Aquaculture, or fish farming in a narrower sense - one of the oldest types of agriculture. But in relation to the development of space, it is rarely remembered, although the prospects for the development of this technology in extraterrestrial conditions are very rainbow. At a minimum on the efficiency of production of edible mass of fish, any other types of farm animals overtake, and only chickens can be compared with them. If you do not take into account the content of the necessary trace elements, amino acids, fatty acids and vitamins in meat, because in this case the birds lose.
Naturally, the breeding of fish will require the creation of new technologies and various tricks to provide animals with a suitable environment - as much as they need a lot of water. But no one offers the aquariums into space. The project of the European Space Agency LUNAR HATCH implies delivery to the moon of fertilized caviar. The cosmonauts will be hatched in water, which will receive lunar colonists from local ice. The issue of feed is not yet covered, but theoretically nothing bothers to grow it in the greenhouses - the benefit of them will be needed less than for people.
To make sure that the plan works, first need to be installed, will the caviar will be worn into space. To do this, used eggs of an ordinary silver hill (Argyrosomus Regius) and ordinary legrarax (Dicentrarchus Labrax). Since mankind learned to transport I caviar for a long time, it was necessary to check only the factor that the launch of the rocket would be different for hermetic and heat-insulated cargo - vibration. Samples of fish eggs in special mennisses subjected to the same test as the equipment for satellites.
The results published in the peer-reviewed magazine are impressive. A little more than three quarters of the vibration of the caviar of the lavarra (76%) were divided by fry, whereas in the control group the result was slightly higher - 82%. But the neck is as if, on the contrary, it reacted positively to vibration: 95% of eggs became 95% of eggs, and in the control group only 92%. What is curious, at the vibrationande, they first used the launch of the Soyuz spacecraft, and then the experimenters decided to make sure that the caviar would withstand the maximum possible loads.
The LUNAR HATCH project has been developing for several years, his main popularizer is a specialist in the Aquaculture Sirill Przybyla (Cyrille Przybyla) from the French Research Institute for Exploitation of The Sea). In 2019, according to the article on the official website of this organization, the first experiments on the cultivation of fish in space were planned to spend already in 2021. Judging by the fact that there are no loud announcements yet, or the study is carried out without a pump, or its deadlines moved somewhat due to a pandemic.
Source: Naked Science