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Environmental Sciences
Seminar Abstract
Living on Mars: Enclosed space habitats serve as a powerful metaphor for Earth systems on many levels. Both are relatively closed systems, with a wide array of very complex systems that must work in unison to support life. A major difference is that space habitats are human-engineered in accordance with highly-defined and mission-specific requirements, with safety and cost as major system design drivers. In contrast to the inherently regenerative systems of Earth, it has historically been cheaper and safer to utilize consumable supplies (e.g., food, water, oxygen) for spaceflight because missions have been of relatively short duration, and/or have had frequent re-supply opportunities.
Very recently, long-duration missions to the moon and Mars have been slated. Supplying these missions solely with consumable resources would be extraordinarily costly, and in the case of Mars, essentially impossible. New regenerative technologies are therefore being developed to recover resources so as to decrease mission cost and increase self-sustainability. Creating these sophisticated systems requires a thorough examination of details that are rarely considered in terrestrial systems, and may aid in the identification of current and future air, water and waste management needs on Earth.
This presentation will broadly review NASA’s Advanced Life Support Program’s efforts in these areas, examining physico-chemical and biological regenerative systems and their integration challenges. This will include a brief overview of the air biofiltration and composting studies we have been conducting here at Rutgers as part of the previous NASA New Jersey Specialized Center for Research and Training (NJ-NSCORT), along with commentary regarding the importance of establishing effective requirements and the application of “closed-system thinking” to Earth needs.
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