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Controlled (or closed) ecological life-support systems (acronym CELSS) are a self-supporting life support system for space stations and colonies typically through controlled closed ecological systems, such as the BioHome, BIOS-3, Biosphere 2, Mars Desert Research Station, and Yuegong-1.
CELSS was first pioneered by the Soviet Union during the famed "Space Race" in the 1950s–60s. Originated by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and furthered by V.I. Vernadsky, the first forays into this science were the use of closed, unmanned ecosystems, expanding into the research facility known as the BIOS-3.
Then in 1965, manned experiments began in the BIOS-3.
Human presence in space, thus far, has been limited to our own Earth–Moon system. Also, everything that astronauts would need in the way of life support (air, water, and food) has been brought with them. This may be economical for short missions of spacecraft, but it is not the most viable solution when dealing with the life support systems of a long-term craft (such as a generation ship) or a settlement.
The aim of CELSS is to create a regenerative environment that can support and maintain human life via agricultural means.
In non-CELSS environments, air replenishment and CO2 processing typically consists of stored air tanks and CO2 scrubbers. The drawback to this method lies in the fact that upon depletion the tanks would have to be refilled; the scrubbers would also require replacement after they become ineffective.
There is also the issue of processing toxic fumes, which come from the synthetic materials used in the construction of habitats. Therefore, the issue of how air quality is maintained requires attention; in experiments, it was found that the plants also removed volatile organic compounds offgassed by synthetic materials used thus far to build and maintain all man-made habitats.
In CELSS, air is initially supplied by external supply, but is maintained by the use of foliage plants, which create oxygen in photosynthesis (aided by the waste-byproduct of human respiration, CO2). Eventually, the main goal of a CELSS environment is to have foliage plants take over the complete and total production of oxygen needs; this would make the system a closed, instead of controlled, system.
As with all present forays into space, crews have had to store all consumables they require prior to launch. Typically, hard-food consumables were freeze dried so that the craft's weight could be reduced.
Of course, in a self-sustaining ecosystem, a place for crops to grow would be set aside, allowing foods to be grown and cultivated. The larger the group of people, the more crops would have to be grown.
As for water, experiments have shown that it would be derived from condensate in the air (a byproduct of air conditioning and vapors), as well as excess moisture from plants. It would then have to be filtered by some means, either by nature or by machine.[ citation needed ]
Early space-flight had travelers either ejecting their wastes into space or storing it for a return trip.
CELSS studied means of breaking down human wastes and, if possible, integrating the processed products back into the ecology. For instance, urine was processed into water, which was safe for use in toilets and watering plants.
Wastewater treatment makes use of plants, particularly aquatic, to process the wastewater. It has been shown that the more waste is treated by the aquatic plants (or, more specifically, their root systems), the larger the aquatic plants grow.
In tests, such as those done in the BioHome, the plants also made viable compost as a growth medium for crops.
Closed systems are totally self-reliant, recycling everything indefinitely with no external interaction. The life of such a system is limited, as the entropy of a closed system can only increase with time. But if the otherwise closed system is allowed to accept high-temperature radiant energy from an external source (e.g., sunlight) and to reject low-temperature waste heat to deep space, it can continue indefinitely. An example of such a system is the Earth itself.
Controlled systems, by contrast, depend on certain external interactions such as periodic maintenance. An example of such a system is the ISS.
An ecosystem consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the system through photosynthesis and is incorporated into plant tissue. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. By breaking down dead organic matter, decomposers release carbon back to the atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form that can be readily used by plants and microbes.
Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the universe. It is a 3.14-acre (1.27-hectare) structure originally built to be an artificial, materially closed ecological system, or vivarium. It remains the largest closed ecological system ever created.
This glossary of ecology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts in ecology and related fields. For more specific definitions from other glossaries related to ecology, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of evolutionary biology, and Glossary of environmental science.
A life-support system is the combination of equipment that allows survival in an environment or situation that would not support that life in its absence. It is generally applied to systems supporting human life in situations where the outside environment is hostile, such as outer space or underwater, or medical situations where the health of the person is compromised to the extent that the risk of death would be high without the function of the equipment.
Closed ecological systems (CES) are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.
BIOS-3 is an experimental closed ecosystem at the Institute of Biophysics in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in the air or mist environment without soil or an aggregate medium. The word "aeroponic" is derived from the Greek meanings of aer ("air") and ponos ("labour"). It is a subset of hydroponics, since water is used in aeroponics to transmit nutrients.
BioHome was a small facility created by NASA in the late 1980s that could support one person in a fully functional habitat. One of the influences on the project was the results from data obtained on the 1973 Skylab 3 (SL-3), where a total of 107 VOCs were offgassed by synthetic materials that composed the SL-3. However, the study of indoor air quality was not the only focus of the project, as it was a part of research into closed ecological life support systems.
