Organic Technology vs. Computerized Automation (split)

[bean (OP)]

No apologies needed for me specifically.  I have a fire-retardant internet suit.

So, how exactly would steam power work in zero G?  The combustion of the fuel would be the same and heat created is no different.  Without the stratifying effect of warmer air rising over cooler air could it even function?  An ICE literally wouldn't work without a radical redesign in the fuel delivery system but a steam turbine might.

Where did that come from?  It's not a problem, just surprising.
That said, I don’t see any problem with steam in space.  A turbine would probably be used instead of a reciprocating engine, and I believe that's an option for space nuclear power.
Edit:
Something went wrong when I tried to post this.
That said, you're probably right about the suitability of an ICE for long-term operation in zero-G.  At the same time, a normal steam engine would have similar problems.  I don't believe that either has problems that render it impossible to design one for zero-G use.
At the same time, I can think of no reason to put either one in space.  While it might be argued that the SSMEs contain a steam turbine as part of the turbopump, it feeds off of the fuel.  For general use, ICEs would require oxygen, and the only option for steam that is a net energy gain and doesn't require oxygen is solar-thermal.  It's not a bad idea, but solar panels work better.

[Lav]

Just a general observation: Technology allows us to change roles quickly.

As a human, we can't breathe underwater, fly, go in space, or sustain any kind of physical trauma. With technology, that all changes. Further, it changes on a temporary basis. We can grab SCUBA gear, or get in an airplane, or fly a space shuttle, or wear armor. A living organism is effectively static while it is alive; it can't change roles. Also, individually, each piece of technology can do the job better than an organism. Individually we can make submarines that outperform sperm whales, power plants that produce ridiculous amounts of energy, etc. Of course, you can't expect submarines to breed or colonize a planet, but at least their occupants can get out of the submarine and get onto an airplane or a spaceship and do the colonizing themselves, in their own lifetimes.

I'm a biologist and my own personal area of fascination is closed ecological life support systems (CELSS). I've done a lot of reading of NASA's research and the Biosphere experiments. I happen to think greenhouses are the way to go for big long missions. There's something to be said, though, for the simplicity and complete reliability of mechanical life support and I doubt any ship life support will run solely on plant/algae/fish with no mechanical backup. Small ships will most likely always be mechanical. If your living life support system gets out of balance, you're in trouble.

TallTroll, a quick side note: popular definition of the term 'organic' is quite different from the various scientific definitions. In general, we should clarify if our definitions vary from the popular definitions, especially if you specialize in a field. Serious problems have arisen in the past when scientifically trained people assume the audience uses words in the same way as the speaker. I understand and sympathize with the viewpoint of organic chemistry, of course, and have been through dozens of discussions about this in the real world (organic pesticide, organic food, organic medicine, organic this organic that). This is a conclusion I've drawn after a lot of hard experience. Almost nobody engages in a real-world, non-professional discussion involving the word 'organic' with 'carbon-containing' in mind.

[xeryon]

Well, in theory if you can grow plants in space you could produce fuel for a combustion engine.  Not practical, but possible.  Where I was going with this is that they both operate on organic fuels.  Stuff that doesn't need sophisticated facilities to produce. Probably more of a NA concept but a greenhouse could propel itself given there really isn't anything to slow down your movement once you get started.

Edit: that's hilarious that I was sniped on my idea while I thought up a response.

To someones defense: when I hear and use the term organic in daily conversation, as long as we are not talking about food, my assumption is a product that utilizes primarily carbon based materials that can be easily broken down by natural entities.  This would included manufactured hard goods as well as living materials designed for specific industrial/commercial purposes.

[Lav]

... when I hear and use the term organic in daily conversation, as long as we are not talking about food, my assumption is a product that utilizes primarily carbon based materials that can be easily broken down by natural entities.  This would included manufactured hard goods as well as living materials designed for specific industrial/commercial purposes.

Yea, I reread my last paragraph, came off as rather critical. Didn't intend it that way. I was thinking mostly of this chart that Bad Astronomy links to:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/19/scientists-are-from-mars-the-public-is-from-earth/

[bean (OP)]

Well, in theory if you can grow plants in space you could produce fuel for a combustion engine.  Not practical, but possible.  Where I was going with this is that they both operate on organic fuels.  Stuff that doesn't need sophisticated facilities to produce. Probably more of a NA concept but a greenhouse could propel itself given there really isn't anything to slow down your movement once you get started.

Edit: that's hilarious that I was sniped on my idea while I thought up a response.

To someones defense: when I hear and use the term organic in daily conversation, as long as we are not talking about food, my assumption is a product that utilizes primarily carbon based materials that can be easily broken down by natural entities.  This would included manufactured hard goods as well as living materials designed for specific industrial/commercial purposes.

The problem with this plan is that it's a really inefficient form of solar power.  It would work, but it would be inefficient in the extreme.
Instead of taking solar through panels directly to the electric thruster, it would take solar (I assume) to plants to fuel to the engine to a generator to the thrusters.  If you use artificial lights to grow the plants, it's even worse.
Generally, elaborate plans like this run into these sorts of problems.  Rube Goldberg works great on TV.  In real life, not so much.

