(Henry Spencer) wrote:

:You'd eat freeze-dried or dehydrated food -- quite like what you'd eat on
:a backpacking trip, perhaps packaged a bit differently -- rehydrated with
:recycled water. Uninspired, but reasonably varied and pleasant, menus.
:Occasionally, as a break from routine, a bit of frozen whole food or a
:vegetable or two grown on board. (It *is* worth growing a few plants,
artly as a diversion and partly to add some variety, although they
:wouldn't be a major component of the diet.)

You can get by quite well on a kilo or so of food a day. Troops in
the field do it all the time and they're burning quite a bit of
energy.

We figure it takes on the order of 6+ pounds a day to keep troops in
the field over the short term. The majority of that weight is water.

:You can accept some small water losses, because human metabolism converts
:food to CO2 and water, so any system which isn't doing food recycling
:shows a water excess. So you don't need to recover water from solid
:wastes, and you don't need full recovery from urine.

In addition to this, if you're using fuel cells for some of your
power, you're producing water there as well. You do have to refuel
those cells, but then the mass you're lifting is doing 'double duty'.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney