Nov 29, 17 / Sag 25, 01 07:45 UTC

Thoughts on designing a closed ecological life support system  

As far as I know, we (as in humanity) have yet to create a closed ecological life support system which only uses either sunlight or electricity as an input and waste heat as an output to sustainably fully support the healthy survival of a human being. I believe that it is a necessary step if we want to colonize space. Its creation will also help guarantee humanity's survival on planet earth. Here are some of my thoughts and research so far. 

( yes I have also looked at Biosphere 2,  BIOS-3, they each had their issues and used outside resources or a non-renewable resource ( for example in BIOS3 dried meat was imported into the facility or used up stored reserves of food for the duration of an experiment ) )

So based on information from Wikipedia, I have the following.

Regarding supplying sufficient resources for human existence.

Per person, we use: 0.84 kg of oxygen, 0.62 kg of food, and 3.52 kg of water consumed, converted through the body's physiological processes to 0.11 kg of solid wastes, 3.87 kg of liquid wastes, and 1.00 kg of carbon dioxide produced

If we use spirulina as a method of converting CO2 to O2, we produce a food source as well as reducing CO2 buildup. We can also use other algae as well such as chlorella 

As for food source, we can use the open source recipe of Soylent as a starting point. We will need to figure out which plants will need to be grown and can be processed to produce all the nutrients we need for survival. 

Here is a breakdown of the current recipe and where we may source the ingredients ( better solutions are most likely available, this is just a quick first pass)

Grain(Rapeseed: canola)

Algae /spirulina?

Soybeans

 sugarcane/honey (Isomaltulose )

Maltodextrin can be enzymatically derived from any starch* 

Isomaltooligosaccharide (also derived from starch*)

vitamin/mineral premix. ( closed cycle  chemical extraction *)

Modified food starch ( derived from starch)

Potassium Chloride ( closed cycle  chemical extraction *)

Xanthan gum is produced by the fermentation of glucose, sucrose, or lactose.

Dipotassium Phosphate ( closed cycle  chemical extraction* )

Salt( closed cycle  chemical extraction* )

Sucralose is manufactured by the selective chlorination of sucrose in a multistep synthesis*

(* I do not know the requirements for the chemistry to perform these processes or how hard/easy they may be.)


Source information:

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[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_support_system#Human_physiological_and_metabolic_needs]

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 Ari Maayan, Scientist/engineer (1973-present)Answered Mar 15

The standard that is used for Spirulina is 1.8 kg per kg. That is both for oxygen and CO2. One kg of Spirulina will create 1.8 kg of oxygen and will sequester 1.8 kg of CO2. Actually that number in both instances can be between 1.6 and 2.0. So as a rule of thumb 1.8 is used until you get a direct measurement in your given circumstance.

https://www.quora.com/How-much-oxygen-is-produced-or-CO2-sequestered-by-spirulina-per-unit-of-biomass-produced

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Recipe for Soylent

https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000179683-1-7-Formula-

  Last edited by:  Oliver Seet (Asgardian)  on Nov 29, 17 / Sag 25, 01 09:43 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time
Reason: updated formatting

Nov 29, 17 / Sag 25, 01 09:45 UTC

Sorry for double posting. However, I have a question to put forward to my fellow Asgardians. Should we try to build our own version of the BIOS-3 research lab?