Tyler Volk is a professor in the departments of environmental studies and biology at New York University.
The Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) is a European Space Agency (ESA) initiative with the aim to develop the technology for a future regenerative life support system for long-term human space missions. Initiated in 1989, the design is inspired by a terrestrial ecosystem. As of 2023, MELiSSA is a consortium made up of 30 organisations across Europe.
This is a glossary of environmental science.
A nutrient cycle is the movement and exchange of inorganic and organic matter back into the production of matter. Energy flow is a unidirectional and noncyclic pathway, whereas the movement of mineral nutrients is cyclic. Mineral cycles include the carbon cycle, sulfur cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle, phosphorus cycle, oxygen cycle, among others that continually recycle along with other mineral nutrients into productive ecological nutrition.
Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) are artificial ecosystems consisting of many complex symbiotic relationships among higher plants, animals, and microorganisms. As the most advanced life support technology, BLSS can provide a habitation environment similar to Earth's biosphere for space missions with extended durations, in deep space, and with multiple crews. These systems consist of artificial ecosystems into which plants and microorganisms that allow oxygen production, carbon dioxide fixation of carbon, water purification, waste recycling, and production of foods. In these systems, photosynthetic organisms would be used as plants and algae that provide biomass for food and oxygen, as well as microorganisms that degrade and recycle waste compounds generated by human activity, as well as unused plant debris in food.
Mark Nelson is an American ecologist and author based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His research focuses on closed ecological system research, ecological engineering, restoration of damaged ecosystems, and wastewater recycling. The founding director of the Institute of Ecotechnics in 1973, Nelson was one of the eight original crew members of Biosphere 2 in 1991 and served as the Director of Earth and Space Applications for the project until 1994.
Lunar Palace 1, Moon Palace 1 or Yuegong-1 is a Chinese research facility for developing a moon base. It is an environmentally closed facility where occupants can simulate a long-duration self-contained mission with no outside inputs other than power/energy.
The Biotron is a research facility located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that "provides controlled environments and climate-controlled greenhouses to support plant, animal, and materials research for university, non-profit, and commercial clients."
The Algatron was a proposed and prototyped waste filtration and recycling system to be implemented on NASA missions. Designed and built by a pair of sanitary engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, William J. Oswald and Clarence Golueke, the Algatron relied on algae to provide carbon Dioxide absorption and oxygen generation as well as "microbiological waste conversion" for "humans sealed within an isolated capsule.". A working model was built by Oswald and Golueke in 1965 or 1966 under a contract by from the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories. Composed of two stacked cylinders lined with Algae, the cylinders would spin in opposite directions. With ports to allow sunlight in, nutrients were introduced via some overflow mechanism. Despite the promise that the Algatron represented, and the ways in which Oswald and Golueke "understood that the closed environment of the space capsule was itself just the a microcosm of the closed system of the earth's biosphere," the technology would never get past the prototype stage. NASA instead decided to go with fecal bags to deal with waste. The Russians developed a similar system, the BIOS-3, which got as far enough as a successful test run with human occupants in 1965.
The Institute of Ecotechnics is an educational, training and research charity with a special interest in ecotechnology, the environment, conservation, and heritage. With its U.K. headquarters in London, England and its U.S. affiliate in Santa Fe, NM, the institute was founded to "develop and practice the discipline of ecotechnics: the ecology of technics, and the technics of ecology."
The Biotron Institute for Experimental Climate Change Research at Western University in London, Ontario is a facility constructed to simulate ecosystems and funded by the Canadian government to study how plants, microbes and insects sense and adjust to climate change. Its biome chambers allow control of temperature, humidity and sunlight so that scientists can simulate climatic zones from rainforests to Arctic tundra. This enables the study environmental science, biotech, materials and biomaterials in realistic environmental conditions while still in a controlled laboratory setting. The Biotron also trains students, including one of Western's winners of The Undergraduate Awards' Global Award.
Josef Isaevich Gitelson ; was a Soviet and Russian biophysicist. PhD in biology (1955), DrSc in medicine (1961), Professor, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1991); Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1979), Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1990). Director of Institute of Biophysics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1984-1996). Academic Advisor at this Institute since 1996. Scientific supervisor of Institute of Fundamental Biology and Biotechnology Siberian Federal University. Member of International Academy of Astronautics. Honorary Citizen of Krasnoyarsk Krai since Sept 20, 2013 and the city of Krasnoyarsk. In 2018, JI Gitelson was awarded the highest award of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lomonosov Gold Medal for the justification and development of the ecological direction of biophysics, which has achieved a number of outstanding fundamental and practical results, in particular, in marine and laboratory studies of bioluminescence.
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