I'm liking the Biosphere from MgT2. And I'm looking to adapt it to MT and then incorporate it into my space habitats.

I'll probably write this up for Jeff, if it goes anywhere useful, and will invite comments.

1 ton, 1 power per ton, @ MCr 0.2 per ton offsets the life support for 2 people is MgT2

Tons to kl is fine, power to Mw might be a problem, the money isn’t, but anyone want to guess at its weight

in tons per 13.5kl (1 ton) volume?

Also lots of this is going to be taken up with the Basic  Environment, Basic Life Support, and Extended life support.

If we calculate these for 13.5kl we get

Power = 0.001*13.5 + 0.001*13.5 + 0.002*13.5 = 0.004*13.5 = 0.054 Mw

weight = 0.005*13.5 + 0.005*13.5 + 0.003*13.5 = 0.013*13.5 = 0.1755 tons

Price = 10*13.5 + 300*13.5 + 200*13.5 = 510*13.5 = Cr 6,885

Basic Endowment is heat and lights

Basic Life Support is sealed environment, air and water

Extended Life support is food and waste recycling

All of which are needed for a biosphere but more of them are. So specialist Lights for plant growth, to filter waste and turn it into oxygen

and sucking the CO2 from the atmosphere, specialist tanks for fish and sea food, specialist heaters and filters.

So even if we quintuple the above we get:

0.27 Mw

0.8775 tons (weight)

Cr 34,425

Which is nowhere near the MgT2 Biosphere. You would have to buy the plants and the fish etc and they are likely to be

specialist (of course).

Also Biosphere is on top of MgT2 basic ship systems which is 20% of the hull volume.

Also life support costs in MgT2 are by ton of various things; bunks, brigs, luxury staterooms, cabin space while life

support in MT is by number of people, which makes more sense because even if you have a luxury stateroom if there is

no one using it then you won't eat any food or use any air. Although having said that the assumption must be that in

MgT2 it must be per ton per person (otherwise why would you have a Biosphere?)

In MT life support consumable cost (food/toiletries/air/filters etc.) are Cr 1000 per person per week

A biosphere does two people for Cr 200,000 for ever, so it would pay for itself in 100 weeks or 1.92 life support years.

Presumably it doesn't get any smaller, which would mean if you only have 1 person you would get an overabundance of food, although

with only one person producing CO2 the plants would grow less, presumably self-regulating?

Anyway.

Beam laser          MT = 250 MW

                                MgT2= 4+1(for the turret)=5

So 250/5 = 50 would suggest that 1 power in MgT2 High Guard is 50 Mw in MT

MgT2 Fusion TL12 powerpalnt power per ton = 15

cost = Mcr 1

TL 12 1 ton (13.5kl) of power plant produces 13.5*2*2 = 54 Mw power

TL 12 1.037 tons (14 kl) of power plant produces 14*2*3 = 84 Mw power at a cost of Cr 14*200000 = MCr 2.8

So for the comparison of outputs MgT2 powerplants are much more efficent. If we go with 50 to 1

then an MgT2 power plant produces 15*50 = 750 Mw as opposed to the 84 Mw that a slightly over a ton

powerplant in MT produces.

Missile Turret in MgT2 takes 1 power, while a Missile tube in MT uses 1 Mw

That’s not much help really.

Where else can we look?

Striker gives us the filed kitchen:

Field Kitchen: Field kitchens are of modular design and will operate while loaded

on any vehicle of the appropriate cargo capacity. Weight: 1 ton. Volume: 10 m3.

Price: Cr 1000.

But that doesn't really help kitchens are for cooking not growing.

Ok so if we look at the average human.

How much of the life support is:

Oxygen                                 600 litters per day.

CO2 scrubbers                   600 litres to scrub

Food                                      2.5 kg a day or Cr 4 per day (1990 prices)

Water                                   150 litres usage (although lots of this can be reclaimed) it costs about Cr 0.25

so to produce enough food and oxygen and scrub enough CO2 it needs to produce 2.5*7*2 = 35kg of food in an week, and convert

600*7*2=8,400 litres of CO2 into O2

If we look at Nasa's BioHome is was about 142.5 m3 or 142.5 kl and it was generous in space so call is 135kl or 10 tons

That was both living quarters and plant production and equipment

Slightly less than 1/2 was the plants etc. so if we split it 60/40 we get the plant bit as 4 tons.

If we improve on the technology (better ways of faster growing plants etc) we can say 1/2 that so 2 tons per person or 27kl and add to

that what we now know about things like vertical farms which can increase yields by orders of magnitude we can probably half

that again to a ton or even 1/2 ton per person which matches MgT2.

Lots of the production of food crops and the waste filtering can be automated.

I'm getting drawn to the multiply life-support by 5 as above. I think it's a bit heavy, so I'd probably 1/2 the weight,

and double the price.

Which would get to:

Biosphere, enough for the life-support requirements for 2 people:

Power:                 0.27 Mw

Volume:               13.5 kl

Weight:                 0.45 tons

Price:                     Cr 70,000

Comments welcome.

Best regards,

Ewan

--

For the fallen in the cause of the free:

"When I go home I will tell of them and say,

For our tomorrow, They gave their today."

 My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license