Meat ranching on the Moon

[mlorrey]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060327.MEAT27/TPStory/?query=meat+starter+cells&amp;pageRequested=all&amp;print=true<br /><br />Will consumers have a beef with test-tube meat?<br />ANNE MCILROY <br /><br />SCIENCE REPORTER<br /><br />Scientists can grow frog and mouse meat in the lab, and are now working on pork, beef and chicken. Their goal is to develop an industrial version of the process in five years.<br /><br />If they succeed, cultured or in vitro meat could be coming to a supermarket near you. Consumers could buy hamburger patties and chicken nuggets made from meat cultivated from muscle cells in a giant incubator rather than cut from a farm animal.<br /><br />Home chefs could make meat in a countertop device the size of a coffee maker. Before bed, throw starter cells and a package of growth medium into the meat maker and wake up to harvest fresh sausage for breakfast.<br /><br />You could feel good about eating a healthy breakfast; the meat would have the fat profile of salmon, not pork. One day, the truly adventurous may be able to grow ostrich, wild boar, or other game.<br /><br />First, however, meat researchers in the United States and the Netherlands must find a way to replicate on an industrial scale a process that works in a petri dish. The price will have to be right. It is hard to imagine consumers paying more for an in vitro burger than they pay for a regular one.<br /><br />They will also have to overcome the "ick" reaction. Many find the idea of cultured meat unappealing or downright disgusting. How would it taste?<br /><br />"I don't find it hard to believe that in vitro meat can be produced that tastes like hamburger or chicken nuggets," said Jason Matheny, one of the founders of Vive Research, a U.S. form working on growing meat for the global market. Most of the fl

 

[mlorrey]

Here is the solution to agriculture for lunar settlers: the classic SF vision of vat-grown meat. No need for farms, or inefficient photosynthesis: some starter cells, bioreactor created organic chemicals, and energy and boom: steaks with all the nutrition a moon miner needs.

 

[spacefire]

since I am against killing animals, I am all for test tube meat. Plus, the risk of disease is reduced. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[Swampcat]

I've got no problem with this. It sounds like an excellent idea. It has the potential to solve some of the major problems of providing food for spacefarers as well as the Earthbound.<br /><br />I'm no vegetarian (I seem to have an almost unnatural taste for pig <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />), but I understand why vegetarians choose not to eat meat. The production and preparation of meat is an extremely nasty business. Anything that could eliminate the need for this process is welcomed. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="3" color="#ff9900"><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>------------------------------------------------------------------- </em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong><em>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."</em></strong></font></p><p><font size="1" color="#993300"><strong>Thomas Jefferson</strong></font></p></font> </div>

 

[mikeemmert]

Soylent green? <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />

 

[vogon13]

Soylent bovine, actually.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[tap_sa]

I sense a great SF horror plot. Attack of in vitro flesh mutants!<br />

 

[qso1]

NASA, however, has decided against space burgers -- fish or beef -- for astronauts on long missions.<br /><br />Me:<br />Bad move, how else can they economically feed a crew on a three year round trip to Mars and back in the foreseeable future?<br /><br />Was this issue carefully studied before the decision was made? Does NASA already have their own solution to the food problem of long duration missions...away from Earth? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[fingle]

Re: Bad move, how else can they economically feed a crew on a three year round trip to Mars and back in the foreseeable future?<br /><br /><br />Maybe there is no economic advantage because this method has essentially the same mass requierments as stored food ? <br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[rocketman5000]

sounds like it could cut down on water weight since 70% of meat is typically water weight supposedly. You could recycle the water as needed when the meat is produced.

 

[rocketman5000]

the calf serum sounds like it could be produced. Don't we have bacteria cells that produce amino acids today? Not sure what the growth factors are but they might be able to be produced in the same way. As for salt and sugar we make those today....

 

[chriscdc]

For space travel growing human flesh wouldn't be such a bad idea. You have 'spare' blood and other tissues that would be a match for the passengers. Perhaps they could just GM the taste so that it wouldn't taste like human.<br /><br />The whole bio-engineering and medical science seems to be advancing far faster than the the pro-space community seems to give it credit for. When you think about it, by the time we go to mars in say 20-25 years time will cancers really be such a massive problem. A quick re-write of a few T-cells DNA and you can say goodbye to a host of different deseases. Growing food would probably be seen as a trivial use for the tech available.

