Chikens and rabbits and goats, oh my!

On Jul 2, 2005, at 9:46 PM, Richard wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Alan Patrick"
> wrote:
> I grew up on a working farm. Cleaning the cattle manure out of the
> barn wasn't that nasty a task. Your nose seems to get numb.
>
> The chicken coop was difficult. I'd fork chicken manure for about ten
> minutes. Then I'd have to step outside. My eyes would be watering so
> much that I could't see.

One of the best pieces of work towards space colonization that can be
done right now, on Earth, with relatively little money may be
high-yield semi-closed agriculture, including animals. You can learn a
lot actually doing something .... The Mars Society has their base in
Canada, which is a great piece of work. Perhaps we should have a
semi-closed farm ala Biosphere II (although complete closure isn't
necessary right now).

>
The first space tourism business is already profitable! Burt Rutan
spent about $40 million of Paul Allen's money to build SpaceShip One.
This vehicle was piloted into space three times in 2004. The third
flight won the $10 million dollar Ansari X-Prize, writing 'Virgin' on
the vehicle's tail pulled in some more cash, and the flights lead to a
$120 million contract with Virgin Galactic to build the first true
sub-orbital tourist vehicle.

Al Globus
Evolvable Systems Group (http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/projects/esg)
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.