Would a PETA-Sponsored Vegan Mars Colony Be Viable?

Long term space travelers will very likely have to be vegan anyway, due to the realities of biomass conversion. You waste nutritive mass, water, energy and oxygen by cycling chemical energy (started when plants photosynthesize) through a middleman (namely, animals). NASA has long known that plant foods make a lot more sense. And unlike animals, plants don't consume oxygen; and furthermore growing and killing crops to feed to animals wastes valuable space and all the above mentioned resources.

One might someday be able to come up with a space-based system to grow animals for food, but it would be inherently inefficient. And by the time such a Rube Goldberg method is hatched, lab vat-meat is far more likely to have taken over current meat-production systems. The latter would be cheaper, more efficient, save on space, and be more ethical.

Whether or not Mars contains life will probably remain an open question for a few more centuries. Given that, why is Mark Whittington so ready to start terraforming? Even discovery of the simplest of microbes would be a revolution and a revelation. One of the greatest advocates for exploring Mars said this:

"If there is life, then I believe we should do nothing to disturb that life.
Mars then, belongs to the Martians, even if they are microbes."

-Carl Sagan, COSMOS, episode "Blues for a Red Planet"

Mark Whittington reveals his own biases by twice using the word "zealots". That word is reserved as an invective for anyone you disagree with and has little other value. And for that matter, religion has nothing to do with it- a more historically accurate comparison might be to the abolitionists who opposed slavery, or those partisans who moved to select US states in the hopes of swaying the state to pro-slavery or anti-slavery legislatures.

As a human spaceflight aerospace engineer, SaganGathering is spot on. Animals are messy, and astronauts' immune systems are compromised. PETA is not being crazy here, just stating insider fact.

there is only one problem all food is animal based in one form or another, without animals involvement food cannot grow very well, manure is one the best methods of getting fertilizer plus it makes the best soil after worms has had their way with it, and animal waste is a good source of methane gas, human waste is fine but not as goods as having animal plus the meat is a fantastic source of minerals, we have canines and cutter teeth for a reason, and as soon as we can have a stable and efficient macro-biosphere going we can seriously look at terraform the surface of mars but we are going to need a stable food supply, and this is going to happen by integrating traditional farming techniques with state of the art technology and using as much and as many hand tools and manually operated tools as much as possible, so the diets will have have to contain a combination of plant and meat foods, PETA is a bunch of morons

Not all vegans support PETA or their crazy ideas. I am a vegan and definitely don't support PETA. So please don't equate all vegans with PETA.

Recreating what was in that great sci-fi book, "The Merchants of War", sequel to "The Space Merchants"

PETA is incompatible with democracy, but WILDLY popular with Democrats

what is the difference between animal DNA cells and plant DNA and cells.

If something is alive, its alive. Until Peta finds a way to survive living on sand and rocks, they are nothing but obnoxious hypocrites.

Vegans don't exist in reality. They choose to be Vegans because of the abundance of food. Funny how animals such as humans invented aversions to foods. Not because they are trying to survive but because the vanity of a successful society allows them to choose that way of life. Until they are forced with the real decision of eating to live, they keep this illusion that they have about meat and other animal products.

We should send ALL vegans to Mars and watch how fast they eat each other.

I think this would be a great idea...let's put them all on Mars.

No.

any people that Peta sends to mars will end up eating each other for food.

yes, let them leave earth to People Eating Tastey Animals!

@ spike. u must be an an ignorant FOX news watcher. this sounds like something beck or your beloved papa bear o`riely would say. we all know how "fair and balenced" they are... get a little more educated before u dis a certain party. EVERYBODY thinks PETA are a bunch of ret@rd psychopaths. besides theyre are listed by the f.b.i. as a domestic terrorist organization.

The idea is very interesting
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