I Smell the Smelly Smell of Something Smelly!

Recently, Ed, one of my fans of the Blog, stated that I should come up with some way to get the froggies into space without a ship.

-.-

Now where’s the story in that? I wanted the problems associated with lifting all that water up not only up from the depths, but breaching the surface, and then higher into the atmosphere, and ultimately out of the gravity well, and into space itself. No space warps, wormholes, or hyperspace for these little froggies!

He did, however, bring up a good point. Since they are aquatic and breath the water they live in, they also would defecate (and urinate) in their breathing supply. Yum-o!

“What’s that smell/taste?” Everyone turned and glared at Ecru-Dandelion. He gave a half-smile.
“Dude. Seriously?”
“Soz.”
“That’s fifteen times in the past half hour. Once more and you’re on permanent EVA duty!”

So no bean burritos here! But that does bring up the problem of producing an air scrubber (water scrubber actually—but you get the idea.). Would they have carbon? Probably not. No fire—no burn substance to filter the water through. Sand? Sort of like the under gravel filters we’ve had in prior aquariums? Yes, I have an aquarium—my wife’s 20 gallon long. Yes, I look over my shoulder at it from time to time as I write this. No, I don’t have any African Dwarf Frogs (aquarium frogs). Just fish. Yes, it is fresh water and the Garums live in salt water, so there will be differences. Salt water . . . what takes nastiness out of salt water? Suspension feeders! But we couldn’t have a bunch of krill floating around, getting in the way. So we’d need a sessile suspension feeder. Barnacles! (Our ship just got crustier…) They would filter out “floaters” that would foul the water. The Garums, of course, would selectively breed a more effective barnacle that weighs less than the original product—and does not breed/spread in such a prolific manner as to take over the whole inside of the ship. They would also probably come up with some substance that if spread in a thin layer where the Garum don’t want the barnacles to grow would inhibit them from attaching in those unwanted places, just to be on the safe side.

But what about urine? That causes lots of problems with ammonia and other toxins in the water. So we’d need a biological filter. You have to be able to cycle the ammonia (NH³ or NH³+4) into nitrites (NO²) and then into nitrates (NO³). We’d need some type of beneficial bacteria to help in this process, but they’d need some place to grow. So we’d need a rocky surface that is porous where they (the bacteria) would be able to live, yet be out of the way. Again, we’re adding more mass to the ship.

And we haven’t even come up with an engine concept yet . . . we’re still just filling out life support. We also have to provide sustenance. Do they have refrigeration? They certainly can’t have dried stores. Or do they carry it live? If so, there’s more mass—plus the mass for the food for their food. And the mass for the food for the food for that food. Eventually we’re going to get to a point where it is a plant that just needs photosynthesis for food. But in the dark of space, where do you get the sunlight for that? Will their synthetic light from their bioluminescence be adequate for their purpose? Will they be capable of creating a power source capable of lifting this massive ship into the stars? Will they invent an aquatic Beano before Ecru-Dandelion gets lynched?