Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Eden-ISS, Greenhouse In Antarctica
The frozen wastes of Antarctica are no place to expect to harvest fresh vegetables - or are they?
But engineers at the German Aerospace Center (GAC) will soon build a high-tech farm that will allow Antarcticans to harvest produce.
The farm will feature a year-round greenhouse that can grow food for researchers at the Neumayer III polar station on the Ekstrom Ice Shelf.
Called the Eden-ISS, the farm exists inside a climate-controlled shipping container. The greenhouse relies on a technique called vertical farming, in which food grows on trays or hanging modules under LEDs instead of natural sunlight.
Hydroponics, growing plants without soil, has a long history; the first person to write about it was Francis Bacon, in 1627.
But, science fiction authors have written about hydroponics for several generations (or more); plants without soil has a real appeal for growing food in space (as in The Planet Strappers, a 1961 novella by Raymond Z. Gallun).
As soon as I read this article about growing food hydroponically indoors with artificial light in the frozen arctic, I thought about a fantasy novel The Walls of Air (1983), by Barbara Hambly. In the story, some of the last remaining humans have gone to ground in the Keep, a magically created redoubt in the frozen north. They're safe, but how to grow food? Magical LEDs hung over hydroponics? Exactly.
"Indeed." Ingold turned the polyhedron in his fingers for a moment, as if testing its weight or proportions. Then, quite suddenly, it glowed to life in his hands, the soft white radiance of it warming the angles of his wind darkened face. He tossed it to Gil, who caught it ineptly on cringing palms. It was quite cool. "Lamps," he said...
"... With this kind of light we could get the gardens going again. With hydroponics, we could grow car loads of stuff in almost no space...
Via Antarctica is getting a farm that can grow produce even when it's -100 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
Antarctica's nonstop winters make it impossible to grow food outdoors. Fruits and vegetables are instead shipped long distances from overseas, just a few times per year.
"These were what blew us away the most," Gil said, picking up one of the white shapes and tossing it to Ingold. They were everywhere - under the machinery and the pump rooms, and piles in the store rooms, and strung in nets over the tanks in the hydroponic gardens...
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/12/2017)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Food ")
Garçon! A Menu For Artemis II, S'il Vous Plaît
'Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival.' - Jules Verne, 1867.
A Beautiful Visualization Of Compact Food
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...' - Edward Page Mitchell (1879).
Thermostabilized Wet Meat Product (NASA Prototype)
There are no orbiting Michelin stars. Yet.
Edible Meat-Like Fungus Like Barbara Hambly's Slunch?
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...' - Barbara Hambly, 1985.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
