Vegans in Space (NASA)

Rose Y.Colón (finedininglovers.com, July 24, 2012); Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Worlds in space/sky (Sanskrit, akasha) are best visited by vegans (wallpapervortex.com). Below Mars image from Shutterstock engineers at NASA’s Synthetic Biology Initiative using life to create building blocks of life instead of shipping them (via inhabitat.com).

Mars is really more hospitable than trip there

We have Buddhists in space, Buddhists from space, Buddhists sending messages from space, so why not smart, compassionate, green (environmentally-conscious) vegans? 
 
The next time NASA sends astronauts to Mars in the 2030s, they will not be eating synthetic capsules, freeze-dried food, or liquid meals. That's so last millenium.
  
On their mission to Mars, NASA astronauts will eat 100% vegan meals complete with fresh fruits and vegetables grown on the spaceship.

  

How is this possible? [A better question is, Why? Could it be that even mainstream scientists know full well that a vegan diet is the healthiest for humans particularly those under the strains and stresses of space travel, while the fiction is maintained that here on Earth we need junk food and flesh?]

It is all thanks to the research being done by NASA's Advanced Food Technology (AFT) project. 

V is for Vegan tees (OnOurSleeve.com)

Since Mars has some gravity, the AFT researchers believe astronauts will be able to chop and cook vegetables and even grow their own plants with hydroponics using recycled water.

 

The six to eight astronauts who will participate in the Mars mission will require enough food for three years. Mars is so far away that NASA will not be able to send food every six months like they do for the International Space Station. Neither will they be able to preserve meat or dairy for such a long period, according to senior research scientist Maya Cooper. 

 

That is why Cooper and her team have come up with a menu of 100 vegan recipes. According to this video, NASA is still working to ensure the astronauts have healthy and varied meals.It is not clear how talented a chef will be onboard to prepare these recipes, but if this animated 3D short film is any indication, the astronauts are in for years of treats. AP/FDL VIDEO

(GoVeg.com)

 
Inhabitat:

• NASA harnessing the power of microbes to create building bricks on Mars
• How "soft infrastructure," like wetlands and green roofs, could save NYC
• Our World: giant pixelated LEGO map built from 1 million bricks!
• London’s Earth creature is super adobe dome by city’s smallest architects
• INTERVIEW: Architecture for Humanity’s Co-Founder Kate Stohr 
• "World’s Most Sustainable Gas Station" in the Netherlands
• UK scientists developing autonomous flying honey bee robots!

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Getting fat for Kill Turkey Day

Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times (Nov. 20, 2012); CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Face it, or don't eat it. Or there's kind Tofurky. By eating it one is complicit it its torture and gruesome murder. Americans will buy 581 million pounds of turkey flesh for Thanksgiving this year but will trash more than a third of it (keepitsimplesurvival).

 

American tradition means eating dinner at lunch set up to look like a big family supper near Plymouth Rock, which means inviting the neighborhood Native American family to sit at one end. In the center is a big dead bird. This is sad enough, but it gets sadder:

A third of all Thanksgiving turkey meat won't be eaten.

SAD: Standard American Diet

Americans will buy 581 million pounds of the fowl, but 204 million pounds will end up in the trash can, the Natural Resources Defense Council reports.

Some 204 million pounds of meat will end up in the garbage after the holiday feast, according to an NRDC blog post.

The waste is especially appalling given that the resources required -- including feed, water and transportation -- to produce each pound of turkey are equivalent to fuel enough to drive a car 11 miles and take a 130-minute shower.

Natives never wasted any part of an animal.

Overall, that equates to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 800,000 car trips from New York to San Francisco and enough water to supply New York City for more than 100 days.

Over the full year, Americans chuck out $165 billion in uneaten food, according to the NRDC.

And turkey prices are not getting any cheaper. They are up 7% from a year ago, pushed by the severe summer drought... More

(EcoVeganGal) Glimpse of the 2009 Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck in LA.

• GoVeg.com
• Pledge to be Vegan for 30 Days
• 15 Vegetarian Thanksgiving Events
• Cruelty Free: VeganLosAngeles.com 
• The Importance of Compassion in Buddhism

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What about our water? (documentary)

ParticipantMedia.com; Movieclips Trailers

"Last Call at the Oasis" (official trailer) - the water documentary movie (2012)

Funny man Jack Black  investigates. Firmly establishing the urgency of the global water crisis as the central issue facing our world this century, a fascinating documentary illuminates the vital role water plays in our lives. It also exposes the defects in the current system and shows communities already struggling with its ill-effects. Featuring activist Erin Brockovich, respected water experts including Peter Gleick, Jay Famiglietti, and Robert Glennon, as well as social entrepreneurs championing revolutionary solutions, the film posits that we can manage this problem if we are willing to act NOW.

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Coastal Cleanup Days 2012

ArroyoSeco.org; HealTheBay.org; Wisdom Quarterly

It is often asked in inter-religious circles, "Why does Los Angeles have such thick smog?" Answer: "So god can't see what they're doing down there."

 

But Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012 is another in Heal the Bay's  ongoing efforts to clean up the nation's largest megalopolis.

  

Help save the planet one area at a time. This cleanup centers on the arroyo seco ("dry river bed") where the San Gabriel River feeds the Santa Monica Bay. Sign up online at HEALTHEBAY.ORG/CCD.

• For more info: info@arroyoseco.org or see CCD2012

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Cleaning the Ganges (audio)

TheStory.org (American Public Media); Wisdom Quarterly

Sacred but somehow polluted Ganges of India in the holy city of Varanasi (thestory.org)

 

Ganges river map (web.bryant.edu)

(APM) The Ganges River -- a 1,500-mile river that flows down from the Himalayas through Northern India -- is a place where people bathe, wash clothes, pray, and inter fortunate dead. It is also where waste lines pour out sewage every day making the sacred river very polluted. The Story producer Phoebe Judge travels to the holy Buddhist city of Varanasi (since the Buddha began his mission by delivering the first sermon in the scenic Deer Park of the suburb of Sarnath), where she meets people who live along the Ganges River and want to clean it up. PHOTOS

• LISTEN NOW

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Permaculture solutions: Biodiversity

BeeKeeper Davey, TheGrowingHome.net

Suggestions on mulching remind me that a longer-term solution is to encourage biodiversity.
  
The wider the range of all kinds of insects one has living and dying in a garden or farm, the more likely there will be a dynamic balance of beneficials and non-beneficials.

Plant insect varieties choose edibles and ornamentals. Let some of the edibles go to seed. And plant trap crops, such as milkweed for aphids. Johanna Campos of the Armory Art Center's  demonstration garden knows about this kind of approach. We went through The Huntington's Urban Ecosystem Agriculture course together.

   

Classmates and I have begun writing about it at Urban-Ecosystem-Agriculture, Leonardo's site LiveEarthSystems.com, and Kathleen wrote about it at Pathway to the Garden.

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