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Possible Applications of Photoautotrophic Biotechnologies at Lunar SettlementsThe most ambitious goal of the Vision of Space Exploration is to extend human presence across the solar system. Today, however, missions would have to bring all of the propellant, air, food, water, habitable volumes and shielding needed to sustain settlers beyond Earth. That is why resources for propellants, life support and construction of support systems and habitats must be found in space and utilized if humans hope to ever explore and colonize the solar system. The life support, fuel production and material processing systems currently proposed for spaceflight are essentially disconnected. Only traditional crop production has been proposed as a segment for bioregenerative life support systems, although the efficiency of higher plants for air regeneration is generally low. Thus, the investigation of air bioregeneration techniques based on the activity of photosynthetic organisms with higher rates of CO2 scrubbing and O2 release is very timely and important. Future systems for organic waste utilization in space may also benefit from the use of specific microorganisms. This janitorial job is efficiently carried out by microbes on Earth, which drive and connect different elemental cycles. It is likely that environmental control and life support systems based on bioregeneration will be capable of converting both organic and inorganic components of the waste at lunar settlements into edible biomass. The most challenging technologies for future lunar settlements are the extraction of elements (e.g. Fe, O, Si, etc) from local rocks for industrial feedstocks and the production of propellants. While such extraction can be accomplished by purely inorganic processes, the high energy requirements of such processes motivates the search for alternative technologies with lower energy requirements and appropriate efficiency. Well-developed terrestrial industrial biotechnologies for metals extraction and conversion could therefore be the prototypes for extraterrestrial biometallurgy.
Document ID
20070006843
Acquisition Source
Johnson Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
McKay, David S.
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Allen, Carl
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Jones, J. A.
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Bayless, D.
(Ohio Univ. OH, United States)
Brown, I.
(Ohio Univ. OH, United States)
Sarkisova, S.
(Ohio Univ. OH, United States)
Garrison, D.
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2007
Subject Category
Man/System Technology And Life Support
Meeting Information
Meeting: Rutgers SYmposium on Lunar Settlements
Location: Rutgers, NJ
Country: United States
Start Date: June 5, 2007
End Date: June 7, 2007
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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