 

[mlorrey]

Exactly right, Chris. The planning they are doing now for voyages 15 or more years in the future would be like Apollo era planners expecting Space Shuttle astronauts to calculate reentries with slide rules. The "Vision" for space exploration is looking backward.

 

[tomnackid]

For space travel growing human flesh wouldn't be such a bad idea. You have 'spare' blood and other tissues that would be a match for the passengers. Perhaps they could just GM the taste so that it wouldn't taste like human. <br />---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Hmmmmm, so you can have an "organ bank" of spare parts on board and if nobody gets injured that month throw a big barbecue! I see a science fiction story here!

 

[chriscdc]

It would be rather funny for the crew to do a poll of who tastes the best. Possibly they only allow someone to eat meat grown from their own tissues.<br />To be honest I don't feel particularly queezy about the thought of eating human flesh, but I don't have a particular desire to either. If it kills several problems with one stone then at some point it will probably be used.

 

[mlorrey]

And, given that the flesh was never actually on a person, it would be "humanique" meat, just as the "Diamonique" people buy on QVC was grown, not mined.

 

[j05h]

The problem with growing and eating your own flesh: prion diseases like BSE spring up. It comes from recombining DNA that is to close to your own in digestion. From the article, Mr. Mironov has already been approached by a flesh-eating cult to grow their own for food. You can be rest assured that they have a spacy/newAge philosophy. <br /><br />It's funny how close we are to savagery. Everyone seems to expect "Spacers" to be kind of crazy Out There.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

Actually, that is the advantage of eating your own flesh: you can't get a prion disease you don't already have, since you are only eating your own meat, not other people's. From an epidemiological point of view, this is the safest form of meat.

 

[yevaud]

Country-Western hits from Clavius Habitat, circa 2106 AD:<br /><br />"Git along little Protein Vat, Git along..." <br /><br />"Home, home, in the Lab..."<br /><br />"Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be genetic engineers..." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[j05h]

Correct me if I'm wrong (again), but I thought the prion diseases came out of the digestion of same-species meat. The protiens are recombined and eventually produce some of the dangerous, self-replicating prions. <br /><br />Can BSE and others be generated spontaneously? You indicate no, I've always heard that it is an emergent property of cannibalism. I'll read up a little and post back...<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Prions: malformed protein shapes. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[webtaz99]

Prions could (and probably do) get made spontaneously. However, the immune system can and does <b>slowly</b> destroy prions. Like a virus, the bad prions reproduce, and at some point new ones are being created faster than the immune system can repsond. It's only when the body gets overwhelmed that disease starts. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Yes, which is why the same-species infection is such a transmission vector: it's an easy pathway.<br /><br />Scrapie, BSE, Creuzfeld-Jakob, all the same disease, just dependant on which species it manifests in.<br /><br />And to tell you the truth, I'm not certain that the human immune system does recognize and react to malformed proteins. Have to think about that one. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

All these prion diseases are transmitted from animal to animal, from one animal eathing another diseased animals meat. If it is your own meat you are eating, and you are not diseased already, then you have zero risk of getting a prion disease from yourself unless you are already infected.<br /><br />"Spontaneous Generation"? Gimme a break, that absurd idea went out with the middle ages. If your body is producing "malformed proteins" it is doing so naturally as a consequence of your own DNA genome, and your immune system is grown to recognise your own proteins as natural, because for you personally, they are not 'malformed'.<br /><br />The immune system does react to malformed proteins, as recognition of protein cell receptors is the primary means of immune response.

 

[yevaud]

Not certain if that was aimed at me or the other poster.<br /><br />Not all proteins are recognized by the immune system. As to Prions, there is little or no immune response.<br /><br />Note what they're stating here<br /><br />Further, when there <i>is</i> an immune response, it's because the protein shape of the Prion is so malformed that it <i>does</i> trigger an immune response. This is why the transmission of Prions within a species is such a good transmission pathway - if it's not recognized in the host, it probably wont be in the subject either.<br /><br />In the case of the article in the link above, they even find evidence that the immune system will not only not react to Prions, but actually transport them around the body.<br /><br />And nowhere did I state that there was the "spontaneous creation" of Prions. Prions are misfolded proteins that otherwise would perform perfectly normal work within the human organism. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>