And I am (and was) aware of the chemical definition of the word organic.  It's just that I couldn't think of another word that conveyed what I had in mind without being exceedingly long and unweildly.  Also, it was the word used in the original article I linked to. 

[xeryon]

It is extremely inefficient but the system may have benefits.  Your fuel supply doubles as your life support systems and the combustion engines would create the fuel needed by the plants to grow.  Kind of a miniature biosphere life-support fuel supply system.

Dude, I am grasping.  I am at the limits of my learned facts and skills and into the realm of educated guesses based on my perception of logical theories.

To me the end goal of any biotech system is not efficiency, but longevity.  The ability for systems to replicate and repair is the best feature.  This would enable extremely long duration missions.  In the realm of Aurora where you would not be traveling outside of a solar systems limits and remain near enough to the star to produce enough light to fuel your greenhouse you could run a base near indefinitely.

[Lav]

I doubt using plants as fuel will be a good idea. Ethanol fuel for spaceships? Still need energy input from somewhere. Nuclear is a better source. Energy input would come either from the sun if you're close, or from nuclear powered lighting - it's not really a perpetual energy machine, just a perpetual fresh-air 'machine'.

The advantage of closed ecological life support systems is that you preserve your original stores of oxygen etc. With mechanical life support, you will eventually run short on either oxygen or rebreathing agent such as lime. However, the break-even point is pretty high. You need infrastructure for greenhouses. The upside is you get fresh water, food and fish, possibly even tiny amounts of meat on ships with greenhouses. Also, green space for mental health. For space stations or huge ships, it will be an option - especially if you are close enough to a star.

[bean (OP)]

It is extremely inefficient but the system may have benefits.  Your fuel supply doubles as your life support systems and the combustion engines would create the fuel needed by the plants to grow.  Kind of a miniature biosphere life-support fuel supply system.

That's how a normal closed-cycle life support system works.  All you're doing is increasing the size of the system for no particular benefit.

Dude, I am grasping.  I am at the limits of my learned facts and skills and into the realm of educated guesses based on my perception of logical theories.

Yes, you are grasping.  At least you're willing to admit it.   
And really, that's fine.  It's how you learn more facts.

To me the end goal of any biotech system is not efficiency, but longevity.  The ability for systems to replicate and repair is the best feature.  This would enable extremely long duration missions.  In the realm of Aurora where you would not be traveling outside of a solar systems limits and remain near enough to the star to produce enough light to fuel your greenhouse you could run a base near indefinitely.

The problem is that, given that this is a spaceship, it's going to fail at about the same point anyway.  Solar panels are quite reliable, and all the other bits are the same in both systems.  Even if those don't break, the real limiting factor is going to be reaction mass.  And given that this system is stuck near the sun (probably inside the asteroid belt), there just aren't enough places to go to be of any value.  Canned life support is a better choice for those sorts of missions, much less plant-electric.

Lav:
That's pretty much my read on the situation.  If you haven't already seen it, check out http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/lifesupport.php.
The break-even point is a matter of debate, and will doubtlessly change as more research is done.  I wonder, is Aurora based closed-cycle systems?

[Erik L]

In Astra Imperia I put in "Organic Armor" which merely self-repairs. It is not grown or anything like that. I used the term organic to differentiate it from the normal armor types.

[sloanjh]

That said, I don’t see any problem with steam in space.

Piiiiiggggss Iiiiinnnnnnn Spaaaaaaaaaccccccceeeeeeeee!!!

[Mel Vixen]

I doubt using plants as fuel will be a good idea. Ethanol fuel for spaceships? Still need energy input from somewhere. Nuclear is a better source. Energy input would come either from the sun if you're close, or from nuclear powered lighting - it's not really a perpetual energy machine, just a perpetual fresh-air 'machine'.

Errr chalk me up as stupid but plant matter as fuel? Wouldnt running out of fuel mean hat you are essentially left without life support food etc? After all you need a reaction mass thus that wonderful carbo-hydrates gets thrown into space.


I dont see a problem with steam in space. A turbine and good heater would be needed but after that it would work i say, still some serious engineering here.

Solar-thermics being less efficient the Photovoltaics? Depends on the task, if you need heat for some kind of process its a good choice (like certain forms of cracking Co2 into carbon and Oxygen). If you include a Sterling engine you may not get the same energy as from PV but you can include some kind of backup energy source like Nuclear-decay batteries. The Nasa is actualy developing some "advanced" Stirling-generators. Iirc Solar-thermics (vacuum tubes) are ~70% efficient and depending on design Stirlings 15-30% which would sum up to a range of 10 to 21% add a 80% efficient generator and we get to 8 to 16%?  Althought you could heat the sterling via mirrors which gets you 12 - 24%.

Err back to organics.

