A grow-chamber garden has a real FIXED total tray area (60 m², same MELiSSA/BLSS-style budget as the 3D version). Five crops each have a real distinct growth rate, nutritional yield density and crew cultural-preference weight:
Crop r (growth/day) yield (kcal/m²/day) preference culturally important
Wheat 0.15 678 8 yes
Soy 0.12 280 6 yes
Leafy greens 0.25 52.5 7 yes
Sweet potato 0.20 387 5 yes
Insect protein 0.35 726 3 no
Every crop's biomass follows independent logistic growth toward its own area-scaled carrying capacity: in fractional terms dGF/dt = r·GF·(1−GF), so each crop's fill-fraction climbs on its own S-curve regardless of the area it was given — reallocating area doesn't reset progress, it only rescales the crop's final output.
area_i = weight_i / Σ weight × 60 m² (always sums to 60 m²)
nutrition(t) = Σ area_i × yield_i × GF_i(t)
cultural(t) = Σ area_i × preference_i × 0.7^zeros
zeros = count of culturally-important crops with area_i ≈ 0
- Nutrition vs. cultural satisfaction is a real tradeoff under the fixed budget: giving all 60 m² to insect protein (the highest kcal/m² crop) maximizes total nutrition but tanks cultural satisfaction, because four culturally-important staples drop to zero area and trigger the compounding 0.7× penalty per omitted staple.
- An even 12 m²-each split maximizes cultural satisfaction among the allocations sampled below (no staple is zeroed, so no penalty applies) while nutrition sits well below the insect-monoculture ceiling — the same tradeoff the 3D version's crew-coverage/equity split exposes, computed here as an explicit dual objective.
- Pareto chart — each grey dot is one of 400 randomly sampled fixed-budget allocations evaluated at full growth (GF=1); the blue dot is your current live allocation (partial growth included); the gold/green dots mark the nutrition-maximizing monoculture and the cultural-maximizing even split respectively.
Real-world relevance: NASA/ESA long-duration mission studies flag food acceptability and cultural/religious dietary compatibility as a genuine risk to crew nutrition and morale — an allocation that is efficient on paper (maximum calories per square meter) can still be the wrong choice for crew wellbeing if it erases every crop a multicultural crew actually values.