Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION down in the body to sugars. If the sole purpose of food was to provide energy then just over one and a half pounds of sugar a day would meet all the requirements of 2,750 calories. But man cannot live by sugar alone. Alongside the energy-giving carbohydrates he needs proteins, vitamins, water and traces of elements such as calcium, phosphorus, iodine and iron. Each spaceman will need about three ounces of protein, _ such as meat or yeast, a day, together with .0008 grammes of calcium, .012 grammes of iron and .0001 grammes of iodine. All these must be in forms easily absorbed by the body. His major vitamin needs will be covered by 5,000 International Units of vitamin Aand carotene, .0011 grammes of thiamin, .011 grammes of niacin, .0016 grammes of riboflavin and .020 grammes of vitamin C. These can easily be carried in pill form and will take up only one or two pounds of mass. Trace elements and vitamins are, in the long run, just as essential as carbohydrates and proteins. : Making allowances for the ] iotein and a small amount of 36 water in food, the total amount of food required by each spaceman works out at two pounds a day. This is the same figure used in calculating the weight of food needed by polar explorers. So, a two-man, 500-day journey to Mars and back will require a larder stocked with two thousand pounds of food. What types of food will be carried ? Obviously tinned and bottled foods have a great deal of waste mass in their packing and water content. Dry foods, such as wheat flour, dried meat and dried yeast will be most suitable. Flour, whilst being com- posed of 48 per cent. carbo- hydrates, contains 9.5 percent. protein, 2 per cent. of trace elements and sufficient vita- mins to be almost a complete food on its own. Dried meat and yeast have very high protein contents, whilst yeast is particularly rich in trace elements and vitamins. But there is an alternative to carrying all the food along. Last month we considered the use of the green alga, Chlorella, as a means of purifying the air, removing carbon dioxide and replacing it with oxygen. If we can use the Chlorella plants as food, comiclooolks.com