The problem with Living organics is that to enable stuff like self repair you need quite a couple of systems like circulatory systems that pump fluids carbon and stuff. The middle ground to that and sheets of metal are self-repairing plastics/ceramics, thus materials that either store pockets of theyr base material (say bubbles of UV cured resins) or depend on other much more complicated reactions like this selfhealing polymer described by the American Chemical Society. The self-healing is more limited then in true biological systems since the repairable damage limited in some way or another.

One problem i see with fully organic living systems is energy storage. Sugars/starch (/etc.) isnt much of an option since one would have to have tons of oxygen to use that power, carry around solvents etc. - it would be atleast a economic headache. I guess one could use some kind battery like system but i am not aware of any organism that does that unless you count potatos with electrodes

[bean (OP)]

Errr chalk me up as stupid but plant matter as fuel? Wouldnt running out of fuel mean hat you are essentially left without life support food etc? After all you need a reaction mass thus that wonderful carbo-hydrates gets thrown into space.

You're confusing fuel and remass (which isn't all that uncommon).  Yes, you could use the ethanol iteself as remass.  The problem there is that you also need the oxygen, and we were discussing internal combustion engines.  The remass is whatever gets used for the electric thruster, probably one of the noble gasses.  The biomass is fuel for the engine, which provides the energy.  In modern chemical rockets, they are the same thing.

Solar-thermics being less efficient the Photovoltaics? Depends on the task, if you need heat for some kind of process its a good choice (like certain forms of cracking Co2 into carbon and Oxygen). If you include a Sterling engine you may not get the same energy as from PV but you can include some kind of backup energy source like Nuclear-decay batteries. The Nasa is actualy developing some "advanced" Stirling-generators. Iirc Solar-thermics (vacuum tubes) are ~70% efficient and depending on design Stirlings 15-30% which would sum up to a range of 10 to 21% add a 80% efficient generator and we get to 8 to 16%?  Althought you could heat the sterling via mirrors which gets you 12 - 24%.

Again, I was discussing converting light into electricity.  The problem with solar-thermal is that you need a cold-side radiator, which I think is going to be almost as big as the mirror.  As for RTGs, those are not secondary power sources.  Given that they can't be turned off, why use solar?

[jseah]

The remass is whatever gets used for the electric thruster, probably one of the noble gasses. 

I would argue using water for the reaction mass would be logistically better. 

Yes, I know it doesn't work as well since it ties up more energy in intermolecular bonds instead of speed (and hence efficiency is lower)  But water ice is semi-plentiful in systems.  With a high density energy source like AM or nuclear fusion, a fleet tanker could pack ice mining equipment and refuel reaction mass from asteroids. 
If you have DD fusion or even HH fusion, water ice contains your fusion power source as well!

If you are feeling adventurous, hydrogen might be an option as well.  Scoop from gas giants sounds like a recipe for Fun though.  Swing into a massive gravity well to scoop hydrogen from a gas giant while relying on your speed to get back out (and scooping will put drag on your ship... ^^)

[chrislocke2000]

They are catching up!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17855194

On the whole organics thing I do like Peter Hamilton's take on it in his Night's Dawn(?) trilogy. Seeding a ship and leaving it grow itself in the atmosphere of a gas giant might take time but not needed any infrastructure and being able to grow 100s at once isn't a bad trade off in my books. I seem to recollect that the ships then had weapon pods etc just bolted onto them which solves alot of the whole organic solution for everything issue.

[Mel Vixen]

[...]
You're confusing fuel and remass (which isn't all that uncommon).  Yes, you could use the ethanol iteself as remass.  The problem there is that you also need the oxygen, and we were discussing internal combustion engines.  The remass is whatever gets used for the electric thruster, probably one of the noble gasses.  The biomass is fuel for the engine, which provides the energy.  In modern chemical rockets, they are the same thing.

Ah ok i see where i made a mistake. I dont see why one should use an ICE, Alcohol fuelcells (heck there are Diesel fuelcells that are 60% efficient) seem to be a better choice. 

Again, I was discussing converting light into electricity.  The problem with solar-thermal is that you need a cold-side radiator, which I think is going to be almost as big as the mirror.  As for RTGs, those are not secondary power sources.  Given that they can't be turned off, why use solar?

I wouldnt be surprised if your Photovoltaics have to be cooled as well somehow althought they could work as theyr own radiator. Only around 20% of the sunlight gets turned into Electric power so you have to deal with 80% that remain. Part of it will be reflected but another will just heat your pannels up.

The RTGs where just an example for backup power. You could also burn fuel (like the ethanol from your Horse / ICE discussion) as well as disolve Ammonia or caustic soda in water or whatever you like. Heck you could use the heat from composting your biodegradable waste. I agree thought that RTGs are more suited for Main Powersuply - they were a rather bad example.

Depending on how far i am from the star i would anyway switch from one form of power generation to another. For once i would use Solarwind power if i am in the inner parts of the system since catching electrons (and ions) form the solar wind needs only a antenna and some tinfoil. On the outskirts thought i would prefer to have trusty RTG or Traveling wave reactor althought i am normaly against fission reactors.