Lessons Learned from Biosphere 2 and Laboratory Biosphere Closed Systems Experiments for the Mars On Earth Project

Abstract

Mars On Earth® (MOE) is a demonstration/research project that will develop systems for maintaining 4 people in a sustainable (bioregenerative) life support system on Mars. The overall design will address not only the functional requirements for maintaining long term human habitation in a sustainable artificial environment, but the aesthetic need for beauty and nutritional/psychological importance of a diversity of foods which has been noticeably lacking in most space settlement designs. Key features selected for the Mars On Earth® life support system build on the experience of operating Biosphere 2 as a closed ecological system facility from 1991-1994, its smaller 400 cubic meter test module and Laboratory Biosphere, a cylindrical steel chamber with horizontal axis 3.68 meters long and 3.65 meters in diameter. Future Mars On Earth® agriculture/atmospheric research will include: determining optimal light levels for growth of a variety of crops, energy trade-offs for agriculture (e.g. light intensity vs. required area), optimal design of soil-based agriculture/horticulture systems, strategies for safe re-use of human waste products, and maintaining atmospheric balance between people, plants and soils.

Water and air consumption aboard interstellar arks

“…It successfully achieved the sprout of cottonseed (and, maybe, of rapeseed and potato seeds, but this has not been confirmed yet) within nine days, before a failure of the temperature system [56]. Larger biosphere experiments, such as Biosphere II, are trying to recreate a viable ecosystem inside a huge closed dome that could very well be representative of a spacecraft [57,5,6,7]. This option is the only realistic one to consistently provide enough breathable gases to multi-generational crews, recycle carbon dioxide and other by-products of life aboard a closed system, and create a pleasant living and working environment for the crew.…”

“…Second, water and food will eventually spoil in time despite the best industrial methods for food preservation and storage [3,4]. These problems are at the centre of contemporary thinking for the human exploration and colonization of Mars [5,6,7,8,9], but also for interstellar journeys to nearby exoplanets [10,11,12,13].…”

Agriculture for Space: People and Places Paving the Way

“…The atmospherically closed structure was nearly 1.2 ha in area and contained human living quarters, multiple ecosystems with a wide range of plants and animals, complex environmental management and control capabilities, including sophisticated pressure damping systems to reduce leakage (Dempster, 2008), and a large agricultural area of approximately 2000 m 2 with 2720 m 3 of soil, which provided about 80 percent of the food for the eight humans living inside the facility for 2 years (Silverstone and Nelson, 1996;Alling et al, 2005). The scale and complexity of Biosphere 2 was larger than what most space agencies might envision for early missions, but their goals of understanding closed ecological systems and bioregenerative approaches for human life support provided insights into the challenges for agricultural and biological approaches for space life support.…”

Integration of lessons from recent research for “Earth to Mars” life support systems

“…However, the soil bed reactor approach was demonstrated to be quite effective at controlling trace gases such as methane, ethylene, ethane, and propane during experiments in the Biosphere 2 Test Module (Hodges and Frye, 1990). During the two years of Biosphere 2's first human Alling et al, 2005). .…”