
5 year NON-FROZEN food “adequate for Spaceflight”doesn’t exist. But if you simply bring a big freezer, the problem is almost trivial. Why don’t they normally do that on ISS already? Fundamentally, MASS. Freezers are heavy (mass) and use a lot of power (mass). Fun fact, but SpaceX has launched ice cream in a freezer to ISS before. This isn’t hypothetical. See how many hidden assumptions there are which can be relaxed if mass constraints are relaxed? It’s just assumed freezers aren’t viable because they’re too heavy. There’s stuff like this all over the place. The entire field is built under the assumption that mass is extremely rare. Thanks for highlighting the point that big rocket solves these problems in almost a trivial way. (And what does blockchain have to do with it? Blockchain is simply a worse solution to a database problem.)

Robotbeat 5y ago

5 year NON-FROZEN food “adequate for Spaceflight”doesn’t exist. But if you simply bring a big freezer, the problem is almost trivial. Why don’t they normally do that on ISS already? Fundamentally, MASS. Freezers are heavy (mass) and use a lot of power (mass). Fun fact, but SpaceX has launched ice cream in a freezer to ISS before. This isn’t hypothetical. See how many hidden assumptions there are which can be relaxed if mass constraints are relaxed? It’s just assumed freezers aren’t viable because they’re too heavy. There’s stuff like this all over the place. The entire field is built under the assumption that mass is extremely rare. Thanks for highlighting the point that big rocket solves these problems in almost a trivial way. (And what does blockchain have to do with it? Blockchain is simply a worse solution to a database problem.)