Daniel Holm read a book about the history of interstellar colonization. Imagine being able to read about that subject as history instead of as future history. The author argued that:
to maintain an atmosphere, it is necessary to leave vegatation on most of the surface;
the plants are part of an ecology that also requires many animals and soil bacteria;
it is cheaper to get food from this biosphere than to synthesize it;
therefore, colonists of terrestroid planets are not only miners and manufacturers but also farmers, ranchers and foresters;
they live among and become familiar with trees, fields and hills celebrated by poets and artists;
this live nature is where history happened, ancestors are buried and the present generation will be buried;
"'It is you and you are it.'" (p.586)
Or, as a Londoner said on British TV, "It's us, innit?"
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Well, I can think of some cases where food synthesizing might be useful, such as for preparing rations in bulk for star ships to use for really long journeys. Or as rations for the military, and so on. "Natural" foods can be so much more BULKY, after all.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
Are you including "vat-grown" food — that is, prepared by a cloning-like process that grows only the edible (and tasty) tissues, not bones, gristle, etc. — as synthesized? In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, Cordelia Vorkosigan dislikes having to sometimes eat animal flesh (probably dirt-grown vegetables, too) rather than hygienic vat-grown protein.
The military eats the "bulky" stuff as often as possible; it's better for morale. During field training exercises in the Army, the goal was that breakfast and supper would be prepared on site, not C rations or the later MREs (Meals Rejected by Everyone).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-ration
Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet mentions ration bars which can be eaten on the go ... except that some were made to such poor-quality recipes that no one sane wants to eat them. The generally-agreed worst are called Danaka Yoruk (maker's name, or ingredients?). The hero complains when he's about to face the chance of death in battle and his possibly-last meal is a Danaka Yoruk bar. And someone who's taste-tested captured enemy rations says their only good quality is that they make Danaka Yoruks seem not so bad. Except at least one of the enemy later remarked that Danaka Yoruk bars were so vile that they made her people's rations seem good by comparison.
Kaor, DAVID!
Thanks for this amusing note! Yes, vat grown synthetic rations which actually tastes good is the idea. Again, yes, I can sympathize for soldiers who prefer real food to C rations or MREs!
And I'm sure people in all armies think their opposition's synthetic rations to be worse than their own.
Sean
Both,
And I naively thought that "MRE" meant "Meals Ready to Eat"!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Officially, it does! (Smiles)
I used to correspond with a retired Navy officer and SEAL. He told me that while military people hated MREs, they would eat them with no hesitation in the field. Better than no food, after all!
Sean
"Ration bar" invariably gets shortened to "Rat Bar", with malice aforethought.
Military food is traditionally terrible because it's bought cheap and the imperative is that it have a very long shelf-life.
I've heard MRE described as meaning "Meals Rejected by Ethiopians", there being a famine in Ethiopia when they were introduced.
It can get worse. I was at an exercise at CFB Camp Petawawa in the 1970's, when I was part of the Governor General's Foot Guards, and we got canned food that had actually been to Korea and back with the Commonwealth Brigade in the early 1950's.
We noted that the troops hadn't eaten it then and after one attempt neither would we; when we left we made a bonfire in an old artillery emplacement and threw every can into it, standing around cheering until the stench drove us away.
One of the cans exploded and a 5lb mass of gristle mislabelled "bully beef" hit someone in the stomach, which as a wit then said was as close to consumption as it was going to get.
The chocolate bars issued to American troops during WW2 as part of their "iron rations" were deliberately made non-tasty(*) because the logistics people were afraid that the soldiers would gobble them if they tasted like actual chocolate. Plenty of calories, but it was like chewing wax.
(*) the goal was to make them as palatable as an unseasoned boiled potato.
Much material for comedy.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that was ancient military rations, cans of foods nearly thirty years old! And those chocolate bars were obviously totally unsweetened cacao paste!
Sean
Sean: we in the militia units always got hind tit, as the saying goes; mind you, given Canadian defense budgets, there wasn't much to spare.
We were still using Lee-Enfield Mk. IV rifles, for example, the same ones our grandfathers might have carried in 1944, although they kept promising to give us FN's.
So eventually we were so fed up that we put on our uniforms, made up some official-looking documents on a clipboard, and paid an unofficial visit to the Rideau armory in Ottawa.
We just marched in, presented the documents, put the crated FN's on pallets and took them out to the truck. Then we drove away, singing a Quebec nationalist song one of the guys from "La Belle Provence" had taught us.
It was so embarrassing to the regulars that they never said a word.
(Previous comment deleted due to a misstatement I didn't catch in preview; corrected version follows)
Mr. Stirling:
Regarding the exploding ration can, I had a similar experience during my first years in the Army. Two of us were burning classified trash, and the sergeant found a C-ration can of peanut butter that'd somehow been accidentally brought to the burn site. He tossed it into the trash barrel where we'd empty the ashes once we'd finished burning.
Mistake. There were already ashes in the barrel, they still held some heat, and they heated up more as we burned documents right next to the barrel. About midway through the burning, there was a sort of "FWOOOMP" sound from the trash barrel as the peanut butter can burst open, and ashes sprayed all over us. The sergeant squawked, "You tried to kill me, Birr; you tried to kill me!" Lucky for me, he was just joking.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and DAVID!
Only just found these comments! Somewhat grimly amusing, these struggles you had with with ridiculously antiquated weapons and food rations! And I have heard stories about gov't surplus peanut butter as well.
Sean
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