this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
593 points (98.2% liked)

Science Memes

17917 readers
2217 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

1kg of oxygen is a good estimate, humand need 0.5-1kg per day.

Astronaut calorie budges is a bit higher than average, as would be for labouring humans. About 3000kcal, or 12 MJ.

I think more important than the raw energy and oxygen is sourcing the water, cleaning the water, producing the energy to electrolyse and heat, and maintaining the equipment necessary to do so. And that's assuming all food is shipped in.

I think more important than the raw energy and oxygen is sourcing the water

yeah i actually believe that too. i calculated somewhere that it takes around 10 kWh per kg of water extracted from the soil, assuming you follow this process and assuming a 30% water content in the regolith.

So yes, total energy consumption is a bit higher, but it's only a rough estimate to give you an idea of the order of magnitude that we're talking about.

Also i wrote about food production here.